Not known / Anhysbys

Place of birth: South Wales

Service: Brickmaker

Notes: This woman moulding silica bricks was photographed for the Employment of Women collection at the newly established Imperial War Museum, c.1917.

Reference: WaW0189

Brickmaker

Woman moulding bricks

Esther Novinski/y

Place of birth: Tonypandy

Service: Doctor

Notes: Esther was the daughter of jeweller in Tonypandy, part of the Jewish community of the Valleys. She attended Porth County School before scholarships took her to University College Cardiff. After graduating in 1915 Esther completed her medical training at the Royal Free Hospital, London. She was appointed senior house surgeon there in May 1918 when ‘not yet 27 years of age’!

Reference: WaW0436

Newspaper report

Report of Esther Novinski’s appoinment at the Royal Free Hospital. Rhondda Leader 18th May 1918.

Hetty Onions

Place of birth: Tredegar ?

Service: QMAAC

Memorial: Wesley Church, Tredegar, Monmouthshire

Notes: The name of Hetty Onions appears on the Roll of Honour (under QM WAACS) formerly in Wesley Church, Harcourt Terrace, Tredegar

Reference: WaW0163

Roll of Honour

Name of Hetty Onions on Roll of Honour

Hannah Owen

Place of birth: Holyhead

Service: Stewardess, c.1905 - 1918

Death: 1918-10-10, RMS Leinster, Drowning / Boddi

Memorial: War memorial; Memorial Hyfrydle Chapel, Holyhead, Anglesey

Notes: aged 36. RMS Leinster was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. HO died together with Louise Parry

Sources: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=107830381

Reference: WaW0040

Hannah Owen

Hannah Owen, Stewardess on SS Leinster, sunk 10th October 1918

Welsh National Book of Remembrance

Hannah Owens name in the Welsh National Book of Remembrance

Kate Owen

Place of birth: Aberystwyth

Service: Cook, then tailoress, WAAC/QMAAC, 1917 - 1918

Notes: Kate Owen joined the WAAC in Autumn 1917, aged 45. She was a trained seamstress, and was rapidly moved into the Tailoring department. She served at several of the main camps, including Halton Camp Buckinghamshire and Kinmel Camp, north Wales (twice). She was discharged in September 1918.

Sources: National Archives WO-398-170-4

Reference: WaW0319

Service record

Service record for Kate Owen, showing her various postings.

M Jane Owen

Service: Munitions Worker

Memorial: Cenotaph, Swansea, Glamorgan

Reference: WaW0041

Swansea Cenotaph

Name of Jane M (or M Jane) Owen on Swansea Cenotaph

Mildred Owen

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: 1917:07:31 , NEF Pembrey, Explosion / Ffyrwydriad

Memorial: Cenotaph, Swansea, Glamorgan

Notes: aged 18. Died at the same time as Dorothy Mary Watson.

Sources: Funeral / angladd South Wales Daily Post 11 August / Awst 1917; Inquest / Cwest The Carmarthen Journal and South Wales Weekly Advertiser 24th August / Awst1917

Reference: WaW0039

Swansea Cenotaph

name of Mildred Owen on Swansea Cenotaph

Newspaper report

Report of the funeral of Mildred Owen and Dorothy Mary Watson.

Newspaper Report

Report of inquest into the deaths of Mildred Owen and Dorothy Mary Watson.

Morfydd Owen

Place of birth: Treforest

Service: Composer, singer

Death: 1918/09/07, Mumbles, Appendicitis/reaction to chloroform / Pendics/adwaith i glorofform

Notes: Morfydd Owen was born in 1891 to an ordinary, though musical, chapel-going family. Very early she showed great musical promise – she is said to have started composing aged 6 - and she entered University College, Cardiff, on a scholarship in 1909. In 1912 her parents were persuaded to let Morfydd study composition at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won every available prize during her first year. In London she began to move in influential Welsh circles, in 1914 assisting in the collecting and arranging of traditional Welsh songs from Flintshire and the Vale of Clwyd. She was a prolific composer, and a singer with an outstanding mezzo-soprano voice. She was also prominent in more Bohemian circles; among her friends were Ezra Pound and D H Lawrence. In 1917 she married, unexpectedly, Ernest Jones, the psycho-therapist and biographer of Freud. This seriously limited her professional career, particularly as Jones did not approve of his wife performing in public. In July 1918 she wrote to a friend ‘married life doesn’t seem to me to be quite the easiest thing to adapt oneself to, and has taken up all my time’. In September of that year, staying with her parents-in-law at Mumbles, Morfydd developed appendicitis, and died, perhaps as a result of the botched operation. Her Cardiff University professor David Evans wrote: “I regard her early death as an incalculable loss to Welsh music indeed, I know of no young British composer who showed such promise.” Although only 26 when she died, Morfydd left over 250 surviving compositions.

Sources: http://discoverwelshmusic.com/composers/morfydd-owen. www.illuminatewomensmusic.co.uk/illuminate-blog/rhian-davies-an-incalculable-loss-morfydd-owen-1891-1918

Reference: WaW0335

Morfydd Owen

Morfydd Owen in 1915. Private collection.

Folk songs

Folk songs collected by Mrs Herbert Lewis and Morfydd Owen

Early songs of Morfydd Owen

Advertisement for one of the memorial volumes of Morfydd Owen’s songs. 1923.

Rose Owen

Place of birth: not known

Service: Abortionist

Notes: Rose Owen was brought before the magistrates in Bridgend in August 1919 charged with performing an illegal operation on Elizabeth Williams, a widow. The case was drawn out, because Elizabeth Williams was seriously ill. However she recovered, and the case went to Cardiff Crown Court where Mrs Owen was sentenced to 18 months hard labour. She seems to have been a professional abortionist, as ‘women from the valleys and from Cardiff’ had been seen entering her house, as well as single girls who stayed there.

Reference: WaW0461

Newspaper report

Part of the report of Rose Owen’s appearance before the Bridgend magistrates. Glamorgan Gazette 8th August 1919

Newspaper report

Part of the report of Rose Owen’s trial and conviction at Cardiff Crown Court. Glamorgan Gazette 21st November 1919

Winifred Owen

Place of birth: Montgomeryshire

Service: Nurse, VAD

Notes: Winifred (born 1888) was a doctor’s daughter. She served in a Cambridge Hospital throughout the war, once sitting next to a hydrotherapy boiler that threatened to explode, to calm the patients. She married a doctor after the war, and never worked again

Reference: WaW0126

Winifred Owen VAD

Winifred Owen with a hydrotherapy patient.