Ethel Vaughan Owen

Place of birth: Llanidloes

Service: Nurse, VAD

Notes: Ethel, a doctor’s daughter, joined the VAD in 1915. Her service included postings to the Hospital Ship Britannia and to Valletta Hospital, Malta, where she became seriously ill with dysentery, but recovered. Many did not. rn

Reference: WaW0402

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Red cross card for Ethel Vaughan Owen, showing her overseas service.rn

Report of Ethel Vaughan Owen’s award of a Red Cross stripe.

Red Cross record card

Red cross card for Ethel Vaughan Owen.

Alice M Bale

Service: Teacher

Notes: Alice Bale was the first head of the Infants Department of Marlborough Road School when it opened in 1900. She retired in 1924. In 1918 she was elected as one of the three headteacher members of the Welsh University Court.

Reference: WaW0407

Newspaper report

Report of Alice Bale’s election to the Welsh University Court. Llangollen Advertiser 15th March 1918rn

Marlborough Road School

Architect’s drawing of the new Marlborough Road School. Western Mail 12th January 1900.

Sarah Jenkins

Place of birth: Pwll y Glaw, Cwmavon

Service: Cook, WAAC, 1918/01/15 – 1919/11/12

Notes: Sarah was 22 when she joined the WAAC. She may at some time have worked as a tin-plate worker though her WAAC records say she was a baker. Sarah spent most of her service as Assistant Cook, later Cook, at the Shirehampton Remount Depot, Bristol. The Depot handled thousands of horses and mules. Each animal was kept for two or three weeks and tested for disease. The aim was to get the animals clean and fit, ready for training and service. Of the 339,601 horses and mules that went through the Depot, only 13,811 came back after the war. Thanks to Bev Gulley.

Sources: National Archives

Reference: WaW0405

Minna Amelia Benner (née MacFarlane)

Place of birth: Scotland

Service: Doctor, 1914 - 1934

Death: 1962, Hertfordshire, Cause not known

Notes: Minna Benner was one of the first women to qualify as a doctor at Glasgow University, in 1897. After some years in Ireland, working as an assistant MoH, she moved to Newport in 1914 as Assistant Schools Medical Officer. In 1917 she became Newport’s first medical officer for the Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme. She had a particular interest in nutrition of children (a paper she gave on the subject was published in Perspectives in Public Health in 1924), and was a feminist interested in social reform. She lived to be 99.

Sources: British Medical Journal, Who’s Who in Newport 1920

Reference: WaW0408

Title of paper

Title of a paper given by Minna Benner, April 1924.

Announcement

Announcement of Minna Benner’s appointment, 1914

Elsie Chamberlain (née Cooil)

Place of birth: Liverpool

Service: Teacher, mother, local politician

Notes: Elsie with her family moved from Liverpool to Bangor when she was five. After finishing school, she became a teacher in local schools. Charlotte Price White [qv], the well-known local suffragist, told her ‘You have the ability to do public work and it is your duty to serve the citizens of Bangor’. She became involved in many war-time committees, and stood, unsuccessfully, in the municipal elections of 1919, finally becoming a councillor in 1930 and the first woman mayor of Bangor between 1941 and 1943. Elsie was the mother of the artist and writer Brenda Chamberlain, and died in 1972.

Sources: Jill Percy: Brenda Chamberlain, Artist and Writer (Parthian Books 2013)

Reference: WaW0409

Elsie Chamberlain

Elsie Chamberlain as first woman Mayor of Bangor, 1941 - 3

Newspaper article

Report of a housing exhibition organised by the Bangor branch of the National Council of Women, including Mrs Chamberlain. North Wales Chronicle 15th August 1919

Newspaper report

Report of the municipal elections in Bangor. North Wales Chronicle 24th October 1919

Bessie M Richards

Place of birth: Wenallt ?

Service: Girl Guide Commisioner, Girl Guides, 1915 - 1918

Notes: Bessie was obviously a leading Girl Guide, and old enough to have done some volunteering at Aberdare Red Cross Hospital. In August 1917 she was appointed Commissioner for Aberdare and Merthyr, with the object of forming new Companies in the area.

Reference: WaW0412

Newspaper report

Report of Bessie Richards’s appointment as Commissioner for Aberdare and Merthyr. Aberdare Leader 11th August 1917

Charlotte Price White (née Bell)

Place of birth: Scotland

Service: Teacher, suffragist, councillor

Death: 1932, Bangor, Cause not known

Notes: A former teacher who had studied science at university College, Bangor, Charlotte was a founder member of the Bangor Women’s Suffrage Society, and was one of only two women from North Wales (the other being Mildred Spencer from Colwyn Bay) to walk the whole NUWSS Great Pilgrimage to London in 1913. During the war she was extremely active in all kinds of support, raising money for the Welsh Women’s Hospital Unit in Serbia , the Patriotic Guild War Savings, the National Union of Women Workers, the Women’s Institute and many others. In 1926 she became the first woman member of Caernarvonshire County Council and was very active in the International League for Peace and Freedom.

