Edith Carbis

Place of birth: Cardiff

Service: Messenger, Girl Guides / Geidiau

Notes: Edith Carbis's photograph appeared in the 'Roath Road Roamer’, January 1915. She seems to have left school, and acted as a messenger for the Lady Mayoress.

Reference: WaW0094

Edith Carbis

Edith Carbis in Guide's uniform

Florence Missouri Caton

Place of birth: ‘at sea’ off Cuba

Service: Nurse, SWH, September 1915 – July 1917 /

Death: 1917/7/15, Salonika, Appendicitis / Llid y pendics

Notes: Florence Missouri Caton was born on board ship (possibly the source of her middle name, though no evidence has yet been found) in about 1876, to parents from Wrexham. A trained nurse, she worked in Lancashire before joining the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in 1915. She had two periods of work in the Balkans. Shortly after her arrival in 1915 her unit was captured by the Austrians, and released in December. In August she returned to Serbia, working in various hospitals and dressing stations until she died of appendicitis in July 1917. She is buried In Lembet Road Military Cemetery, Salonika.

Sources: http://scottishwomenshospitals.co.uk/

Reference: WaW0212

Florence Missouri Caton

Florence Caton, Scottish Women's Hospitals

Grave Registration

Entry in Salonika (Lambert Road) grave register.

Newspaper report

Report of death of Florence Caton, Y Brython, 30 August 1917. Translation: ‘Laying the nurse to rest. In faraway Serbia the remains of Nurse Caton of Wrexham were laid to rest. She had endeared herself to the wretched people of that country through her untiring labour of love in their midst. There is talk of erecting a white marble cross on her small grave.’

Ada Maude Cecil

Place of birth: Talywain, Pontypool

Service: Nurse, VAD

Notes: Ada Cecil joined the VAD in 1917 aged 20. For some reason she has four Red Cross record cards; three pink and one white. Initially she nursed in Wales, but later was posted to the New Zealand Military Hospital in Weybridge, Surrey, and Staffordshire. Ada was a member of Pisgah Baptist Church, Talywain, and is commemorated on the roll of honour in the church.

Reference: WaW0290

Red Cross record card

One of Ada’s four Red Cross cards.

Red cross record card (reverse)

Reverse of the same card, showing Ada Cecil’s various postings.rnrn

Roll of Honour

Ada Cecil’s name on the Roll of Honour at Pisgah Baptist Church, Talywain, Pontypool.rnrn

Ellen Catherine Clay (née Williams)

Place of birth: Penrhos

Service: Nurse (Commandant), Chairman WLA Holyhead, VAD, WLA/Byddin Dir y Merched

Notes: Born a farmer’s daughter in about 1866, Ellen Williams married a local doctor, Thomas William Clay, in 1898. At the outbreak of War she became Assistant Commandant of Holyhead VAD. She worked in Holborn Red Cross Hospital as well as in Anglesey; additionally she helped run the Red Cross Canteen at Holyhead Railway Station. Mrs Clay also chaired the recruitment committee for the Women’s Land Army. She died in 1935.

Sources: Holyhead and Anglesey Mail 7 May / Mai 2014

Reference: WaW0153

Ellen Catherine Clay

Ellen Catherine Clay VAD

Elizabeth Clements

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Nurse, SWH, 1915 - 1916

Notes: Daughter of a Swansea pub landlord Elizabeth Clement trained as a nurse at Llanelli Workhouse, where she became Head Nurse. She joined the Scottish Women's Hospitals in the autumn of 1915. She and her party arrived in Serbia early in October. Shortly after their arrival the Austrian army gained ascendancy in Serbia, and most of October was spent moving from place to place to avoid the enemy. By 7th November they were prisoners of the Germans. Eventually their freedom was negotiated, and they arrived in Budapest on the way to Vienna on 6th February. Elizabeth was back in Swansea by mid-February 1916. She seems to have become something of a celebrity; her diaries were published in the South Wales Weekly Post, and her story also appeared at length in Llais Llafur. She gave talks on her experiences, and appeared in the talks of others. A lantern slide of her in ‘Serbian dress’ was shown in a lecture by the popular librarian Mr W. W. Young in January 1917.

Sources: http://scottishwomenshospitals.co.uk/women/

Reference: WaW0114

Newpaper report

Newspaper report, Cambrian Daily Leader, 18 December 1915

Elizabeth Clement

Photograph of Elizabeth Clement as head nurse at Llanelli workhouse. Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder 25th December 1915

Newspaper report

First part of the South Wales Weekly Post publications of Elizabeth’s diaries, South Wales Weekly Post 19th and 26th February 1916.

Elizabeth Clement with colleagues and Serbian soldiers

Photograph of Elizabeth Clement, Christmas Day 1915, with colleagues and Serbian soldiers. She is standing back row, third from right.

Newspaper report

Report of lecture on Serbia by W.W.Young. Elizabeth was shown in Serbian dress. Cambria Daily Leader 19th January 1917

Sally Constant

Place of birth: Rhondda

Service: Nurse (Sister), 1914 - 1918

Death: 1949, Cause not known

Notes: Sister Sally Constant nursed at Llwynypia Hospital, Rhondda, throughout the War. She may have trained in Cardiff before the War. Like many nurses, she had an album (dating back to 1907), which includes many entries from soldier patients. She worked up until WW2.

