Margaret Irene John

Place of birth: Penygraig

Service: Administrator, lady superintendent , Womens League

Notes: Margaret John, a teacher of domestic arts in Monmouthshire, who had trained in Aberystwyth, Cardiff and London, joined the Women’s Legion in 1916 as one of their skilled cooks. After some months as Lady Superintendent in Wiltshire she was sent to France as ‘area administratrix’ in October 1917.

Reference: WaW0380

Newspaper report

Report of local JP’s daughter Margaret John being posted to France. Rhondda Leader 27th October 1917.

Cissie Cripps

Place of birth: Brecon

Service: Volunteer, Womens Volunteer Reserve Corps, 1915 - ?

Death: 1956, Montreal, Canada, Cause not known

Notes: Cissie was a chauffeuse before the war. She had two brothers serving in the army, and joined the Women’s Volunteer Reserve Corps in Folkestone in August 1915. In 1920 she emigrated to Montreal Canada, where she later married George Elsdon Mears and had three daughters. Thanks to Ian Sumpter.

Reference: WaW0374

Cissie Cripps

Cissie Cripps of Brecon, looking ‘very smart’ in uniform. Brecon County Times 12th August 1915.

Nellie Prosser

Place of birth: Govilon

Service: Forewoman, munitions worker, NFF Rotherwas

Notes: Nellie Prosser was charged in the autumn of 1919 with dishonestly obtaining £15.10s in unemployment pay when she was in fact working as a servant for Mrs Solly-Flood [qv], a leading figure in society locally. She had been laid off from Rotherwas shell filling factory with all the other women workers at the end of the war, but claimed to the Labour Exchange in Abergavenny that she was waiting for the factory to re-open. According to the Rector of Govilon, who knew the family well, Nellie had progressed to forewoman at the factory despite suffering from TNT poisoning and resulting fits. She was also one of the elder sisters of May Prosser [qv]. Nellie Prosser was fined £25, or three months hard labour.

Reference: WaW0382

Newspaper report

Report of the Abergavenny Police Court proceedings against Nellie Prosser. Abergavenny Chronicle 3rd Oct 1919.

May McIndoe

Place of birth: not known

Service: Munitions worker, NEF Pembrey / Pen-bre

Notes: May McIndoe, aged 53, was taken to court in August 1918 for having a sealed tin of tobacco with her, to deliver to a man. The case was dismissed, as she was apprehended taking it to the mess room, where such things were deposited. This was within the rules about inflammatory materials at the munitions works.

Reference: WaW0381

Newspaper report

Report of the failed case against May McIndoe. Cambrian Daily Leader 22nd August 1918

Margaret E Jones

Place of birth: Preswylfa Amlwch Port

Service: Executive Officer, Amlwch Urban District Food Control Committee, 1917 - 1919

Notes: Madge was appointed to the Food Control Committee of Amlwch in 1917. The committee seems to have been wound up in July 1919. She was awarded the MBE in February 1919.

Reference: WaW0365

Margaret E Jones

Photograph of Madge Jones, MBE. Part of the Women’s Work Collections of the Imperial War Museum.

Margaret E Jones (reverse)

Reverse of Photograph of Madge Jones, MBE. Part of the Women’s Work Collections of the Imperial War Museum.

Newspaper report

Report of Margaret Jones’s award of MBE. North Wales Chronicle 7th February 1919.

Mary Elizabeth Lewis

Place of birth: Abergavenny

Service: Ward maid, VAD

Death: 1923/04/06, Abergavenny, Cause not known

Notes: Mary Elizabeth Lewis joined the VAD aged 19 in 1918. She served as a ward maid in France, in the Australian hospital in Sutton Verney, and then again in France for 6 months, being discharged in January 1920. She died three years later. Her gravestone in Abergavenny cemetery bears the badge of the British Red Cross Society.

Reference: WaW0384

Red Cross record card

Record of Mary Elizabeth Lewis’s service as a VAD.

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Record of Mary Elizabeth Lewis’s service as a VAD. [reverse].

Gravestone

Gravestone of Mary Elizabeth Lewis, showing the badge of the British Red Cross and the inscription ‘She served for two years in France during the Great War as a British Red Cross Nurse’. Thanks to Marian Senior and ALHS.

