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.

Mary Thompson Ritchings

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Doctor, Commandant, VAD

Notes: Born in 1879, Dr Mary Ritchings was Commandant of the Swansea Volunteer Aid Detachment by 1912. In 1915 she became medical director of the YMCA Red Cross Hospital, one of the largest in Wales with 360 beds. She worked here until the end of the war, but also continued to hold weekly sessions at the Mother and Baby Welcome, a pioneering baby clinic which was commended by Queen Mary, among others. She was awarded the MBE in June 1918.

Reference: WaW0250

Newspaper photograph

Photograph of Dr Ritchings with a soldier patient.

Newspaper photograph

Inspection of Swansea VAD, with Mary Ritchings Commandant. Cambrian Daily Leader 31st October 1913.

Red Cross record card

Record card for Dr Mary Ritchings.

Newspaper report

Report of Mary Ritchings's work at the Mothers and Babies Welcome.

Frances Mary Dulcie Llewellyn-Jones

Place of birth: Llandow

Service: Driver, WRAF, 1918:11:13

Death: Mexborough Military Hospital, Yorkshire, Influenza / Y Ffliw?

Memorial: Christchurch graveyard, Newport, Monmouthshire

Notes: Aged 22. Daughter of the Rev. David Ernest Llewellyn-Jones and Frances Eliza Sophia of Maindee Vicarage, Newport.

Reference: WaW0093

Grave of Dulcie Llewellyn-Jones

Grave of Dulcie Llewellyn-Jones, Christchurch Cemetery, Newport

Frances Llewellyn-Jones' Service

Frances Llewellyn-Jones's service record

Newspaper report

Newspaper report of Frances Llewellyn Jones's death

Newport Roll of Honour

Dulcie Llewellyn-Jones's name on Newport Roll of Honour

Dorothi James (Robertson)

Place of birth: Swansea ?

Service: Driver, 1915 – 17 ?

Notes: Dorothi, an extremely athletic young women, learned to drive early in the War. In 1916 she became Lloyd George’s driver; he was Minister for Munitions at that date. In 1917 she married Lieut Frederick Robertson. Fred was badly wounded at some stage during the War and his life was saved by the Canadian surgeon and blood transfusion pioneer Bruce Robinson. He became their son’s Godfather in 1922.

Reference: WaW0288

Newspaper report

Report of Dorothi’s employment as Lloyd George’s driver. Cambria Daily Leader 9th March 1916

Marriage notice

Notice of marriage between Dorothi James and Lt Frederick Robertson. Cambria Daily Leader 9th March 1916.

Letter

Letter from Dorothi asking Dr Robertson to be her son’s Godfather. July 21st 1922. Courtesy Archives of Ontario

Esther Davies

Place of birth: Swansea ?

Service: Driver

Death: 1919/09/22, Gowerton, Septicaemia / Gwenwyn gwaed

Notes: Esther Davies, aged about 30, died after complications from a miscarriage. A Swansea midwife, Mary Lavinia Beynon [qv], was charged with her murder, the charge being that she had used an instrument to procure an abortion. Esther Davies, described as ‘a woman of prepossessing appearance’, seems to have lived a rackety life driving for the Munitions service whilst her husband was in the army. ‘Gentlemen friends’ and ‘visits to Birmingham’ with another woman, Nurse Poulson, were reported in the Swansea press. She had been fined 10s by Neath Magistrates Court in 1917 for failing to produce her driving licence; on that occasion Esther was described as ‘stylishly dressed’ and ‘still smiling’. Mrs Beynon, a Police Inspector’s wife, was found not guilty.

Reference: WaW0302

Newspaper report

Cambria Daily Leader 1st June 1917.

Press photograph

Photograph of Mrs Esther Davies, South Wales Weekly Post 13th September 1919.

Newspaper report

Report of first court hearing of the Esther Davies case. South Wales Weekly Post 16th August 1919.

Newspaper report

Report of verdict in the Esther Davies murder case. South Wales Weekly Post, 8th November 1919.

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.

Sources: https://tochcentenary.wordpress.com/2020/01/05/the-women-who-knew-talbot-house/?fbclid=IwAR3pjQb2iBRWs1CH1vjyMJC9ek1RiF5eCHWPM6HfXW2FK3BuGVzRfwe-vCk

Reference: WaW0414

Red Cross record card

Record card for Ella MacLaverty.

