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)

Elizabeth Beatrice Cope

Place of birth: Lancashire, c.1871

Service: Mother

Notes: Beatrice Cope lived with her husband George in Trelleck, Monmouthshire. Here she is photographed with her younger son George, known as Eric. He was a temporary second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion (1st Tyneside Scottish) of the Northumberland Fusiliers. The photograph was probably taken just before Eric was sent to France in January 1916. Eric was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916. He was just 18 years old. Elizabeth Beatrice Cope lived with her husband George in Trelleck, Monmouthshire. They had previously lived in Denbighshire. Here she is photographed with her younger son George, known as Eric. He was a temporary second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion (1st Tyneside Scottish) of the Northumberland Fusiliers. The photograph was probably taken just before Eric was sent to France in January 1916. Eric was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916. He was just 18 years old. Elizabeth Beatrice Cope lived with her husband George in Trelleck, Monmouthshire. They had previously lived in Denbighshire. Here she is photographed with her younger son George, known as Eric. He was a temporary second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion (1st Tyneside Scottish) of the Northumberland Fusiliers. The photograph was probably taken just before Eric was sent to France in January 1916. Eric was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916. He was just 18 years old.

Reference: WaW0069

Beatrice Cope with her son Eric

Beatrice Cope with her son Eric, possibly early 1916

Edith E Copham

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: 1918-11-18, NEF Pembrey, Ffrwydrad

Memorial: Cenotaph, Swansea, Glamorgan

Notes: aged 19. She was killed in the same explosion as Mary Fitzmaurice and Jane Jenkins; MF and EEC shared a public funeral.

Sources: Explosion report Herald of Wales 14th December 1914; Funeral report South Wales Weekly Post 30 Nov 1918 / Adroddiad am y ffrwydrad Herald of Wales 14eg Rhagfyr 1914; Adroddiad am yr angladd South Wales Weekly Post 30ain Tachwedd 1918

Reference: WaW0002

Swansea Cenotaph

Name of Edith E Copham on Swansea Cenotaph

Newspaper report

Report of Funeral of Edith E Copham and Mary Fitzmaurice

Newspaper report

Explosion report Herald of Wales 14th December 1918

Elsie Agnes Courtis

Place of birth: Llandaff, 1894

Service: Chauffeuse, FANY, 1914 - 1918

Notes: Elsie originally signed up for ‘kitchen or nursing duties’, but later became an ambulance driver. She was awarded the Military Medal in 1917 ‘for bravery in rescuing wounded under fire in France’.

Reference: WaW0129

Women awarded the Military Medal

Photograph of women, including Elsie Courtis, who were awarded the Military Medal, 1918.

London Gazette, 26th June 1918

Elsie Courtis’s award of the Military Medal recorded in the London Gazette, 26th June 1918

VAD record card

One of Elsie Courtis’s VAD record cards.

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.

Annie Crosby

Place of birth: Liverpool

Service: Passenger

Death: 1915-05-07, SS Lusitania, Drowning/Boddi

Memorial: War memorial, Bagillt, Flintshire

Notes: aged 36, drowned with her sister Ellen in the sinking of the Lusitania

Sources: http://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com; www.rmslusitania.info/

Reference: WaW0003