Hannah Jane Davies

Place of birth: Mountain Ash

Service: Nurse, TFNS, 1918/06/13 – 1919/03/26

Notes: Hannah Davies was a probationer nurse at Milton Infirmary, Portsmouth when she was called up for Home Service at the 3rd Western General Hospital, Cardiff, where she was promoted to Staff Nurse. She seems to have contacted Influenza during February 1919, when she is described as being ‘pale’ and anaemic. It may be for this reason that she was discharged on March 1919. She continued to be attached to the renamed Territorial Army Nursing Service until she retired from this in 1936.

Sources: WO-399-10779

Reference: WaW0431

Summary record

Record of Hannah Davies’s work with TFNS.

Disability record [part]

Members of the forces were encouraged to fill in a disability statement on demobilisation so that they could use it as evidence in a future insurance claim.

Zillah Mary Jones

Place of birth: Llanpumsaint

Service: Nurse, TFNS, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Born in Carmarthenshire in the 1870s, Zillah trained at St Bartholomew’s hospital in London. She seems to have worked as a private nurse for many years, a job that included accompanying patients to Egypt and the West Indies, she was called up in 1914 to serve on the hospital ship Carisbrooke Castle. Some of the Welsh soldiers she cared for were delighted to find someone in authority who could speak Welsh. Whilst there she was promoted from Staff Nurse to Sister. According to her memoir, she had hoped to join the RN Nursing Service, having forgotten that she had already signed up to the TFNS. In October 1915 she was posted to the 4th Northern General Hospital, Lincoln, despite hoping for another Hospital Ship appointment. She records that her replacement on Carisbrooke Castle suffered from appalling sea-sickness. Whilst at Lincoln (where she remained for the rest of the War) she had a bicycle accident and broke her ankle badly; there is much correspondence about this on her War Office file. After demobilisation she went back to private nursing. Her memoir was published in 1964.

Sources: A Sister’s Log: A Nurse\\\'s Reminiscences. Gomerian Press, 1964

Reference: WaW0432

Zillah Jones

Sister Zillah Jones, frontispiece to her memoir ‘A Sister’s Log’

HMHS Carisbrooke Castle

Zillah Jones served on this ship 1914 - 1915.

Newspaper report

Report of Zillah Jones’s experiences on board ship.

Newspaper report [2]

Report of Zillah Jones’s experience on board ship [continued].

Medical board Title

One of the proceedings of the medical board when Zillah Jones broke her ankle.

Hannah Davies (Hughes)

Place of birth: Brymbo

Service: Nurse, Not known / anhysbys

Notes: Hannah was a trained nurse who may have served in one of the Liverpool military hospitals, or in Chester. Whilst there she met and later married Pte Joseph Hughes, who also came from the Brymbo area. Many thanks to Nikki Dutton.

Reference: WaW0427

Photograph

Photograph of Hannah (left) and a friend playing tennis. Thanks to Nikki Dutton.

Photograph

Photograph of Hannah (seated) and a friend. Thanks to Nikki Dutton.

Violet Williams

Service: Police constable, formerly nurse, Ministry of Munitions Women’s Police Service

Notes: Violet Williams, together with Muriel Richards [qv], was part of a ‘sting’ operation on 28th December 1918 to expose two bogus fortune tellers in Tanerdy, Abergwili. The first woman, Eleanor Rees, told Violet that a ‘dark man’ loved her, and had written her many letters that she had not received. When asked if she had written to a man, Violet replied ‘Yes – I have written to my brother several times’. She paid 6d for the session. The second woman, whom the two police constables visited later the same morning was Mary Evans. She told Violet that a ‘dark man ... in a good position under the Government’ wanted to marry her, and that they would have twelve children including two sets of twins! Mrs Evans charged her 1/- for the session. The two fortune tellers were found guilty and each fined 5/-

Reference: WaW0446

Newspaper report

Part of the court report of the trial of two fortune tellers; Violet Williams was one of two police witnesses. Carmarthen Journal 10th January 1919.

Janet Gulliver

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Teacher, Volunteer police woman, Swansea Women’s Patrols, February / Chwefror 1916-1917

Notes: Janet Gulliver, a mathematics teacher educated at Somerville College, Oxford, joined the Womens Patrol in Swansea early in 1916. Possibly she is the same Janet Gulliver who hurt her leg falling off a wall in May 1917

Sources: https://blogs.some.ox.ac.uk/thegreatwar/2016/02/03/february-1916-women-patrols-moral-guardians-and-prototype-police/

Reference: WaW0447

Janet Gulliver

Photograph of Janet Gulliver as a student at Somerville College, Oxford.

Newspaper report

Report of Janet Gulliver injuring her leg. Cambria Daily Leader 28th May 1917.

Sergeant [later Inspector] Guthrie

Service: Police Officer , Ministry of Munitions Women’s Police Service

Notes: Sergeant Guthrie began work at Pembrey in April 1917, having been a police officer for some time. According to Gabrielle West [qv] ‘Sergeant Guthrie is making this place uninhabitable, She is a most peculiar person: hair close-cropped like a man, thickset figure with no waist like a man, large feet like a man, and a sort of tenor voice like a man. The first two days, the girls wouldn’t be searched by her; they said she was a man detective, not a policewomen at all … Anyway, she is a great trial and very unbalanced.’

