Rachel Barber

Place of birth: Barry ?

Service: Locomotive cleaner , Barry Railway Company

Notes: On 10 September 1917 Rachel suffered a cut forehead when emerging from underneath an engine where she had been working, and meeting a swinging coupling. She was 23 and earned 25s 3d a week. Average pay for working women at that date were around 10 shillings a week.

Sources: Women and the Barry Railway.Blog by Mike Esbester on March 22, 2021

Reference: WaW0481

Photograph

Women locomotive cleaners at work

Flossie Abbott

Place of birth: Bridgend ?

Service: Clerk, Bridgend Food Control Committee, 1919

Notes: In October 1919 Flossie Abbott requested a pay rise from £1 12s 6d a week to £2 10s, to gain parity with the clerk of Penybont Food Control Committee. A man doing the same job would have received £3 a week. Only one member of the committee opposed the motion.

Reference: WaW0351

Newspaper report

Report of the meeting of the Bridgend Food Committee, where Flossie Abbott’s pay-rise was agreed. Glamorgan Gazette 17th October 1919.

Margaret Ker Pryse-Rice (Stewart)

Place of birth: Cardiganshire

Service: Red Cross president, Brisitsh Red Cross Society

Death: 1948, Cause not known

Notes: Margaret Pryse-Rice was the mother of Dorothea and Nest. She was President of the Carmarthenshire Branch of the British Red Cross Society and was made a Dame of the British Empire in the New Year Honours of 1918. She died in 1948, aged 72.

Reference: WaW0205

Margaret Pryse-Rice

Margaret Pryse-Rice, c.1890

London Gazette 7th January 1918

London Gazette 7th January 1918, showing the name of Margaret Pryse-Rice

Newspaper report

Report of Margaret Pryse-Rice’s honour in the Carmarthen Journal. The Cambrian News reported it too, but only mentioned her husband’s achievements!

Alys Bertie Perkins (née Sandbrook)

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Commandant and committee woman, British Red Cross

Notes: Alys Bertie Perkins was Commandant and Secretary of Swansea Red Cross Society, and commandant in charge of recruitment across the whole county of Glamorgan. By early 1918 Swansea was reported to have the greatest number of Red Cross hospital beds in the whole of South Wales. She was awarded the OBE in January 1918, when she described by the Cambria Daily Leader as ‘the enthusiastic and popular Sketty Red Cross worker and organiser’.

Reference: WaW0369

Alys Bertie Perkins

Photograph of Alys Bertie Perkins OBE, part of the Women’s Work Collections of the Imperial War Museumrn

Newspaper advertisement

Advertisement for a Red Cross course of first aid and nursing. Cambria Daily Leader 22nd February 1916.

Edinburgh Gazette

Supplement to the Edinburgh Gazette, with Alys Bertie Perkins’s award of OBE January 9th 1918.

Dorothy Curtis

Place of birth: Penarth

Service: Munitions worker, Cardiff National Shell Factory

Notes: Dorothy Curtis was a worker, possibly a supervisor, at the Cardiff National Shell Factory, in Grangetown. The reverse of the photograph reads ‘With much love from trousers 328 CN.SF 1918’. Image and information courtesy of Glamorgan Archives (DXFX19)rn

Reference: WaW0270

Dorothy Curtis

Dorothy Curtis in uniform holding a hammer. Notice her suitable footwear! Copyright Glamorgan Archives.rnrn

Dorothy Curtis (reverse)

Inscription on back of the photograph of Dorothy ‘With much love from trousers’ Copyright Glamorgan Archives.rn

Isabelle Eugenie Marie Barbier

Place of birth: Cardiff 1885

Service: Nurse, CHR, 11/08/1914 - 1919

Notes: Isabelle Barbier was one of the daughters of Paul Barbier, professor of French at Cardiff University. She trained as a nurse at Bristol Royal Infirmary. Called up very early in the war, she was called upon to help Maud MacCarthy, the Principal Matron in France, who had crossed to France at the same time and who spoke no French. Isabelle became her personal assistant throughout the War, working in France and Flanders. She later became a nun, and died in 1982 aged 96.

Sources: http://www.fairestforce.co.uk/6.html

Reference: WaW0104

Elsie Janet Evans

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Nurse, Civilian Hospital Reserve, 1914/08/16 -

Notes: Formerly a nurse in Cardiff, Elsie volunteered for France at the outbreak of War. She was one of the first nurses during the War to be decorated with the Royal Red Cross ‘for indomitable bravery and devotion’ whilst under a week’s heavy fire at a hospital in Loos. She was presented with her medal by the King at Buckingham Palace on 20th May 1916.

Sources: Cambrian Daily Leader 26 May / Mai 1916

Reference: WaW0154

Newspaper Account

Newspaper account of the presentation of Elsie Evans’s Royal Red Cross at Buckingham Palace 20th May 1916.

Louisa Parry

Place of birth: Holyhead

Service: Stewardess, CPSPCo, 1914 - 1918

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

Memorial: War Memorial, Holyhead, Anglesey

Notes: aged 22. RMS Leinster was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. LP died together with Hannah Owen.

Sources: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3929-wanted-photos-nationwide/&page=19

Reference: WaW0042

Holyhead War Memorial

Name of Louisa Parry on Holyhead War Memorial

Welsh National Book of Remembrance

Name of Louisa Parry in the Welsh National Book of Remembrance

Mary (Polly) Phillips

Place of birth: Swansea ?

Service: Stewardess, Cunard

Notes: Polly Phillips had been a stewardess with the Cunard company from about 1911, based in Glasgow. She was on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed on 7th May 1915. It was not known initially whether she had survived but the good news came when her brother and his family ‘were at church’ in Swansea.

Reference: WaW0276

Newspaper report

Report of the survival of Polly Phillips, stewardess on the Lusitania. Cambria Daily Leader 10 May 1915

Mary Elizabeth Jones

Place of birth: Llanfairfechan

Service: Stewardess, Cunard Steam Ship Company, \\\'Many years\\\'

Death: 1915/05/17, SS Lusio, Cause not known

Memorial: Mercantile Marine Memorial to the Missing, Tower Hill, London

Sources: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/visit/floor-plan/lusitania/people/peoples-stories.aspx?id=15547

Reference: WaW0256

Newspaper article

Report of Nurse Edwards’s home leave, Yr Adsain 27th February 1917