Ethel Nicholas

Place of birth: not known

Service: Landgirl

Notes: Ethel received a Distinguished Service Bar of the Land Army for her quick thinking in saving the leg, and probably life, of a farmer caught in farm machinery.

Reference: WaW0343

Ethel Nicholas

Photograph of Ethel Nicholas. Landswoman February 1919

Newspaper report

Report – ‘A Plucky Land Girl’. Cambrian News 10th January 1919. An identical report appeared in the Abergavenny Chronicle.

Jane Edwards

Place of birth: Taicynhaeaf

Service: Munitions worker

Death: 1962, Dolgellau, Cause not known

Notes: Jane Edwards worked in a Liverpool munitions factory, though it is not known which of the many factories there. Family tradition via her nephew says that her hair went yellow from the effect of the powder. Thanks to J T Jones.

Reference: WaW0352

Jane Edwards

Jane Edwards in munitions uniform. Her tunic shows a triangular war-workers badge. Photograph from J T Jones, Bala.

Flossie Abbott

Place of birth: Bridgend ?

Service: Clerk, Bridgend Food Control Committee, 1919

Notes: In October 1919 Flossie Abbott requested a pay rise from £1 12s 6d a week to £2 10s, to gain parity with the clerk of Penybont Food Control Committee. A man doing the same job would have received £3 a week. Only one member of the committee opposed the motion.

Reference: WaW0351

Newspaper report

Report of the meeting of the Bridgend Food Committee, where Flossie Abbott’s pay-rise was agreed. Glamorgan Gazette 17th October 1919.

Alice Evans

Place of birth: Carmarthen

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Initially a volunteer at the Red Cross Hospital in Carmarthen, in 1917 Alice became a paid nurse at Netley Military Hospital, Southampton. In September 1918 she was posted to work at the National Explosives Factory at Pembrey.

Reference: WaW0353

Red Cross record card.

Red Cross Record card for Alice Evans.

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Red Cross Record card for Alice Evans, showing her service at NEF Pembrey.

Catherine Fraser

Place of birth: Not known

Service: Doctor, NEF Pembrey / Pen-bre, June 1918 -

Notes: Dr Catherine Fraser, previously assistant medical officer for Bradford, was appointed medical officer at the National Explosives Factory, Pembrey, in June 1918.

Reference: WaW0361

Newspaper report

Article reporting Dr Fraser’s appointment to NEF Pembrey.

Mary Elizabeth Phillips (Eppynt)

Place of birth: Merthyr Cynog, Brecon

Service: Doctor, Scottish Womens Hospitals, Royal Army Medical Corp, 1914 - 1919

Death: 1956, Cause not known

Notes: Born 1874, Mary Phillips, who took the name ‘Eppynt’ from the mountains near her birthplace, was the first women to train as a doctor at University College, Cardiff (1894 – 8), and subsequently worked in England. She was a supporter of NUWSS, and sometimes spoke at meetings. On 8th December 1914 she received a telegram from the NUWSS-supported Scottish Women’s Hospitals asking her to go to their hospital in Calais ‘at once’. She remained there until April 1915, when she joined the SWH at Valjevo, Serbia. She was invalided home with fever just before many SWH members were captured by the Austrian/Bulgarian army [see Elizabeth Clement, Gwenllian Morris]. In April 1916 she was appointed medical hospital at the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Ajaccio, Corsica, where many of the refugees from the retreat from Serbia were accommodated. She served there for 14 months before returning to tour England and Wales raising funds for the Serbian Hospitals; she was a noted speaker in Welsh and English. In 1918 she went to London to work at the Endell Street Military Hospital in London, a 573-bed hospital staffed entirely by women, most of them suffragettes. After the War she became Deputy Medical Officer of Health for Merthyr Tydfil.

Reference: WaW0362

Dr Mary Eppynt Phillips

Dr Mary Eppynt Phillips in the uniform of the Royal Army Medical Corps, photograph taken in 1920. Imperial War Museum.

Telegram

Telegram asking Dr Phillips to proceed to Calais, 8th September 1914. National Library of Wales.

Newspaper article

Report of Dr Phillips’s work during the War. Brecon County Times19th July 1917.

Newspaper report

Report of the award to Dr Phillips of the insignia of the order of St Java [sic, actually Sava] by the King of Serbia. Brecon and Radnor Express 22nd August 1918.

Curriculum vitae

Copy of Dr Phillips cv, 1920. Thanks to Peoples’ Collection Wales.

Endell Street Military Hospital

An operation in progress at Endell Street Military Hospital.

Gertrude Mary Bailey (née Buchanan)

Place of birth: Sunderland

Service: Businesswoman, Committee woman, Grand Dame, 1914 - 1919

Death: 1942, Cause not known

Notes: Gertrude Bailey moved to Newport following her marriage to the wealthy Newport ship-repairer C H Bailey in 1895. Following his death in 1907 she continued to run his successful business. From the outbreak of War she became involved in many war-related activities, included help for Belgian Refugees and the Red Cross, and serving on the War Pensions committee. In 1917 Gertrude established a crèche for the children of women munitions workers. She received the CBE in 1918; curiously there is no citation with her name. Perhaps she was involved in too many things to list. In 1920 she handed over the business to her sons, and became one of Newport’s first two women magistrates. Gertrude was anti-suffrage before the War, and patron of temperance societies. Who’s Who in Newport (1920) described her as ‘La Grande Dame of the place’.

Sources: Sylvia Mason: Every Woman Remembered. Saronpublishers 2018\r\nhttp://www.newportpast.com/gallery/photos/php/search.php?search=munition&search2=&Submit=Submit

Reference: WaW0360

Gertrude M Bailey

Gertrude Bailey published in Who’s Who in Newport, 1920.

Munitions workers crèche

Opening of the Munitions Workers’ Crèche, Newport 1917.

London Gazette

Gertrude Bailey’s award of C B E in Supplement to The London Gazette, 7 June, 1918.

Louisa James

Place of birth: Merthyr Tydfil ?

Service: Munitions worker, not known / anhysbys

Notes: Louisa James was photographed in her munitions worker uniform.

Reference: WaW0358

Louisa James

Louisa James in munition workers uniform. Peoples Collection Wales.

Louisa James (reverse)

Louisa James in munition workers uniform (reverse) . Peoples Collection Wales.

Louisa Jones

Place of birth: Harlech

Service: Munitions worker, Not known / anhysbys

Notes: Louisa Jones was injured when a shell fell on her foot at the munitions factory where she worked. The local paper reported that she was home in Harlech on sick leave.

Reference: WaW0359

Newspaper article

Article reporting Louisa Jones’s sick leave. Cambrian News and Merioneth Standard 18th May 1917.

Margaret Sara Meggitt (née ?)

Place of birth: Grantham

Service: Teacher, trade unionist

Notes: Margaret Meggitt moved to Newport, Mon, in 1906 with her husband. They had previously lived in Mansfield, where she had been involved in the Suffrage movement. She joined the Labour Party in 1913, and formed the Newport Branch of the National Federation of Women Workers, serving as secretary for four years. She was the first woman to sit on the Newport Trades and Labour Council, and was an assessor on the Munitions tribunal of Monmouthshire, with particular emphasis on the working conditions of girls and women. She was also an executive member of the Monmouthshire Committee of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, and supported the defence appeal for Gladys May Snell [qv].

Sources: Who’s Who in Newport 1920

Reference: WaW0363

Margaret Merritt

Photograph of Margaret Meggitt from Who’s Who in Newport, 1920.

National Union of Women Workers badge

Badge of the National Federation of Women Workers, possibly from Monmouthshire. Thanks to Pete Strong.