Osborne Stable Block — described his five years at Osborne as horrendous. The case of George Archer-Shee from 1908, who was expelled from Osborne after being falsely accused of stealing a 5-shilling postal order, inspired the play "The Winslow Boy". In 1927 the Red Cross voluntary aid detachment nurses from all over the United Kingdom were allowed to use the old naval college buildings for their summer training camp. In 1934 the camps stopped as the former naval college dormitory blocks were being demolished. In 1942 the Stable Block was commandeered by the Government for the war effort to provide a Head Office
The Winslow Boy 1948 film introduces scenes from these events that are not in the play. Rattigan also moved the events closer to the start of World War I, though the conflict is remote from the characters. In fact, both George and Martin Archer-Shee fought in the First World War; Martin commanded an infantry battalion, and George was killed, at the age of 19, at the First Battle of Ypres. His name is inscribed on the war memorial in the village of Woodchester, Gloucestershire, where his parents lived; on the memorial plaque outside the Catholic St Mary on the Quay church in Bristol