Catherine (Katie) Evans

Place of birth: Holyhead

Service: Nurse, VAD

Death: 1914/10/16, Holyhead, Peritonitis

Notes: Katie was the second of seven surviving daughters of Hugh Evans, a marine engineer, and his wife Elizabeth (twin girls died in infancy). Her Red Cross record has not survived, but it is likely that she served at the Holyhead Red Cross Hospital. She died aged 34. On the day after the funeral her sister Pollie Williams [qv] volunteered for the VAD. Many thanks to Aled L Jones and Barry Hillier.

Reference: WaW0251

Pollie (Mary) Williams (née Evans)

Place of birth: Holyhead

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1914/10/21 – August 1918

Notes: Pollie was one of the younger sisters of Katie (Catherine) Evans VAD [qv] who died 16th October 1914. Pollie joined the VAD the day after her sister’s funeral. In August 1918 she married Hugh Williams.

Reference: WaW0259

Red Cross record card

Red cross card for Pollie Williams née Evansrn

Letter

Letter from Pollie Evans to Agnes Conway of the Women’s Work Sub Committee about Katie’s photograph.rnrn

Gwenllian Morris

Place of birth: Aberystwyth ?

Service: Nurse, TFNS, 1914 - 1918

Notes: Gwenllian Morris was district nurse in Holywell, then Aberystwyth. She was posted to a military hospital in St Malo with the French Red Cross in October 1914. She contracted diphtheria while there, but recovered and volunteered to join the Serbian Relief Fund Hospital in 1915. Her unit worked in Malta and the Dardanelles before arriving in Serbia. They were captured in the winter of 1915/16 by the Austrian/Bulgarian army , but continued to work mainly with typhus patients. It is not known when she came back to Britain, but she received her war medals in 1921 (on the card, she is described as being a Sister with the 2nd British Farmers Unit – a mystery.*)
*The mystery about the British Farmers Unit has been solved by Nigel Callaghan, to whom many thanks. ‘I've sort-of explained the comment about Gwenllian Morris's record referring to her as British Farmers Unit. It really existed. There were at least two, and were funded by money raised by farmers (British Farmers Red Cross Fund), and were in Serbia in 1915.’

Reference: WaW0258

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card for Gwenllian Morris.

Newspaper article

Article about Gwenllian Morris’s work in France. Flintshire Observer 19 November 1914.

Newspaper article

Article about Gwenllian Morris’s work with the Serbian relief Fund. Flintshire Observer 19th August 1915.

Newspaper article and photograph

Illustrated report of Gwenllian Morris’s time in Serbia including her captivity. Cambrian News 11th February 1916.

Medal card

Medal card for Gwenllian Morris, giving her unit as 2nd British Farmers Unit.

Lilly Huntley

Place of birth: Bradford

Service: Nurse, TFNS, 1914 - 1918

Notes: Born in Bradford and trained in London, Lilly Huntley had worked as an Inspector for the Medical Officer of rnHealth’s Department in Cardiff. She joined the Red Cross on 1st September 1914 and was posted to Neath, forst as a staff nurse and then as a sister. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross. After the War she became Head of Midwifery Services in Cardiff. Her name appears on the Roll of Honour in Cardiff’s City Hall.rn

Reference: WaW0263

Lilly Huntley

Sister Lilly Huntley, TFNS. By kind permission of Glamorgan Arhivesrnrn

Roll of Honour, Cardiff City Hall

Name of Lilly Huntley on Roll of Honour, Cardiff City Hallrnrn

Newspaper report

Report of the presentation of the Royal Red Cros to Sister Lilly Huntley, Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder 14th October 1916.rnrn

Aldwyth Katrin Williams

Place of birth: Llanbedr-y-Cennin

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1914 - 1918

Death: 1918/11/08, Llanbedr-y-Cennin, Influenza / Ffliw

Memorial: St Tudnos Churchyard, Llandudno, Caernarfonshire

Notes: Aldwyth was the only daughter of the Rector of Llanbedr-y-Cennin. She joined the VAD early in the war, and worked for three days a week in the Red Cross hospitals in Llandudno, cooking and cleaning as well as nursing. She was 26 when she died.

Sources: http://historypoints.org/index.php?page=great-orme-grave-aldwyth-williams

Reference: WaW0262

Grave of Aldwyth Williams

Grave of Aldwyth Katrin Williams, St Tudno’s Church, Great Orme, Llandudno. Photo courtesy of Laurence Manton

Newspaper report

Report of the funeral of Aldwyth Katrin Williams, Y Clorianydd, 27th November 1918, Identical reports were published in Y Cymro and Y Dydd.rn

Elizabeth Thirza Gorvin

Place of birth: Cardiff ?

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1915 - 1919

Notes: Thirza Gorvin worked as an unpaid volunteer at Hospitals in Cardiff and Monmouthshire. Image and information provided by Glamorgan Archives.

Reference: WaW0266

Thirza Gorvin

Signed photograph of Thirza Gorvin in VAD uniform. Courtesy of Glamorgan Archivesrn

Red Cross Record card

Red Cross card for Thirza Gorvinrn

Red Cross card for Thirza Gorvin (reverse)

Red Cross card for Thirza Gorvin (reverse)

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)

Phyllis Marguerite Evans

Place of birth: Llanelli

Service: Nurse, VAD, January 1915 - February 1919 /

Notes: Phyllis worked first as an orderly, then as a nurse, at Parc Howard Red Cross Hospital, Llanelli. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross in February 1918.

Reference: WaW0271

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Phyllis Evans

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Red Cross record for Phyllis Evans (reverse)

Newspaper report

Report of Phyllis Evans’s award of the Royal Red Cross. Llanelly Star 23rd February 1918.

Mary Andrews

Place of birth: Briton Ferry

Service: Nurse, VAD ?

Notes: Mary Andrews was awarded the Royal Red Cross in May 1919. She served at Oswestry Military Hospital.

Reference: WaW0272

Helen Beveridge

Place of birth: Abergavenny ?

Service: Nurse, Scottish Womens Hospitals, November 1916 - September 1919

Notes: Born in 1887, Helen volunteered for the Scottish Women’s Hospitals on November 1916, and left immediately for Salonika. She remained in Serbia until she was invalided home in the summer of 1919. She was awarded the medal of the Royal Serbian Red Cross for her work there.

Reference: WaW0274

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Helen Beveridge

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Red Cross record for Helen Beveridge (reverse)

Newspaper report

Report of a gift of a wrist watch to Helen Beveridge at Frogmore St Baptist Church. Abergavenny Chronicle 24th November 1916.

Newspaper report

Report of Helen’s return from Serbia. Abergavenny Chronicle 26th September 1919