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 Edith Nepean (née Bellis)

Place of birth: Llandudno

Service: Novelist, artist, columnist, VAD Commandant, VAD, 1914 - 1919

Death: 1960, Llandudno ?, Cause not known

Memorial: St Tudnos Church, Llandudno, Caernarfon

Notes: Edith Nepean was born in 1876; her father John Bellis was Overseer of the Poor in Llandudno. She was a talented artist, winning a silver medal at the National Eisteddfod in Caernarfon, 1894, as well as painting and literary prizes at local eisteddfodau. She married Molyneux Edward Nepean in 1899 and moved to SE England. In 1914 she was appointed Commandant of the Folkestone Detachment of the Red Cross, a post she held until 1919. She published her first romantic novel, ‘Gwyneth of the Welsh Hills’ in 1917. This was turned into a silent film in 1921. This was followed by ‘Welsh Love’ and many other similar titles. She also wrote for contemporary film magazines.

Sources: https://womenandsilentbritishcinema.wordpress.com/the-women/edith-nepean\r\n http://historypoints.org/index.php?page=grave-of-mary-edith-nepean

Reference: WaW0269

Edith Nepean

Edith Nepean c 1930

Newspaper report

Report of Edith Bellis’s success in the 1894 Eisteddfod. The Weekly News and Visitors Chronicle 20th July 1894

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card detailing Edith Nepean’s service.

Gwyneth of the Welsh Hills

Edith’s first novel, Gwyneth of the Welsh Hills. Lloyd George is said to have encouraged her writing.

Newspaper publicity

Publicity for Edith’s novel Welsh Love. Cambria Daily Leader 17 September 1919.

Picture Show Annual 1932

Some of Edith Nepean’s writing about film, 1932.

Nora Tempest (Soutter)

Place of birth: Dundalk, Ireland

Service: Teacher, cook, VAD, 1915 - 1916

Notes: Nora Tempest, born 1886, was a popular domestic science mistress at Carmarthen County Girls School. She joined the Scottish Women’s Hospitals to serve as a cook at Kragujevac Hospital. She was caught up in the great retreat after the Austrians invaded Serbia, walking for seven weeks through the mountains of Montenegro and Albania in winter. She arrived home on Christmas Eve, 1915. She is said to have taken many photographs of the retreat. After her return she married and settled back in Ireland.

Reference: WaW0275

Newspaper report

Short account of Nora’s experiences on the retreat from Serbia. Carmarthen Weekly Reporter 21st January 1916

Newspaper report

Report of Nora’s visit back to Carmarthen County Girls School. Carmarthen Journal 9th June 1916

G(w)ladys Sails

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Nurse, VAD

Death: 1917/12/15, Mumbles, meningitis

Notes: Gladys (or Gwladys, both spellings occur) worked as a VAD at Danycoed Red Cross Hospital, Swansea, where she contracted the illness that became meningitis. She was 28 when she died, and was well-known in Swansea for swimming in the ladies’ water polo team.

Reference: WaW0287

Newspaper report

Report of the death of Gwladys Sails. Cambria Daily Leader 17th December 1917.

Newspaper report

Report of the funeral of Gwladys Sails. Cambria Daily Leader 19th December 1917.

Newspaper report

Report of names, including Gladys’s, for Swansea Ladies’ Water Polo Team. Evening Express 12th October 1907.

Ada Maude Cecil

Place of birth: Talywain, Pontypool

Service: Nurse, VAD

Notes: Ada Cecil joined the VAD in 1917 aged 20. For some reason she has four Red Cross record cards; three pink and one white. Initially she nursed in Wales, but later was posted to the New Zealand Military Hospital in Weybridge, Surrey, and Staffordshire. Ada was a member of Pisgah Baptist Church, Talywain, and is commemorated on the roll of honour in the church.

Reference: WaW0290

Red Cross record card

One of Ada’s four Red Cross cards.

Red cross record card (reverse)

Reverse of the same card, showing Ada Cecil’s various postings.rnrn

Roll of Honour

Ada Cecil’s name on the Roll of Honour at Pisgah Baptist Church, Talywain, Pontypool.rnrn

Dorothy Caroline Edmondes (née Nicholl)

Place of birth: Usk

Service: Nurse, masseur, VAD

Death: 1963, Cause not known

Notes: Dorothy was born in 1871, daughter of a landowning family in Merthyr Mawr. Her husband, Major Charles Edmondes, died in 1911. She joined the VAD in 1915 as a nurse, but had at some stage trained in massage (physiotherapy). In 1917 she set up an outpatient orthopaedic clinic at the Red Cross Hospital in Bridgend, at which she was head masseuse, a post she held until 1922. She was awarded an OBE in that year ‘for work among the wounded and ex-service men in Bridgend’. Dorothy Edmondes stood as a Conservative candidate for Ogmore in the 1922 general election.

