Elisabeth De Saedeleer

Place of birth: Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium

Service: Textile artist, painter

Death: 1972, Belgium, Cause not known

Notes: Elisabeth, born 1902, was the second of five daughters of the Belgian artist Valerius de Saedeleer. He was among a group of artists encouraged by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies [qv] to come to Wales as refugees in 1914. The family settled in Aberystwyth, with strong ties to University College, Aberystwyth. Elisabeth and her older sister Marie became interested in weaving and tapestries (encouraged by a meeting with William Morris’s daughter May); both taught in the newly formed Arts and Crafts department of the college, together with their father. On her return to Belgium in 1921 Elisabeth became noted as a designer and weaver of textiles and tapestries. She set up a workshop, besides writing several books on the craft and undertaking many public commissions.

Sources: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1177&context=tsaconf\r\nhttps://www.aber.ac.uk/en/media/departmental/informationservices/pdf/specialcollections/the-davies-family-and-belgian-refugee-artists-and-musicians-in-wales.pdf\r\nArt in Exile: Flanders, Wales and the First World War. 2002\r\n

Reference: WaW0331

Elisabeth De Saedeleer

Elisabeth De Saedeleer at her loom. Early 1920s.

Newspaper report

Report of an exhibition fundraising for a students’ union building, a memorial to the war dead of University College, Aberystwyth. Cambrian News 25th April 1919

Carpet

Carpet woven by Elisabeth to a design by Edgard Tytgat, c 1925.

Margaret Sidney Davies

Place of birth: Llandinam

Service: Collector, philanthropist, canteen worker, French Red Cross, 1917 - 1919

Death: 1963, Cause not known

Notes: Margaret, born 1884, was the younger sister of Gwendoline [qv] and granddaughter of David Davies the coal owner and builder of Barry Docks. She, her sister and her brother David each received one third of his vast fortune on the death of their father in 1898. All three were strict Calvinistic Methodists, with a strong philanthropic streak. The two sisters began to travel widely, and to study art in Europe. Margaret also studied drawing and printmaking. In their early twenties they were beginning to form the collection that is now at the National Museum Wales. In March 1913 the collection was exhibited, anonymously, in Cardiff; the sisters covering all of the cost. There were 26000 visitors. At the outbreak of war the sisters promoted a scheme to invite Belgian artists and musicians to come to Wales, and settle in Aberystwyth and Llanidloes. In 1917 Margaret joined Gwendoline at the Cantine des Dames Anglais, now sited at Troyes railway station. In her diary she wrote that the chief blessings in a canteen were ‘a tap of water and a gramophone. The former makes life bearable for us and the latter makes life bearable to the poilu’ (private soldier). For a while she and Gwendoline were moved to an American canteen nearer the front; there they experienced air raids and two of their colleagues were killed by bombs. In the winter of 1918-1919 she worked for three months in a canteen in Rouen organised by the Scottish Churches before returning to Wales. Later Margaret helped set up the centre for the arts at Gregynog. She continued to collect paintings, usually by modern British artists, until the late 1950s. Her collection, like her sister’s, was bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales.

Sources: Oliver Fairclough [ed] Things of Beauty: What two sisters did for Wales. National Museum Wales 2007. Trevor Fishlock A Gift of Sunlight. Gomer 2014\r\nhttps://museum.wales/articles/2007-07-29/The-Davies-Sisters-during-the-First-World-War/

Reference: WaW0334

Cantine des Dames Anglaises

Margaret Davies is the figure on the right, at the back of the Cantine des Dames Anglaises.

Plas Dinam

Woodcut of Plas Dinam by Margaret Davies, 1920s.

Marjorie Wagstaff

Place of birth: Newport ?

Service: ‘Shaving lady’, VAD ?

Notes: Marjorie Wagstaff was a volunteer from Newport who would go in to the Newport Section of the 3rd Western General Military Hospital twice a week to shave the patients. By the end of the war she had performed over 2,000 shaves. Her picture featured in the Daily Mirror as well as the South Wales Argus.

Reference: WaW0336

Marjorie Wagstaff

Marjorie Wagstaff, pictured in the South Wales Argus. Thanks to Peter Strong.

Dilys Herbert

Place of birth: Ammanford

Service: Volunteer, ambulance driver, Womens Legion

Notes: Dilys was one of the members of the Women’s Legion of Motor Drivers to be inspected by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in March 1918. She had been involved in voluntary work throughout the war, including being an enumerator in the National Registration ‘of all persons between the ages of 15 and 65’ in August 1915.

