Blodwen Phillips (later Jones)

Place of birth: Landore

Service: Elocutionist, Clerk, WAAC, WFAF, 1917 0 1919

Notes: Blodwen Phillips was ‘the first lady from the area to volunteer for active service’. She was among the group of WAAC clerks to be sent to France in early summer 1917. She wrote to the Cambria Daily Leader about the WAACs’ reception in France, and about their activities. In 1918 she transferred to the WRAF. One of her WAAC officers was a Miss Ace, perhaps Ivy Ace [qv]. In December 1919 she married Mr H W Jones of Southport at Capel Gomer, Swansea.

Reference: WaW0488

Newspaper report

Report of Blodwen Phillips's impressions of WAAC life in France. The Cambria Daily Leader 14th May 1918.

Newspaper report

Report of Blodwen Phillips’s marriage to H W Jones. South Wales Daily Post December 24th 1919.

Edith Phillips (Humphreys)

Place of birth: Pontypool

Service: Sweetheart

Notes: Edith was a friend of the Humphreys family (see Elizabeth Humphreys). Both Owen and George Humphreys wrote to her regularly, and Owen gave her a rosary he found on the battlefield. Owen was killed in November 1916. Edith married George in 1923.

Reference: WaW0136

Edith (née Phillips) and George Humphreys

Wedding photograph of Edith (née Phillips) and George Humphreys with family members. She is sitting right, with George standing behind her. 1923

Rosary

Rosary found on the battlefield by Owen Humphreys, given to Edith Phillips.

Postcard

Postcard from George Humphreys to Edith Phillips, postmarked 20th March 1915

Field postcard

Field Postcard sent to Edith Phillips by Owen Humphreys, Sept 8th 1916.

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 Phillips (Eppynt)

Place of birth: Merthyr Cynog, Brecon

Service: Doctor, Scottish Womens Hospitals, Royal Army Medical Corp, 1914 - 1919

Death: 1956, Cause not known

Notes: Born 1874, Mary Phillips, who took the name ‘Eppynt’ from the mountains near her birthplace, was the first women to train as a doctor at University College, Cardiff (1894 – 8), and subsequently worked in England. She was a supporter of NUWSS, and sometimes spoke at meetings. On 8th December 1914 she received a telegram from the NUWSS-supported Scottish Women’s Hospitals asking her to go to their hospital in Calais ‘at once’. She remained there until April 1915, when she joined the SWH at Valjevo, Serbia. She was invalided home with fever just before many SWH members were captured by the Austrian/Bulgarian army [see Elizabeth Clement, Gwenllian Morris]. In April 1916 she was appointed medical hospital at the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Ajaccio, Corsica, where many of the refugees from the retreat from Serbia were accommodated. She served there for 14 months before returning to tour England and Wales raising funds for the Serbian Hospitals; she was a noted speaker in Welsh and English. In 1918 she went to London to work at the Endell Street Military Hospital in London, a 573-bed hospital staffed entirely by women, most of them suffragettes. After the War she became Deputy Medical Officer of Health for Merthyr Tydfil.

Reference: WaW0362

Dr Mary Eppynt Phillips

Dr Mary Eppynt Phillips in the uniform of the Royal Army Medical Corps, photograph taken in 1920. Imperial War Museum.

Telegram

Telegram asking Dr Phillips to proceed to Calais, 8th September 1914. National Library of Wales.

Newspaper article

Report of Dr Phillips’s work during the War. Brecon County Times19th July 1917.

Newspaper report

Report of the award to Dr Phillips of the insignia of the order of St Java [sic, actually Sava] by the King of Serbia. Brecon and Radnor Express 22nd August 1918.

Curriculum vitae

Copy of Dr Phillips cv, 1920. Thanks to Peoples’ Collection Wales.

Endell Street Military Hospital

An operation in progress at Endell Street Military Hospital.

Violet Phillips

Place of birth: Newport

Service: Worker, WAAC/QMAAC, 1917 - 1919

Death: 1919-03-08, Chadderton Hostel, Cause not known

Memorial: St Woolos, Newport, Monmouthshire

Notes: Violet was the daughter of Mrs C.M.Phillips, 32 Barrack Hill, Newport, Mon.

Sources: http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/390079/PHILLIPS,%20V

Reference: WaW0118

Grave of Violet Phillips

Grave of Violet Phillips, St Woolos Cemetery, Newport

Emily Frost Phipps

Place of birth: Devonport

Service: Teacher, activist, barrister

Death: 1943, Heart disease / Clefyd y galon

Notes: Born November 1865 and the daughter of a dockyard coppersmith, Emily Phipps worked her way from pupil teacher to headmistress of Swansea Municipal Girls’ School in 1895. She was an active feminist, boycotting the 1911 census with her partner Clara Neal (and three others, staying in a sea-cave overnight), was President of the National Union of Women Teachers 1915, 1916 and 1917, and was the editor of the Union journal. She promoted professional careers for girls, shocking some in March 1914 by suggesting that they could become dentists. Emily Phipps stood for Parliament, for Chelsea, in the 1918 election, one of only two women in Wales to stand. She later studied for the bar, and became a barrister in 1925.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Frost_Phipps

Reference: WaW0247

Emily Frost Phipps

Emily Phipps in academic dress

Newspaper headline

Headline to report of Emily Phipps’s speech at Municipal Secondary Schools Prizegiving, 20th March 1914. Cambrian Daily Leader 21st March 1914rnrn

Newspaper report

Report on women candidates’ results in the 1918 General Election. Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard 3rd January 1919.rn

Emily Ada Pickford (née Pearn)

