Lily Maud Leaver

Place of birth: Aberdare

Service: Munitions worker, Not known / anhysbys

Death: 1917/12/28, TNT poisoning / Gwenwyni gan TNT

Notes: Little is known of Lily Leaver, who was born in 1896. Her parents later lived at Abertridwr in Glamorganshire.

Reference: WaW0325

Lily Maud Leaver

Lily’s photograph was collected by the Women’s Subcommittee of the Imperial War Museum as part of its collection of women who died during the War.

Letter

Letter to the Secretary of the women’s collection from Lily’s mother, Mrs A[nnie] Leaver.

Elizabeth Anne (Lizzie) Jones

Place of birth: Cardigan

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: 1916-10-23, Cardigan, TNT poisoning / Gwenwyno TNT

Memorial: Cenotaph, Cardigan, Cardiganshire

Notes: aged 22, had worked at NEF Pembrey. Her mother Mary Anne Williams claimed compensation for her daughter's death

Sources: http://www.wwwmp.co.uk/ceredigion-war-memorials/

Reference: WaW0034

Cardigan War Memorial

Name of Elizabeth Jones on Cardigan War Memorial

Newspaper report

Lizzie's mother Mary Anne Jones claiming compensation for her daughter's death.

Lizzie Jones

Lizzie’s photograph was collected by the Women’s Subcommittee of the Imperial War Museum as part of its collection of women who died during the War.

Letter

Letter from the Town Clerk of Cardigan about a photograph of Lizzie Jones

Gladys Irene Pritchard (née Harris)

Place of birth: Newport

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: TNT poisoning / Gwenwyno TNT

Notes: Gladys was a war widow aged 28. Her husband had been killed in July 1916. She had two small children. Her father was granted 2s a week for the upkeep of each child; the children also benefited from their father’s military pension.

Sources: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums

Reference: WaW0045

Gladys Pritchard

Gladys’s photograph was collected by the Women’s Subcommittee of the Imperial War Museum as part of its collection of women who died during the War.

Letter

Letter to the Secretary of the women’s collection from Gladys’s sister, Mrs Summerfield.

Newspaper report

Report of maintenance grant to Gladys’s father, Joseph Harris, for the upkeep of her children. Weekly Argus 11th November 1916.rn

May (Mary) Prosser

Place of birth: Gilwern

Service: Munitions Worker, 1916 - 1917

Death: 1917-04-03, Rochdale, TNT poisoning / Gwenwyno TNT

Memorial: Recreation Ground gates; Market hall, Christchurch Govilon, Govilon, Monmouthshire

Notes: May, born 1891, was the fourth daughter of a farm labourer and his wife. She followed two of her sisters into domestic service in Rochdale. She began munitions work late in 1916, but soon became ill with ‘toxic jaundice’ and died at her sister Margaret’s home in Rochdale. She was also sister of Nellie Prosser [qv].

Sources: Ryland Wallace: May Prosser, Munitionette. AMC/WAW Newsletter, June 2016

Reference: WaW0046

Christchurch, Govilon

Name of May Prosser on memorial, Christchurch, Govilon

Govilon War Memorial

Name of May Prosser on Govilon War Memorial

Death Notice

Death notice of May Prosser, Abergavenny Chronicle, 13 Aprill 1917

Esther Devonald

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: TNT poisoning/Gwenwyno gan TNT

Sources: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums

Reference: WaW0009

Newspaper report of Inquest

Newspaper report of Inquest into death of munitions worker Esther Devonald

Catherine (Kate ) Hill

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: TNT poisoning/Gwenwyno TNT

Memorial: Cenotaph, Swansea, Glamorgan

Sources: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums

Reference: WaW0025

Swansea Cenotaph

Name of Catherine (Kate) Hill on Swansea Cenotaph

Alida Gunst (née Demoine)

Place of birth: Belgium

Service: Housekeeper, refugee

Death: 1918/04/03, Llangwyfan sanatorium , Tuberculosis / Diciau

Notes: Alida arrived in London as a refugee from Belgium in October 1914. She was married to Arsène Dunst in Devon in January 1915. He was serving in the Belgian army, and had been wounded. They seem to have moved to Newport, where she may have worked as a housekeeper. She contracted TB, and was sent in December 1917 by Monmouthshire to Llangwyfan Sanatorium, Denbigh, where she died in April 1918. There was a dispute between the authorities in Newport and Denbigh as to who should pay for the burial.

Sources: https://refugeesinrhyl.wordpress.com/gunst/

Reference: WaW0433

Grave

Grave of Alida Gunst, Ystrad Road Cemetery, Denbigh.

Register for Aliens

Registration papers for Alida Dunst showing move from Newport to Llangwyfan 1917

Newspaper report

Report of Denbigh Town Council’s refusal to waive the fee for Alida’s burial.

Margaret Morris

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Widow, Mother, Munitions Worker

Death: --, Tawe Lodge, Swansea, Tuberculosis / Y diciau

Notes: Margaret Morris began work at NEF Pembrey after her soldier husband was killed in August 1916. There she is said to have contracted the tuberculosis from which she died. She left children aged 12, 8 and 2 and a half.

Reference: WaW0096

Death of Margaret Morris

Account of death of Margaret Morris, Cambrian Daily Leader 30 April 1919

Catherine J James

Place of birth: Llanelli

Service: Nurse, St Johns Ambulance

Death: 1919/12/04, Llanelli, Tuberculosis / Y diciáu

Memorial: Tabernacle Chapel, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire

Notes: Catherine was a member of the St John’s Ambulance. She served throughout the War, first in Porthcawl and then in Stebonheath, Llanelli (where she may have contracted the TB that killed her aged 28.) Her name appears on the war memorial plaque in Tabernacl Chapel, Llanelli.

Sources: https://www.wwwmp.co.uk/carmarthenshire-memorials/llanelli-tabernacl-chapel-war-memorial

Reference: WaW0404

War Memorial

Catherine James’s name on the memorial plaque in Tabernacl Chapel, Llanelli.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Thomas

Place of birth: Seven Sisters

Service: Nurse, QAIMNSR, 1915 - 1920

Death: 1921/09/27, Neath ?, Tuberculosis / Y dicléin

Memorial: Seven Sisters , Glamorgan

Notes: Born in 1890, Lizzie attended Neath County School and trained as a nurse at Swansea General and Eye Hospital. She volunteered for QAIMNS Reserve in 1915, and was sent to Salonika via Egypt in November. It is said that the troopship she was on was torpedoed, and that she spent some hours in the water. She returned home in December 1916, and in January 1917 was given a reception by the local community, including the presentation of a medal and the singingof an embarrassingly effusive poem in Welsh. She spent the rest of the War, until she was demobbed in October 1920, at Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross in April 1919. Lizzie returned home to nurse in Neath, but died less than a year later of TB. Her name appears on the Seven Sisters War Memorial

Sources: Jonathan Skidmore: Neath and Briton Ferry in the First World War

Reference: WaW0477

Elizabeth Thomas

Lizzie Thomas in uniform

Poem / song

The embarrassing song performed at the reception for Nurse Thomas in January 1917. ‘Composed by Mr R. D. Harris and sung by Messrs. D. T. Davies and John Hughes’. Llais Llafur 6th January 1917

Army Form W. 3538

Lizzie Thomas’s new posting to Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham, 1st September 1917

Seven Sisters War Memorial

Photograph taken shortly after its opening 1920?