Reference: WaW0148

Sister Constant

Sister Sally Constant (1930s)

Album page

Album page with comic postcard, signed Driver Whiteside, 1918

Album Page

Album page signed Roger Fuller DCM, 1917

Album page

Album page ‘The lost cord’ signed Sapper W H Carey 1918

Album Page

Album page: drawing with aeroplanes and crest, signed S Shaddick

Album Page

Album page signed Gunner H Tyllyer 1916. Wounded three times ‘Nil Desperandum’

Katherine Conway-Jones

Place of birth: Bangor

Service: Nurse, TFNS, 1914 - 1917

Death: After / Ar ôl 1947, Cause not known

Notes: Katherine Conway-Jones, born around 1880, trained at the Leicester Infirmary; this was renamed the 5th Northern General Hospital in 1914 (and subsequently changed back). In 1915 she volunteered for foreign service, initially serving in France and subsequently on hospital ships serving the Dardanelles, Egypt, India, Mesopotamia and German East Africa. She was appointed Matron of HMHS Oxfordshire in April 1916. In the summer of 1917, declared ‘unfit for further service in the tropics, but fit for service in Egypt’, she returned to the UK on the New Zealand hospital ship Maheno, where she also served as Matron. She spent the rest of her time back in Leicester.She was mentioned in despatches three times, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross second class in 1916 for her work in the Dardanelles, and first class in 1917 for bravery during the mining of SS Tyndareus off South Africa. Her medals were sold for £2800 in 2015.rnAfter leaving the TFNS in 1919 she emigrated to Canada to set up a small-holding on Lulu Island, Vancouver, with Julia Hamilton, a Canadian nurse whom she had met in Salonika.A large file of Katherine’s official papers survives in the National Archives.

Sources: National Archives WO 399_10526

Reference: WaW0273

HMHS Oxfordshire

Katherine was Matron on this ship, travelling through Suez to India and back to S and E Africa.

Newspaper report

Report of Katherine Conway-Jones award of the Royal Red Cross. Y Dydd 22nd June 1917.

Letter

Letter from K C-J attempting to claim retrospectively the Mesopotamian Allowance to which nurses working east of Suez were entitled. She was refused, though tried again in 1947.

Letter (reverse)

Letter from K C-J attempting to claim retrospectively the Mesopotamian Allowance to which nurses working east of Suez were entitled. She was refused, though tried again in 1947. (reverse)

Winifred Margaret Coombe Tennant (née Pearce-Serocold)

Place of birth: Stroud

Service: Committee woman, suffragist, bard, spiritualist, patron, mother.

Death: 1956, London, Cause not known

Notes: Winifred was born in 1874; her mother, née Mary Richardson, was Welsh. She married Charles Coombe Tennant in 1895 and they lived at Cadoxton Lodge, near Neath. She became a member of the NUWSS in 1911 and later served on its committee, as well as chairing the Neath committee. During the war she was chair of the Neath Pensions committee and the Glamorgan War Agricultural committee; she was also interested in rural housing and penal reform (she became a JP in 1920). In 1917 she was admitted to the Gorsedd of Bards, taking the bardic name ‘Mam o Nedd’. She chaired the Arts and Crafts committee for the 1918 Eisteddfod, and later became Mistress of the Robes. She had become interested in spiritualism following the death of her baby daughter Daphne in 1908; this revived following the death of her eldest son, killed in Flanders in September 1917, aged 19. She became a well-respected medium though her identity was known only to a few people – she used the pseudonym Mrs Willett. She stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate for the Forest of Dean in the 1922 general election, and was a staunch patron of Welsh artists, particularly Evan Walters.

Sources: Winifred Tennant: a life through Art Peter Lord NLW 2007.\r\nhttp://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s2-COOM-MAR-1874.htm

Reference: WaW0268

Winifred Coombe Tennant

Winifred Coombe Tennant c 1920

Newspaper report

Report of Winifred Coombe Tennant’s election to the committee of the NUWSS, Cambria Daily Leader 8th July 1915.

Newspaper report

Winifred as organiser of the Glamorgan War Agricultural Committee, Herald of Wales 20th May 1916.

Newspaper report

Report of a meeting discussing rural reconstruction in Wales after the War. Herald of Wales 10th August 1918.rn

Newspaper report

Report of opening of the Art and Crafts Section of the National Eisteddfod, Neath 1918. Also Herald of Wales 10th August 1918.rn

Elizabeth Cooper

Place of birth: Hampshire

Service: Christian charity worker, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Elizabeth Cooper was awarded the OBE in 1918 for her work for sailors on minesweepers operating out of Milford Haven. She had moved to the area in the 1890s as a superintendent of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. Many trawlers were employed in minesweeping during the War.

Reference: WaW0224

Elizabeth Cooper

Elizabeth Cooper OBE, Minesweepers Comforts Supply Association.

Newspaper report

Report of Elizabeth Cooper’s award of OBE, Haverfordwest & Milford Haven Telegraph 9 Jan 1918

Elizabeth Cooper (reverse)

Reverse of photograph showing record of award of OBE

Clemima Coopey

Service: Munitions Worker, 1916 - 1918

Death: 1918-02-26, Blaenavon Workmans Hospital, Industrial Accident / Damwain Ddiwydiannol

Notes: Clemima Coopey became entangled in the machinery of the motor-house at the Blaenavon.Co.Ltd. She was rushing to catch the 9.30 pm train, and had illegally left her shoes there. Her husband was a soldier fighting in Salonika, and she had three young children.

Reference: WaW0071

Newspaper account of inquest (1)

Report of inquest into the death of Clemima Coopey (1)

Newspaper account of inquest (2)

Report of inquest into the death of Clemima Coopey (2)