Reference: WaW0410

Charlotte Price

Photograph of Charlotte Price White, c.1930

Newspaper report

Report of the work of the Bangor Medical Aid Committee, of which Charlotte was Hon Secretary. North Wales Chronicle 18th December 1914

Newspaper report

Report of a meeting of the War Savings Committee. North Wales Chronicle 19th October 1917

Newspaper report

Part of a report on fundraising for a North Wales Women’s Hospital Unit in Serbia. Charlotte was Hon Secretary (again). North Wales Chronicle 23rd April 1915

Newspaper report

Report of difficulties arising between the Women’s Institutes of North Wales and the Board of Agriculture. Charlotte Price White chaired the meeting. North Wales Chronicle 21st December 1917.

Emily Charlotte Talbot

Place of birth: London

Service: Heiress, philanthropist

Death: 1918/09/21, London, Cause not known

Notes: Emily, ‘Miss Talbot’ as she was always known, was born in 1840. She inherited a fortune from her father the landowner, industrialist and Liberal politician Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot. She spent much time at the family home at Margam, and was a generous, often anonymous, benefactor of many charities, often church-based. She was in poor health by the outbreak of the War and lived mostly in London; amongst her support 1914 – 18 was provision of furnished cottages for Belgian refugees, converting Penrice Castle for a hospital (and bearing the running costs) and founding a chair of Preventative Medicine at Cardiff University. She also financed Church halls and YMCA huts and books for the new Carnegie library in Port Talbot. In February 1917 she subscribed £80,000 to the War Loan, an extraordinary sum for a private individual. On her death she was reported as ’reputed to be Britain’s Wealthiest Lady’.

Reference: WaW0411

Photograph of Miss Talbot

Photograph of Miss Talbot when younger. Her family were pioneers of Welsh photography.

Newspaper report

Report of Miss Talbot’s accommodation for Belgian Refugees. South Wales Weekly Post 31st October 1914.

Newspaper report

Report of Miss Talbot’s donation of library books. South Wales Weekly Post 13th March 1915.

Newspaper report

Report of Miss Talbot’s endowment of £30,000 to endow a chair of preventive medicine at the Welsh School of Medicine. Cambria Daily Leader 16th January 1918.

Newspaper report

Report in Australian Newspaper of Miss Talbot’s purchase of War Bonds.

War Bonds poster

Poster advertising War Bonds 1917

Newspaper report

Report of the death of Miss Talbot. The long article gives an account of her generosity. Cambria Daily Leader 28th February 1918.

Rosa Cliff Ward

Place of birth: India

Service: Girl Guide Leader, 1912 - 1943

Death: 1984, Corscombe, Dorset, Cause not known

Notes: Rosa was born in India in 1893. Her father was a Brigadier General. In 1912 she founded the first Girl Guides company in North Wales, in Denbigh. The first was in Carmarthen (1910). Although she still under 21 she was soon appointed County Commissioner for Denbighshire. Rosa Ward seems to have introduced camping to the Guides; what was probably the first camp in Wales was set up by her at Segrwyd in 1916, and by 1931 she was the Guide Commissioner for Camping. Between 1939 ad 1944 she was Chief Commissioner for Wales She died in 1984 aged 101.

Reference: WaW0413

Rosa Ward

Photograph of Rosa Ward as Chief Commissioner in Wales.

Newspaper report

Report of the Guide camp at Segrwyd. Denbighshire Free Press 26th August 1916

Grave of Rosa Ward

Headstone of Rosa Ward’s grave, Corscombe, Dorset.

Elizabeth Roberts

Place of birth: Denbighshire ?

Service: Washerwoman

Notes: A Red Cross card records that Elizabeth worked for 11 months as a washerwoman at Brynkinalt Auxiliary Hospital, Chirk for 4 to 5 days a week, one of them unpaid. Her husband was a collier away on active service. The Commandant remarked ‘The work was very heavy, and she was most ungrudging in giving extra time, and did the work admirably’. She was not a member of the British Red Cross.

Reference: WaW0417

Red Cross record card British Red Cross

Red Cross card for Elizabeth Roberts

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Red Cross card for Elizabeth Roberts [reverse] showing her service.