Place of birth: Penarth

Service: Entertainer

Death: -1919-07.02, River Somme, Drowning / Boddi

Memorial: War memorial, Penarth, Glamorgan

Notes: aged 37. A member of one of Lena Ashwell's Concert Parties, she died when the car in which she was a passenger skidded into the River Somme on the way back from a concert. Buried Abbeville Community Cemetery Extension Plot V, Row G, Grave 23

Reference: WaW0043

Penarth War Memorial

Name of Emily Pickford on Penarth War Memorial. She was a singer who drowned in an accident in the Somme January 1919

Beatrice [B] Picton Turbervill (Picton Warlow)

Place of birth: Fownhope, Herefordshire

Service: Temperance and welfare worker, munitions hostel warden, H M Factories, before/cyn 1916 - 1918

Death: 1958, Cause not known

Memorial: Ewenny Priory, Ewenny, Vale of Glamorgan

Notes: Beatrice was the twin sister of Edith Turbervill [qv]. As a young woman she kept to her original surname of Picton-Warlow; her father changed the name when he inherited Ewenny Priory in 1891. Before the war she was a keen promoter of temperance, and was the Chair of the Cardiff branch of the British Women’s Temperance Association. In 1916 she was appointed head of one of the new munitions workers’ hostels in Woolwich. A year later she moved to Coventry as Warden of the Housing Colony for Women Munitions Workers, a large undertaking with a staff of 200, and some very unruly young workers. The ‘wild Irish-Welsh inmates … flung food and china and table furnishings at the waitresses, at each other, and through the windows’. However the Welsh Miss Picton Turbervill and her colleague the Irish Miss MacNaughton sorted the establishment out. At the end of the war she was on a lecture tour in the united states, speaking about Welfare Work in Britain. For many years after the war she was involved with Dr Barnardos.

Sources: Monthly Labor Review Volume 7 Issue 6 [US]

Reference: WaW0443

Newspaper report

Report of the AGM of the Cardiff branch of the British Women’s Temperance Association, Beatrice Picton Warlow in the chair. Evening Express 18th January 1901.

Monthly Labor Review

A report of the work of Beatrice Picton Turbervill (and her colleague Miss MacNaughton) appeared in the American journal the Monthly Labor Review.

Memorial

Memorial to Beatrice Picton Turbervill, Ewenny Priory.

Edith Picton Turbervill

Place of birth: Fownhope, Herefordshire

Service: Welfare worker, MP, Y W C A

Death: 1960, Cause not known

Notes: Edith (born 1872) was a twin [qv Beatrice Picton-Warlow], one of many children of John Picton Turbervill who inherited Ewenny Priory, Glamorgan in 1891. Always very devout, she worked with the families of navvies working on the Vale of Glamorgan railway and poor families in London After six years in India she returned to Britain to be foreign secretary of the Y.W.C.A. When war broke out, she raised quarter of a million pounds to build Y.W.C.A. hostels for young women munitions and farm workers. A strong supporter of ordination of women, she preached in several non-conformist chapels in Wales before becoming the first woman to preach in an Anglican church, in 1919, wearing ‘cassock and surplice’. As she was over six foot tall, with ‘a rather loud voice’, she impressed the newspapers. In that year too she joined the Labour party. After two unsuccessful attempts, she was elected MP for Wrekin in Shropshire in 1929. During her brief Parliamentary career she successfully introduced the bill to stop the execution of pregnant women.

Sources: Angela V John: Rocking the Boat, Parthian Press 2018

Reference: WaW0442

Edith Picton Turbervill

Photograph of Edith Picton Turbervill, c.1910

Newspaper report

Edith was clearly a good shot! Glamorgan Gazette 23rd October 1908.

Newspaper report

Report of the inaugural meeting launching the provision of Y.M.C.A. hostels for munitions workers in Wales (part 1). Glamorgan Gazette 13 October 1916.

Newspaper report

Report of the inaugural meeting launching the provision of Y.M.C.A. hostels for munitions workers in Wales (part 2). Glamorgan Gazette 13 October 1916.

Newspaper report

Report of Edith Picton Turbervill preaching in the Bishopsgate Congregational Chapel. Cambrian Daily Leader 14th February 1919.

Newspaper report

‘Small Talk’ column describing Edith Picton Turbervill preaching at a regular Church of England service in North Somercotes, Lincs. Glamorgan Gazette 11th July 1919.

Newspaper report

Report of Edith Picton Turbervill joining the Labour Party. Cambria Daily Leader 18th January 1919

Photograph

The Labour women MPs elected in 1929, Edith Picton Turbervill is centre back. Front right is a very young Jennie Lee, later married to Aneurin Bevan. Aged 24, she was too young to vote, but not too young to stand. Next to her is Ellen Wilkinson.

Daphne Elizabeth Powell

Place of birth: Talgarth ?

Service: Worker, WAAC/QMAAC, Novermber 1917 - April 1919 /

Death: 1919/04/11, The Old Vicarage Talgarth , brief illness / salwch byr

Memorial: St Gwendolines Church, Talgarth, Breconshire

Notes: Daphne Powell served with the WAAC/QMAAC at Swanage, where she proved ‘a very efficient worker’. She was 21 years old when she died, possibly of Spanish flu.

Reference: WaW0194

Grave of Daphne Powell

Grave of Daphne Powell, St Gwendolines Church, Talgarth, Her grave is on the right; her brother Charles Baden Powell, who died in 1921, is on the left.

St Gwendolines Grave Register

Grave register showing the entries for Daphne Powell and her brother Charles. Both graves were originally grassy mounds; the headstones were erected recently by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Newspaper report

Report of the funeral of Daphne Powell. Brecon County Times 1st May 1919