Sources: ed Avalon Richards Menus Munitions and Keeping the Peace: The Home Front Diaries of Gabrielle West 1914 -1917. Pen & Sword 2016.

Reference: WaW0444

Ministry of Munitions Women’s Police Service

Women police officers at a munitions factory (not Pembrey), Sergeant Guthrie may be back row, second from right.

Muriel Richards

Service: Police constable, formerly nurse, Ministry of Munitions Women’s Police Service

Notes: Muriel Richards, together with Violet Williams [qv], was part of a ‘sting’ operation on 28th December 1918 to expose two bogus fortune tellers in Tanerdy, Abergwili. The first woman, Eleanor Rees, told Muriel that she would marry a ‘fair young man’, and that there would be opposition from her family. She paid 6d for the session. The second woman, whom the two police constables visited later the same morning was Mary Evans. She told Muriel that she would very soon meet ‘a very dark man’; they would marry and have eight children. Mrs Evans charged 1/-. The two fortune tellers were each found guilty and fined 5/-.

Reference: WaW0445

Newspaper report

Part of the court report of the trial of two fortune tellers; Muriel Richards was one of two police witnesses. Carmarthen Journal 10th January 1919.

Gretta Davies

Place of birth: Sully, Glamorgan

Service: Dairy worker

Notes: By the 1911 census Gretta, then aged 13, lived with her family on a farm in Llanspyddid near Brecon. Following a dairying course held in Brecon in early summer 1917, she was awarded a scholarship to the Dairy School at University College Aberystwyth. However Gretta seems to have taken a post of instructress at the new Gwynfe, Carmarthenshire, cooperative cheesemaking school in July 1919.

Reference: WaW0453

Newspaper report

Gretta and her family and neighbours perform in a comic sketch at a concert in Libanus. Brecon Radnor Express 18th April 1918.

Newspaper report

Report of Gretta’s results on the Brecon dairying school. Brecon Radnor Express 24th January 1918

Newspaper report

Report of Gretta’s scholarship to study for a diploma in Dairying. Brecon County Times 30th January 1919.

Newspaper report

Report of Gretta’s appointment as instructress in cheesemaking. Carmarthen Journal 18th July 1919.

Caroline Pearse Tremain

Place of birth: not known

Service: Lecturer, College warden, University College Aberystwyth, 1914 - 1919+

Notes: Caroline Pearse Tremain was warden of Alexandra Hall, the women’s hall of residence at University College Aberystwyth, throughout the War years. She trained at the Cambridge Training College for Women under Elizabeth Phillips Hughes [qv], receiving a diploma with distinction. After some years teaching, Caroline took a BA in English at Aberystwyth, graduating in 1898. She was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Education at Aberystwyth in 1899, and became warden of Alexandra Hall in 1914. At the Hall she promoted many fund-raising events, from lectures to exhibitions, and encouraged the girls to do war-work with the VAD or other organisations, and in raising money (nearly £200 was raised for War Loan Certificates in 1918, and ‘some enterprising students undertook stone-picking and weeding’ to raise funds for War Weapons Week. She also was a major organiser for the Summer Schools arranged at the College each year.

Reference: WaW0450

Alexandra Hall, University College Aberystwyth.

Caroline Pearse Tremain was Warden here throughout WWI.

Newspaper report

Report of Caroline’s appointment to the Department of Education. Cambrian News 2nd June 1899.

Newspaper report

Report of Caroline Pearse Tremain’s opening address at a sale in aid of the YWCA. Cambrian News 6th November 1914.

Newspaper report

Lecture on Combating Venereal Disease at Alexandra Hall. Caroline Pearse Tremain presided and over 400 women attended. Cambrian News 12 December 1919.

Mary Brebner

Place of birth: not known

Service: Lecturer, University College Aberystwyth, 1898 - 1919

Notes: Mary Brebner was a University College, Aberystwyth, graduate and subsequently trained at the Cambridge Training College for Women under Elizabeth Phillips Hughes [qv]. She then took an MA at London University in 1891. After working in London as well as Wales, and travelled on a scholarship. Her book The Method of Teaching Modern Languages in Germany is still in print, and she has been described as the most influential women in the teaching of modern foreign languages in Britain. In 1899 she was appointed Assistant Lecturer at Aberystwyth in modern languages and Latin. At the outbreak of war Dr Ethē, Professor of German at Aberystwyth since 1875, was in Germany and did not return. Mary was promoted to lecturer and ran the department for the whole of the war, including the 1918-19 session which was ‘considerably interrupted owing to influenza’. She then retired, replaced by a man, to live in Penmaenmawr, though she remained on the board of the University of Wales.

Reference: WaW0451

Newspaper report

Report of Mary Brebner’s MA at London University. South Wales Daily News 31st July 1893.

Newspaper report

Report of Mary Brebner's appointment to the University College. Welsh Gazette 5th October 1899

Book catalogue

Mary Brebner’s book on teaching modern foreign languages 1898.

University College Report

Report of the German department, 1919. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors / University College of Wales, Aberystwyth