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Record card for Ella MacLaverty (reverse)

Communicant’s slip

Communicant’s slip for Talbot House, the Toc H church centre in Poperinge, Flanders.

Oliver Annie Wheeler

Place of birth: Brecon

Service: Educationalist and pscychologist

Death: 1963, Cause not known

Notes: Olive Wheeler was born in Brecon in 1885 and attended the County Girls School there. Obviously a prized old girl of the school, she gave a speech at the 21st anniversary celebrations of the headmistress, Miss Davies, in 1917. Olive was a student at University College, Aberystwyth gaining her BSc in 1907 and MSc in 1911, and serving as President of the Student Representative Council. She then left for Bedford College London where she gained her doctorate. She did not return to Wales until the early ‘20s. She succeeded Millicent MacKenzie [qv] as Labour Candidate for the Welsh Universities in the 1922 election, and became Professor of Education at Cardiff in 1925. In 1949 Olive was made a Dame for Services to education in Wales.

Sources: https://biography.wales/article/s2-WHEE-ANN-1886\\r\\nhttps://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/cuarm/inspirational-people-1-dame-olive-wheeler

Reference: WaW0452

Olive Wheeler

Photograph of Olive Wheeler, probably taken when she was an MSc student at Aberystwyth.

Newspaper report

Report of Olive Wheeler’s attendance at Brecon County School celebrations. Brecon and Radnor Express 2nd August 1917.

Dame Olive Wheeler

Photograph of Dame Olive Wheeler, 1950.

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

Professor Millicent Mackenzie

Professor Millicent MacKenzie 1915

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

Gwladys Perrie Williams (Morris)

Place of birth: Llanrwst

Service: Educationalist, administrator, WLA

Death: 1958/07/13, Cause not known

Notes: Born 1889 to Welsh speaking parents, Gwladys was the star pupil at Llanrwst County (one of only two members of the 6th Form there), and a graduate of University College Bangor. She was awarded a fellowship to study mediaeval French at the Sorbonne, Paris, and received a DLitt in 1915. Her edition of Le Bel Inconnu (1929) is still read. Back in Wales 1917 she was appointed WLA organising inspector in South Wales. Gwladys was admitted to Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion in 1918. She published ‘Welsh Education in Sunlight & Shadow’ (1919), comparing Welsh and French Intermediate education based on her own experiences. It includes a large number of Central Welsh Board examination papers from Junior Certificate to degree level. She married in 1918 [Sir] Rhys Hopkins Morris, first head of BBC Wales and MP for Carmarthen West, but kept her own name professionally. They met at Bangor University.

Reference: WaW0415

Newspaper report

Report showing Gwladys Perrie Williams’s school achievements. The Weekly News 27th December 1907.

Newspaper report

Report of Gwladys’ membership of the Society of Cymmrodorion.

Book

Welsh Education in Sunlight & Shadow. Constable 1918.

Book

Gwladys’s edition of Le Bel Inconnu, 1991 printing.

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes

Place of birth: Carmarthen

Service: Educationalist, traveller, commandant, VAD, 1814 - 1919

Death: 1925/12/19, Barry, Cause not known

Notes: Elizabeth Phillips Hughes was 63 when WWI broke out. She had a distinguished record of work. An early student at Newnham College Cambridge, she set up the first teacher training college in Cambridge in1885. In later years. She travelled across the US to study prison reform, and then to Japan as a visiting lecturer in English at the University of Tokyo (1901 -02). She was a keen mountaineer, climbing the Matterhorn at the age of 48. On her return to Wales, she was the only women on the committee drafting the university of Wales’s first charter. She was a member and organiser of the British Red Cross before the War, and became Commandant of the Dock View Red Cross Hospital in Barry. In 1917 Elizabeth Hughes was the first ‘lady recipient’ of the new MBE in Wales. Hughes Hall Cambridge is named after her.

Reference: WaW0439

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes

Photograph of Elizabeth Hughes taken in the 1890s.

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Elizabeth Phillips Hughes.

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Red Cross record for Elizabeth Hughes Phillips, with typed details of her Red Cross service.

London Gazette

Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of MBE in the London Gazette, 24th August 1917.

Newspaper report

First part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [1]

Newspaper report

Part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [2]

Newspaper report

Part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [3]

Newspaper report

Part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [4]

Newspaper report

Final part of a long report recording Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’s award of the MBE, with a long account of her achievements. Barry Dock News 31st August 1917 [5]