Dorothea Margaret Seagrave Pryse-Rice (Evans)

Place of birth: London, 1894

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1914 – 1919?

Death: 1921/12/5, Cricket St Thomas, Devon, Influenza / Yffliw

Memorial: St Dingats Church, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire

Notes: Dorothea and her sister Nest were daughters of Margaret Pryse Rice, President of the Carmarthenshire Red Cross. Dorothea’s record card has not survived, but she probably served as a VAD most of the war. She married a war hero, Brigadier-General Lewis Pugh Evans VC, in October 1918, had a son in 1920, and died of influenza aged in 1921 aged 27.

Sources: http://www.wwwmp.co.uk/carmarthenshire-war-memorials/llandovery-carmarthenshire-red-cross-memorial/

Reference: WaW0203

Memorial Plaque

Memorial plaque commemorating Dorothea and Nest Pryse-Rice, St Dingat’s, Llandovery

Grave of Dorothea Pryse Rice

Grave of Dorothea Pugh, née Pryse Rice, St Dingat’s, Llandovery

Lewis Pugh Evans VC

Dorothea’s husband, Lewis Pugh Evans VC

Newspaper report

Report of the wedding in London of Dorothea Pryse Rice and Lewis Pugh Evans, October 1918

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.

Edith C Kenyon

Place of birth: Doncaster

Service: Writer

Death: 1925, Cause not known

Notes: Edith C Kenyon, a doctor’s daughter, had part of her upbringing in Machynlleth. She was an extremely prolific writer of novels for adults and children, and occasional non-fiction. Towards the end of her life she wrote a number of Welsh inspired romances, with title such as Nansi’s Scapegoat, The Winning of Glenora, The Wooing of Myfanwy, and The Marriage of Mari. This was serialised with much publicity in the Cambria Daily Leader in 1916. Her use of the Ceredigion landscape was much admired. She also wrote at least one war themed book for children: Pickles – A Red Cross Heroine. Her work was popular in both the United States and Australia.

Reference: WaW0455

Book

Pickles, A Red Cross Heroine by Edith C Kenyon, published by Collins. ‘Pickles dropped the deadly thing over the vasty deep’.

Newspaper report

Publication of The Wooing of Myfanwy, 6d. Cambrian News 26th March 1915.

Newspaper cutting

Heading and opening paragraphs of The Marriage of Mari. Cambria Daily Leader 26th October 1916.

Newspaper advertisement

Full column promotion of the serialisation of The Marriage of Mari. Cambria Daily Leader 23rd October 1916.

Newspaper report

Review of The Wooing of Mifanwy [sic] in an Australian paper. The Advertiser Adelaide 22nd March 1913.

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes

Place of birth: Carmarthen

Service: Educationalist, traveller, commandant, VAD, 1814 - 1919

Death: 1925/12/19, Barry, Cause not known

Notes: Elizabeth Phillips Hughes was 63 when WWI broke out. She had a distinguished record of work. An early student at Newnham College Cambridge, she set up the first teacher training college in Cambridge in1885. In later years. She travelled across the US to study prison reform, and then to Japan as a visiting lecturer in English at the University of Tokyo (1901 -02). She was a keen mountaineer, climbing the Matterhorn at the age of 48. On her return to Wales, she was the only women on the committee drafting the university of Wales’s first charter. She was a member and organiser of the British Red Cross before the War, and became Commandant of the Dock View Red Cross Hospital in Barry. In 1917 Elizabeth Hughes was the first ‘lady recipient’ of the new MBE in Wales. Hughes Hall Cambridge is named after her.

Reference: WaW0439

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes

Photograph of Elizabeth Hughes taken in the 1890s.

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Elizabeth Phillips Hughes.

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Red Cross record for Elizabeth Hughes Phillips, with typed details of her Red Cross service.

London Gazette

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of MBE in the London Gazette, 24th August 1917.

Newspaper report

First part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [1]

Newspaper report

Part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [2]

Newspaper report

Part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [3]

Newspaper report

Part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [4]

Newspaper report

Final part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [5]

Grace Evans (later Nott/Nott yn ddiweddarach)

Place of birth: Cymtydu

Service: Nurse, 1914 - 1918

Death: 1930-11-16, Johannesberg, Cause not known

Memorial: Plaque, St Tysilio, Cwmtydu, Cardiganshire

Notes: Died 'as the result of war services in East Africa during the Great War 1914 - 1918'

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

Reference: WaW0014

St Tysilio

Plaque commemorating Grace Evans, St Tylsilio Church, Cwmtydu

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.

Gladys Paynter-Williamson

Place of birth: Margam

Service: Nurse, QAIMNSR, 1914/08/05 - 1919/ 08/24

Death: 1936, Carcinoma

Notes: Gladys trained as a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. Her father was the Vicar of Margam. As a reservist, she was called up in August 1914. Initially she served in war hospitals in England, but in 1917 she was sent to France (Etaples), and after the Armistice to Bonn in Germany. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross in February 1917. She seems to have been a solitary person; she had to ask for financial assistance when she developed cancer in 1934, and on her death her record states ‘Miss Paynter-Williamson does not appear to have any relations with whom she had kept in touch’.

