Mabel Booker

Place of birth: Southerndown ?

Service: VAD, VAD, May 1915 – May 1917

Notes: Mabel Booker was not so involved with Tuscar House Hospital as her sisters [Etta, Nellie, Ethel and Dulcie qv], though she was ‘ready to help when required’, and clocked up 500 hours service.

Reference: WaW0473

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Mabel Booker

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Reverse of Red Cross card for Mabel Booker, showing her activity.

Ethel Anna Booker

Place of birth: Southerndown ?

Service: Nurse, Quartermaster, Commandant, VAD, 1915/04/01 – 1919/04/30

Notes: Ethel Booker began her service at Tuscar House as a voluntary kitchen-maid, but became an efficient quartermaster in August 1915. She became Commandant of the hospital following the death of her sister Nellie [qv] in 1917. Her record of service (filled out by her mother Caroline [qv]) says she lived at the hospital and took no leave for the last 18 months of her time there. Ethel and her sister Dulcie [qv] were the prime organisers of events both for fundraising and for amusing the patients at the hospital.rn

Reference: WaW0474

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Ethel Booker

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Reverse of Ethel Booker’s Card, detailing her service, and written by her mother. Caroline Booker.

Tuscar House

Tuscar House Red Cross Hospital, Southerndown. The house was used as a hospital in WW2 as well.

Newspaper report

Report of a Grand Matinée given at Bridgend Cinema by the soldiers of Tuscar House (and others). Glamorgan Gazette 29th November 1918

Newspaper report

Report of a presentation to Ethel and Dulcie Booker when Tuscar House hospital closed in April 1919. Glamorgan Gazette 4th April 1919

Dulcie Booker

Place of birth: Southerndown ?

Service: Nurse, Sister-in-charge, Treasurer, Financial Secretary, VAD, 1914/10/01 – 1919/04/30

Notes: Dulcie Booker managed the finances involved in setting up Tuscar House Hospital as well as its day-to-day running costs. From 1917 she also acted as Sister in Charge of the hospital. She took a main part, together with her sister Mabel [qv] in arranging entertainments for the patients, including leading the Tuscar Red Cross Hospital Band. She was a sought-after local accompanist.

Reference: WaW0475

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record for Dulcie Booker.

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Reverse of Red Cross record for Dulcie Booker, showing her service at Tuscar Hospital.

Newspaper report

Report of a ‘welcome home’ reception which included a performance by the Tuscar Hospital Band. Glamorgan Gazette 19th July 1918

Newspaper report

Report of a Grand Matinée given at Bridgend Cinema by the soldiers of Tuscar House (and others). Glamorgan Gazette 29th November 1918

Newspaper report

Report of a presentation to Dulcie and Ethel Booker when Tuscar House hospital closed in April 1919. Glamorgan Gazette 4th April 1919

Lily Briggs

Place of birth: Barry ?

Service: Prostitute

Notes: Lily Briggs was sentenced to twenty one days hard labour in July 1915 for ‘trying to entice young soldiers [from the camp at Nell’s Point, Barry Island] into the fields’. She also used ‘filthy language’ when arrested.

Reference: WaW0476

Newspaper report

Report of the court appearance and sentence of Lily Briggs, ‘a common prostitute’. Barry Dock News 9th July 1915.rnrn

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Thomas

Place of birth: Seven Sisters

Service: Nurse, QAIMNSR, 1915 - 1920

Death: 1921/09/27, Neath ?, Tuberculosis / Y dicléin

Memorial: Seven Sisters , Glamorgan

Notes: Born in 1890, Lizzie attended Neath County School and trained as a nurse at Swansea General and Eye Hospital. She volunteered for QAIMNS Reserve in 1915, and was sent to Salonika via Egypt in November. It is said that the troopship she was on was torpedoed, and that she spent some hours in the water. She returned home in December 1916, and in January 1917 was given a reception by the local community, including the presentation of a medal and the singingof an embarrassingly effusive poem in Welsh. She spent the rest of the War, until she was demobbed in October 1920, at Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross in April 1919. Lizzie returned home to nurse in Neath, but died less than a year later of TB. Her name appears on the Seven Sisters War Memorial

Sources: Jonathan Skidmore: Neath and Briton Ferry in the First World War

Reference: WaW0477

Elizabeth Thomas

Lizzie Thomas in uniform

Poem / song

The embarrassing song performed at the reception for Nurse Thomas in January 1917. ‘Composed by Mr R. D. Harris and sung by Messrs. D. T. Davies and John Hughes’. Llais Llafur 6th January 1917

Army Form W. 3538

Lizzie Thomas’s new posting to Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham, 1st September 1917

Seven Sisters War Memorial

Photograph taken shortly after its opening 1920?

Betty Morris

Place of birth: Haverfordwest

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1915/05/27 – 1918/07/12.

Notes: Betty Morris joined the VAD in May 1915, working originally in Cottesmore Auxiliary Hospital, Haverfordwest. In November she was posted to France, initially to Boulogne but was soon promoted to ‘a larger hospital’, where at 20, she was the youngest nurse. She was a fluent French speaker, and remained with the VAD until July 1918. Excerpts from some of her letters home were published in the Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph.

Reference: WaW0478

Newspaper photograph Llun papur newydd

Photograph of Betty Morris in outdoor VAD uniform. Haverfordwest and Milton Haven Telegraph 16th February 1916

Newspaper report

Newspaper report of Betty Morris’s departure to France. Haverfordwest and Milton Haven Telegraph 10th November 1915rn rn

Newspaper report

Report of Betty Morris’s Christmas in France. Haverfordwest and Milton Haven Telegraph 16th February 1916

M Hopkins

Place of birth: Barry ?

Service: Locomotive Ckeaner, Barry Railway Company

Notes: On 17th July 1917 M Hopkins is recorded in the Barry Railway accident book as having cut her hand on a piece of wire (potentially a serious injury, as blood poisoning was a possibility). She was 24 years old, and paid 18 shillings a week.rn

Sources: Women and the Barry Railway.\\r\\nBlog by Mike Esbester on March 22, 2021 \\r\\n

Reference: WaW0479

Photograph

Women locomotive cleaners at work

Maude Downs

Place of birth: Barry ?

Service: Locomotive cleaner , Barry Railway Company

Notes: The Barry Railway accident book reveals that Maud, aged 23, was injured while working underneath an engine on 17th September 1917. A large spring fell on her foot. Her wages are recorded as 23 shillings a week.

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

Reference: WaW0480

Photograph

Women locomotive cleaners at work

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

Asa Fish

Place of birth: Swansea ?

Service: Munitions worker

Notes:
Ada was a 22 year-old munitions worker from Hafod, Swansea. She was working in a munitions factory in Sheffield when she won £1 in a beauty competition sponsored by the Sheffield Telegraph.

Reference: WaW0482

Newspaper report and photograph

Ada Fish in munitions worker’s uniform. The Cambria Daily Leader, 8 April 1919.