Reference: WaW0340

Newspaper report

Report of Womens Legion reception at Buckingham Palace.Cambria Daily Leader 21st March 1918

Newspaper report

Article naming Dilys Herbert as a volunteer enumerator. Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder 7th August 1915rn

Mary Ellen Small

Place of birth: Abercreg[g]an

Service: Waitress, Womens Legion

Notes: Mary Ellen Small gave birth to a baby boy in April 1918. The father William Speake, who denied paternity, was a corporal in the Welsh Regiment, and formerly a collier from Trealaw. They met while he was training at Kinmel Camp at Boddelwyddan, where she worked as a waitress. He was ordered to pay 5 shillings a week until the boy was 14.

Reference: WaW0341

Newspaper report

Report of the case of Small v Speake. Cambria Daily Leader 25th June 1918rnrn

Elizabeth Anne Montgomery Wilson

Place of birth: not known

Service: Nurse (Principal Matron), TFNS, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson was a veteran of the Boer War, in which she served as a superintendent in Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service. She was already Matron of Cardiff Infirmary, and became Principal Matron when it became the 3rd Western General Hospital in 1914. She reverted to the post of matron at the end of the War.

Reference: WaW0339

Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson

Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson in Margaret Lindsay Williams’s painting of the 3rd Western General Hospital. She is on the left.

London Gazette

Award of a bar to the Royal Red Cross announced in the London Gazette. Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson had already been awarded this decoration earlier in the War. London Gazette13th January 1920

Margaret Lindsay

Place of birth: Not known

Service: Secretary SSFA

Notes: Margaret, daughter of the Vicar of Tonna, successfully prevented a fraud on the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association. Having been tricked into giving £1 to a married couple, the Israels, she ‘jumped on a bicycle’ to pursue them. She recovered the money, less 6d which they had spent on lemonade and biscuits. The Israels were charged with fraud and sentenced to three months hard labour.

Reference: WaW0337

Newspaper report

Herald of Wales 27th March 1915

Margaret Lindsay Williams

Place of birth: Cardiff

Service: Artist

Notes: Trained in Cardiff and London, Margaret Lindsay Williams lobbied to become an official war artist attached to the Welsh Division in France. This was not allowed, and she was also unsuccessful in an application to work for the Department of Industry. However she devoted her time to fund—raising for the Welsh Hospital at Netley with several exhibitions. She also had several commissions for very large works. These included Cardiff Royal Infirmary during the Great War painted in 1916, and an enormous (20 x 16 foot) painting of the Welsh National Service held in Westminster Abbey in June 1918 in support of the Welsh Prisoners of War Fund.

Sources: Margaret Lindsay Williams, 1888 – 1960: Wedded to her Art. Angela Gaffney. University of Wales 1999. https://artuk.org/discover/artists/williams-margaret-lindsay-18881960

Reference: WaW0338

Margaret Lindsay Williams

A self-portrait of Margaret Lindsay Williams, 1909

Cardiff Royal Infirmary during the Great War, 1916

The woman on the left is Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson [qv], Territorial Force Nursing Service, Principal Matron, 3rd Western Hospital. The other woman is Sister Mary Jones [qv] also Territorial Force Nursing Service.

Alice Lidster

Place of birth: Pontypool ?

Service: Station mistress, Great Western and Rhymney Railway

Notes: Alice, daughter of a GWR Chief Inspector, was appointed ‘station mistress’ of Troedyrhiw Halt in April 1915, probably the first such appointment in Wales. She seems to have been a trained nurse.

Sources: httpsfriendsofsaron.wordpress.comtagtroedyrhiw-halt

Reference: WaW0342

Newspaper report

Report of Alice Lidster’s appointment as ‘station mistress’. Cambria Daily Leader 20th April 1915

Newspaper photograph

Alice Lidster in nurse’s uniformrnrn

Newspaper report

Report of Alice Lidster’s appointment as ‘station mistress’. Pioneer 24th April 1915rnrn

Elizabeth Roberts

Place of birth: Denbighshire ?

Service: washerwoman, 1918 - 1919

Notes: Despite not being a member of the Red Cross, Elizabeth Roberts worked one day for free, as well as 3 or 4 paid, doing the washing for the auxiliary 36 bed Red Cross hospital in Chirk. ‘The work was very heavy’.

Reference: WaW0349

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Elizabeth Roberts, washerwoman.

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Red Cross record for Elizabeth Roberts, washerwoman. (reverse)