Hilda Campbell Vaughan (Morgan)

Place of birth: Builth Wells

Service: Cook, agricultural organiser, novelist, VAD, WLA, 1915 - 1919

Death: 1985, Cause not known

Notes: Hilda Vaughan, born 1892, was the daughter of a solicitor prominent in Brecknockshire and Radnorshire. Early in the war she joined the VAD as a cook at the Red Cross hospital in Builth but in 1917 left ‘to take up Land work with a salary’. During the time that she worked as a VAD, she took the lead in organising a free library for the town; it opened in November 1915. Hilda was already involved in encouraging women on to the land, and farmers to accept them. Her new position was organising secretary of the WLA in Breconshire and Radnorshire. After the war Hilda moved to London, married the novelist Charles Morgan, and began to write herself. Her work was much influenced by her experiences of meeting women of all backgrounds in the WLA.

Sources: https://www.southwales.ac.uk/study/subjects/history/worldwarone/jayne-bowden/

Reference: WaW0383

Hilda Vaughan

Hilda Vaughan as a young woman.

Red Cross record card

Record of service of Hilda Vaughan.

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Record of service of Hilda Vaughan [reverse]

Newspaper report

First part of a report on the new Free Library in Builth. Brecon County Times 25th November 1915

Newspaper report

Report of an open-air meeting in Brecon, publicising women and farm work. Brecon and Radnor Express 5th April 1917

Newspaper report

Report of open-air meeting in Rhayadyr, commenting on Miss Vaughan’s ‘pleasing and persuasive …manner’. Brecon and Radnor Express 31st May 1917

Novel

Dustjacket of Hilda Vaughan’s novel ‘The Soldier and the Gentlewoman’, 1932.

Beatrice Elise Solly-Flood (née Hanbury, formerly Martin)

Place of birth: Monmouth ?

Service: Military wife and widow, committee woman

Notes: Elise Solly-Flood was married to zoologist Lieutenant Charles Martin of Abergavenny, a reservist who was killed in May 1915. In June 1916 she remarried, Brigadier-General Arthur Solly-Flood, a professional soldier. Elise supported all the local charities and organisations, including an inspection of the Abergavenny army cadets. She became involved as a reluctant witness in the fraud case against Nellie Prosser [qv] whom she had employed as a servant.

Reference: WaW0385

Marriage announcement

Announcement of the forthcoming marriage between Brigadier-General Arthur Solly-Flood and Mrs Charles Martin. Abergavenny Chronicle 19th May 1916.

Newspaper report

Report of the inspection of the Abergavenny cadets. Abergavenny Chronicle 11th May 1917.

Newspaper letter

Letter from Mrs Solly-Flood about reviving the Abergavenny Company of Girl Guides. Abergavenny Chronicle 22nd February 1918.

Ethel Dora Heins

Place of birth: Brecon

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1915/09/11 - 1918/05/18

Notes: Ethel Heins volunteered for the VAD early in the war, and after ‘special training’ was sent to work in the 19th General Military Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, where she was for a year. During her time there she kept a diary, now in the National Library of Wales. In it she describes the voyage out, avoiding German ships, and the diseases that affected many of the hospital staff. After her return she worked in English military hospitals.

Reference: WaW0386

Red Cross record card

Red cross card of Ethel Heins. Her father was a well known piano shop owner and musician in Brecon.

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Red cross card of Ethel Heins showing her service in Egypt and England. [reverse]

Newspaper report

Report of Ethel Heins’s deployment to Egypt. Brecon County Times 16th September 1915.

Diary

Page from Ethel Heins’s diary, October 1915. The Miss Smales mentioned was VAD Florence Smales of Whitby, Yorkshire. National Library of Wales.

Gwladys Jones

Place of birth: Carnarthen ?

Service: Nurse, SWH

Notes: Gwladys Jones was a professional nurse who had trained and worked in London, and also worked as a school nurse in Swansea. She volunteered for the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and went to Serbia in September 1915. She was among the group of nurses captured by the Austrians at Krushevatz. She managed to get a letter to her mother through one of the nurses who escaped the Austrian army through the mountains. Her letter arrived on Christmas Day 1915. She was a friend of Nora Tempest [qv].

Reference: WaW0387

Newspaper report

Report of the capture of Gwladys Jones and colleagues in Serbia. Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph 19th January 1916.