Reference: WaW0401

Newspaper report

Report of Gladys Paynter-Williamson’s award of the Royal Red Cross. Cambria Daily Leader 11th April 1917.

Medical report

Doctor’s letter passing Gladys Paynter-Williamson as fit for overseas service. 27th July 1917.

QAIMNS gratuity claim form

Gratuity claim form for Gladys Paynter-Williamson.

Mabel Sybil (May) Leslie (Burr)

Place of birth: Woodlesford near Leeds

Service: Scientist, Chemist, HM Factory Penrhyndeudraeth, 1915 - 1918

Death: 1937/07/03, Bardsey, Leeds, Cancer / canser

Notes: May Leslie was born 1887, the daughter of a miner. Her father was very interested in education and self-improvement, for himself and his children. May won scholarships to High School and to Leeds University, where she gained First Class Honours in Chemistry in 1908, followed by a three year scholarship to study with Marie Curie in Paris. In 1914 she obtained an assistant lecturer’s post at University College Bangor, and in 1915 was called on to start work in the Explosive Factory in Litherland. She was promoted to Chemist in Charge of a Laboratory, a very rare position for a woman, and then moved into the same role at H M Factory Penrhyndeudraeth, working on explosives. This job ended with the War, and she returned to academic life in England.

Sources: https://newwoodlesford.xyz/schools/may-sybil-leslie/ Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity, Rayner-Canham Marelene and Geoffrey

Reference: WaW0438

Photograph

May Sybil Leslie while at University College Bangor

Photograph

May Sybil Leslie, Leeds University, c.1920

Katherine Rosebery Drinkwater (née Jay)

Place of birth: Chippenham

Service: August/Awst 1916 - August/Awst

Death: 1939/12/29, Wrexham, Cause not known

Notes: Katherine Drinkwater, born 1872, was a doctor’s daughter, and had her medical education in London and Liverpool (where she was one of the first women to receive the University’s Diploma of Public Heath). In 1903 she married a GP, widower Dr Harry Drinkwater, and moved to Wrexham. There she became an assistant school medical officer, and also held a position as Assistant Gynaecologist at the Women’s Hospital, Liverpool. In 1916 the Royal Army Medical Corps called for women doctors to volunteer for service in Malta, and Katherine was one of the first group of 22 to go. Life as a woman doctor with the RAMC was not easy. In a letter to the Times in 1918, Dr Jane Walker, President of the Women’s Medical Federation wrote “Although many of the medical women serving in the army not only have a high professional standing in civil practice, but now have a large experience in military hospitals, they rank below the latest joined R.A.M.C. subaltern, and are obliged to take orders from him. When they travel, they travel not as officers, but as ‘soldiers’ wives’”. Katherine had charge of the Military Families Hospital in the Auberge d’Aragon in Valletta, and remained there a year. In 1918 she was awarded the OBE for her work. After her return she continued to work in public health, became a JP, and continued with her husband to win prizes for their West Highland terriers in North Wales shows.

Sources: https://www.maltaramc.com/ladydoc/d/drinkwaterkr.html http://owen.cholerton.org/ref_drs_harry_and_katharine_drinkwater.php

Reference: WaW0435

Photograph

Katherine had charge of this Military Families Hospital in the former Auberge d’Aragon, in Valletta, Malta.

Newspaper report

Report of Dr Drinkwater’s imminent return from Malta. Llangollen Advertiser 3rd August 1917

London Gazette

Katherine Drinkwater’s award of the OBE (right hand column, fifth from the bottom). London Gazette June 7th 1918.

Ethel Clara Basil Jayne

Place of birth: Llanelly

Service: Businesswoman, laundry owner, munitions welfare officer, government advisor

Death: 1940, St Albans, Cause not known

Notes: Ethel Jayne was born in 1874, daughter of the proprietor of the Brynmawr Coal and Iron Company Ltd. She trained in laundry work, and set up her own steam laundry company, Little Laundries Ltd, in Harrow in about 1906. At the outbreak of war she joined the Women’s Volunteer Reserve, and also worked organising canteens for the French Red Cross. In 1916 she was appointed chief welfare officer for the Armstrong Whitworth armaments company, becoming responsible for more than 20,000 women employed in the North of England and Glasgow. Her welfare innovations included steam laundries. In 1919 she gave evidence on welfare to the Parliamentary Committee on Women in Industry. She was among the first recipients of the OBE in August 1917. After her death her ashes were buried in the family grave in Llanelli.

Sources: https://doi.org/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.111297

Reference: WaW0370

Ethel Basil Jayne 1907

Ethel Basil Jayne driving to one of her early laundries in a pony and trap. This was her preferred mode of transport.

London Gazette

Miss Ethel Basil Jayne’s name in the first list of OBEs. London Gazette 24th August 1917.