Reference: WaW0296

Dorothy Edmondes

Dorothy Edmondes in nurse’s uniform

Red Cross record card

Record card for Mrs Dorothy Edmondes

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Red Cross card for Mrs Dorothy Edmondes (reverse)

OBE citation

OBE citation for Dorothy Edmondes, London Gazette 2 January 1922

Mary Ellen Herbert

Place of birth: Llangeitho

Service: Dispenser, VAD, 1917 - 1919

Notes: Mary Ellen Herbert was appointed Chief Dispenser to the Military Hospital in Whitchurch, Shropshire, in May 1917. She was then 28. She had previously worked at the King Edward VII Hospital in Cardiff. In October of that year she transferred to the Welsh Hospital, Netley, part of the enormous complex of military hospitals in Hampshire.

Reference: WaW0297

Newspaper report

Report of Mary Herbert’s appointment to Whitchurch Military Hospital. Cambrian News 13th July 1917.

Red Cross record card

Red cross card for dispenser Mary Ellen Herbert.

Welsh Hospital, Netley

The Welsh Hospital, Netley.

Gabrielle (Bobby) West

Place of birth: Bournemouth

Service: Cook / Policewomen, VAD, 1916 - 1917

Death: 1990, Cause not known

Notes: Gabrielle (Bobby) West was the youngest of five children of a clergyman. Initially she volunteered as a VAD cook, but could not afford to continue to work unpaid, so began paid work at a munitions canteen in London. When police women began to be recruited to work in munitions factories she and her friend Miss Buckpitt joined. After a brief posting to Queensferry NEF they were promoted to Pembrey in January 1917. Her account of her time at Pembrey paints a very full picture of what life was like for the workers there. See her account of Mary Morgan [qv] and her fits. In May 1917 she was transferred to the Royal Ordnance factory, Rotherwas Hereford. When she was 89 years old Bobby was recorded for the Imperial War Museum’s oral archives.

Sources: ed Avalon Richards Menus Munitions and Keeping the Peace: The Home Front Diaries of Gabrielle West 1914 -1917. Pen&Sword 2016https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80008574

Reference: WaW0308

Gabrielle West

Gabrielle (Bobby) West in police uniform. She is back row, second from left.

Pembrey

Gabrielle’s drawing of the danger buildings at Pembrey. ‘.. where the most dangerous work is done, the sheds are actually inside the hills.'

Dorothea Adelaide Lawry Pughe Jones

Place of birth: Surrey

Service: Suffragist, Commandant, Ethnographer, Educationalist, Public servant, Church Warden, Heiress., VAD, 1914 - 1920

Death: 1955, Cause not known

Notes: Dorothea Pughe Jones, born 1875, inherited Ynysgain, Cricieth from her father in 1897. Following his death she attended Oxford University where she studied history followed by a diploma in ethnography. She was awarded a prize at the 1901 National Eisteddfod for a Welsh history textbook. In 1902 she was part of a British Government team inspecting education in the concentration camps for Boers in South Africa. In 1910 she was one of the founders of the Bangor and District Women’s Suffrage Society. She joined the VAD in 1914, initially as Quartermaster of Caernarfon, but volunteered for service in France in 1915. She was Commandant of the Hotel des Anglaises, the hostel for the relatives of wounded officers in Le Touquet, France, for which she was awarded the MBE. Whilst in France she was appointed Churchwarden in Cricieth despite objections that she was ‘a lady’. In November 1918 she was posted to Salonika as Principal Commandant of the VAD, until May 1920. After her return she was sent by the Government to research openings for women in Australia.

Sources: GB 0210 YNYSGAIN - Pughe-Jones of Ynysgain Collection of Deeds and Papers National Library of Wales Women members and witnesses on British Government ad hoc Committees of Inquiry Elaine Harrison, London School of Economics, Doctor of Philosophy, 1998.

Reference: WaW0320

Dorothea Pughe Jones

Dorothea Pughe Jones in VAD Commandant’s uniform.

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card for Dorothea Pughe Jones. She had three cards in all.

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Reverse of card listing Dorothea’s VAD career.

Newspaper report

Report of Dorothea Pughe Jones’s Eisteddfod prize. Cambrian News 23rd August 1901.

Newspaper report

Report of Dorothea Pughe Jones’s return from South Africa. Cambrian News 8th May 1903.

Newspaper report

Report of meeting of AGM of Bangor and District Women’s Suffrage Society. North Wales Express 2nd December 1910.

Postcard

Postcard of Hotel des Anglaises, the VAD hostel in Le Touquet run by Dorothea Pughe Jones.

Newspaper report

Report of Dorothea’s appointment as churchwarden. North Wales Chronicle 20th April 1917.

Newspaper report

Australian newspaper report of Dorothea Pughe Jones’s role in the enquiry into openings in Australia for women from the UK. The Advertiser 10th January 1920 Adelaide S Australia.

Helen Olive Rees

Place of birth: Cardiff

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1917 - 1919

Notes: Olive seems to have joined the VAD in December 1917. She spent most of her service in naval hospitals, in Chelsea and Chatham. Her name appears in the printed Roll of Honour of Charles Street Congregational Church, Cardiff.rnrn

Reference: WaW0329

Roll of Honour

Name of Olive Rees on the Roll of Honour of Charles Street Congregational Church, Cardiff.

Red Cross record card

Red cross card for Olive Rees VAD.

Red Cross record card

Reverse of second Red Cross card for Olive Rees, showing service at RNH Chatham.