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Rosina Lloyd
Service: Nurse
Death: 1918/10/10, Bridgend Isolation Hospital, Pneumonia / Niwmonia
Notes: Nothing is currently known of Rosina Lloyd, except the brief announcement of her death. Curiously this was not published until over a month after she died.
Reference: WaW0345
Megan Arfon Lloyd George
Place of birth: Criccieth
Service: School girl, later politician
Death: 1966/05/14, Cause not known
Notes: For the first few years of her life Megan lived in the family’s Welsh-speaking home in Criccieth. When she was 4 her father Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the family from then on split their time between 11 (later 10) Downing Street and North Wales. From an early age she appeared with her father at public events. In February 1919, when she was 17, she accompanied him to the Paris Peace Conference. Her presence created something of a stir, though she was in fact at school in Paris too. Later she wrote ‘I’ve had politics for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner all my life.’ In 1928 she became Wales’s first woman Member of Parliament, for Anglesey.
Sources: A Radical Life: Biography of Megan Lloyd George, 1902-66. Mervyn Jones
Reference: WaW0434
Newspaper report
Report of Megan opening the crèche extension at Claremont Central Mission. Evening Express 25th August 1910.
Olwen Elizabeth Lloyd George (Carey Evans)
Place of birth: Criccieth
Service: Volunteer, assistant cook, 1914 - 1916
Death: 1990, Cause not known
Notes: Olwen, second daughter of David Lloyd George, began volunteering in the Red Cross hospital near Criccieth in 1914 when she was 22. She then moved to London (where Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer, living at 11 Downing Street), and assisted her mother with the Welsh Troops Comfort Fund. In May 1915 she volunteered as an orderly at Rest Stations in Boulogne and later Hesdigneul. She later wrote ‘I was what they called a cooklet and I also used to scrub the platform. I used to say to my friends: “If you see a patch which is cleaner than all the rest, that’s my bit.” I worked so hard on it that I really believe you could have eaten off the floor!’ After her return to London and her marriage to Captain Tom Carey Evans, as her Red Cross Card says, she was not able to work! There is a short Pathé news film of her wedding at the Welsh Baptist Chapel in Westminster, with crowds of onlookers.
Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lze8jeBJKOo
Reference: WaW0430
Red Cross record card
Red Cross card for Olwen Lloyd George. The dates of her service have been altered in pencil.
Red Cross record card [reverse]
Reverse of Olwen Lloyd George’s record card giving details of her service.
Newspaper report
Report of Olwen Lloyd George’s marriage to Capt Tom Carey Edwards. Herald of Wales 23rd June 1917.
Margaret Ann (Peggy) Lyons
Place of birth: Tregaron
Service: Staff nurse, QAIMNSR, 1915 - 1919
Notes: Peggy Lyons was born in Tregaron in 1875. She trained at Carmarthen Infirmary, and in 1900 moved to London where she worked in two hospitals, and with private patients. She applied to join QAIMNS in January 1915, and served in British military hospital for 18 months. In June 1916 she was posted via Bombay to Mesopotamia where she remained until she was invalided home in September 1919 suffering from malaria. After treatment she was demobilised with excellent references on 29th September 1919. She may subsequently have moved to work in South Africa. Peggy was awarded the Royal red Cross in June 1916. Her sister Kate Phyllis Davies [qv] worked as a sister at Aberystwyth Red Cross hospital.
Sources: National Archives WO 399_5063
Reference: WaW0280
Newspaper artcle and photograph
Photograph and report of Peggy Lyons’s receipt of the Royal Red Cross. Cambrian News 23rd June 1916.
Newspaper article
First part of a letter home from Peggy Lyons in Mesopotamia, published in the Cambrian News 24th August 1917.
Agnes Irene (Renée) Macdonald (James)
Place of birth: Merthyr ?
Service: Science Student
Notes: Renée MacDonald, born 1898, entered Cardiff University to study science in 1916. She took a BSc in Biology and Botany, followed by an MSc at Swansea and a PhD in Geology and Palaeontology at Imperial College, London.
Reference: WaW0186
Entry application for Aberdare Hall, Cardiff University.
Renée McDonald’s entry application for Aberdare Hall, Cardiff University, May 1916.
Hester Millicent MacKenzie (née Hughes)
Place of birth: Bristol
Service: Educationalist, activist
Death: 1942, Brockweir, Cause not known
Notes: Born in 1863, Millicent MacKenzie was appointed associate Professor of Education (women) at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (later Cardiff University) in 1904, and full Professor in 1910. She was the first women professor in Wales. She was a co-founder of the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society in 1908, which by 1914 was the largest outside London with 1200 members. Both before and during the War she was much involved the Girls’ Club of the University Settlement in Splott, Cardiff (where she met her husband, Prof J S Mackenzie). She stood, unsuccessfully as Labour Candidate for the Welsh universities’ seat in the 1918 election, the only woman to stand for a Welsh seat.
Sources: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/how-women-classes-came-together-12596684
Reference: WaW0246
Newspaper report
Report on women candidates’ results in the 1918 General Election. Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard 3rd January 1919.
Newspaper report
Report on election expenses, University of Wales candidates. North Wales Chronicle 14th February 1919rn
Ella Jane Vincentia MacLaverty
Place of birth: Llangattock-Vibon-Avel
Service: Driver, FANY, Red Cross, 1914 ? - 1919
Notes: Ella MacLaverty, born 1880, was the youngest child of the wealthy vicar of Llangattock near Monmouth. She may have joined the Red Cross as a chauffeuse in 1914; she was definitely a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry by July 1918, and may have been part of the St Omer convoy when George V visited the battlefields. Late in the war and after the Armistice she was employed driving those involved with clearing unexploded bombs in Hazebrouck and Poperinge.
Reference: WaW0414
Communicant’s slip
Communicant’s slip for Talbot House, the Toc H church centre in Poperinge, Flanders.
Gertrude Madley
Place of birth: Llanelli, 1892
Service: Staff Nurse, QAIMNS Reserve / Wrth gefn, September 1916 - May 1920
Notes: Gertrude Madley was the daughter of a tinplate rollerman, and worked as a tinplate hand before training as a nurse in Swansea in 1913. She joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve as a Staff Nurse in September 1916. At just twenty-three years of age she was one of the youngest nurses to serve with the Reserve during the Great War. She served initally in Malta, and then, 1918 - 1920, in France
Sources: http://greatwarnurses.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/from-small-acorns-mighty-oaks-grow.html
Reference: WaW0098
Hannah Dunlop Mark
Place of birth: Bridgend
Service: Nurse, TFNS
Death: 1918/10/10, No 1 General Hospital, Fazackerley, Liverpool, Pneumonia following influenza / Niwmonia yn dilyn y ffliw
Notes: Hannah, a trained nurse, seems to have been a victim of Spanish Flu. She was 23 when she died, and is buried at Bridgend Cemetery.
Sources: http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1
Reference: WaW0208
Hannah Dunlop Mark
Hannah’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 Committee from Hannah’s brother, Lieut David Mark, November 16th 1918
G[w]ladys Allet Mathias
Place of birth: Ferndale
Service: Waitress, WAAC, 1918 - 1919
Notes: G[w]ladys joined the WAAC at Newport in May 1918. She was posted to Kinmel Park in north Wales, and then to Chadderton Camp near Oldham. She had previously worked as a barmaid, and her references for the WAAC describe her as a ‘good clean housemaid’, but perhaps army life did not suit her as she was twice fined for being absent without leave.
Sources: National Archives WO-398-146-1
Reference: WaW0313