Florence Missouri Caton

Place of birth: ‘at sea’ off Cuba

Service: Nurse, SWH, September 1915 – July 1917 /

Death: 1917/7/15, Salonika, Appendicitis / Llid y pendics

Notes: Florence Missouri Caton was born on board ship (possibly the source of her middle name, though no evidence has yet been found) in about 1876, to parents from Wrexham. A trained nurse, she worked in Lancashire before joining the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in 1915. She had two periods of work in the Balkans. Shortly after her arrival in 1915 her unit was captured by the Austrians, and released in December. In August she returned to Serbia, working in various hospitals and dressing stations until she died of appendicitis in July 1917. She is buried In Lembet Road Military Cemetery, Salonika.

Sources: http://scottishwomenshospitals.co.uk/

Reference: WaW0212

Florence Caton

Florence Caton Scottish Women's Hospitals

Grave Registration

Entry in Salonika (Lambert Road) grave register.

Newspaper report

Report of death of Florence Caton, Y Brython, 30 August 1917. Translation: ‘Laying the nurse to rest. In faraway Serbia the remains of Nurse Caton of Wrexham were laid to rest. She had endeared herself to the wretched people of that country through her untiring labour of love in their midst. There is talk of erecting a white marble cross on her small grave.’

Gwladys Jones

Place of birth: Carnarthen ?

Service: Nurse, SWH

Notes: Gwladys Jones was a professional nurse who had trained and worked in London, and also worked as a school nurse in Swansea. She volunteered for the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and went to Serbia in September 1915. She was among the group of nurses captured by the Austrians at Krushevatz. She managed to get a letter to her mother through one of the nurses who escaped the Austrian army through the mountains. Her letter arrived on Christmas Day 1915. She was a friend of Nora Tempest [qv].

Reference: WaW0387

Newspaper report

Report of the capture of Gwladys Jones and colleagues in Serbia. Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph 19th January 1916.

Emily Charlotte Hill (Panichelli)

Place of birth: Hawarden, Flintshire

Service: Nurse, SWH, April – December 1915

Death: 1970, Cause not known

Notes: Emily was a trained nurse, probably trained at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in London. At the outbreak of war she may have nursed in France. She joined Mrs Stobart’s Unit of the Serbian Relief Fund, and nursed in the tented hospital at Kragujevac. Mrs Stobart’s Unit was caught up in the Serbian Retreat with the Serbian army and refugees. They fled over the mountains of Montenegro and Albania in the depths of winter to the coast where a boat took them to Brindisi in Italy. She was awarded the Serbian War Medal and the Order of Charity of Serbia. Later in the war she became a midwife, and during the 1930s seems to have trained as a doctor. Many thanks to Carol Coles.

Reference: WaW0425

Red Cross record card

Emily Hill’s Red Cross record.

Newspaper report

Report of Emily Hill’s service and award of the Serbian medal of the Order of Charity. Flintshire Observer 21st October 1915.

Stobart Hospital Staff List

Staff List for the Stobart Hospital in Kragujevac. Emily is listed under ‘Nursing Sisters’. Note Mabel Dearmer’s name [qv]. Thanks to Carol Coles.

Florence Gwendolin Howard

Place of birth: Pontypridd ?

Service: Staff Nurse, Territorial Nursing Service/Gwasanaeth Nyrsio Tiri

Death: 1914-11-18, Not known, Septic poisoning / Gwenwyno septig

Memorial: St Catherines Church, grave Glyntaff Cemetery, Pontypridd, Glamorgan

Notes: Nothing is currently known of Florence Howard.

Sources: http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=2257521; http://www.qaranc.co.uk/war_graves_memorials_Nurse/Nyrss.php

Reference: WaW0026

St Catherine’s Church, Pontypridd

Name of Florence Howard on war memorial plaque in St Catherine’s Church, Pontypridd

Florence Howard

Florence Howard in uniform

Helena May Rowlands

Place of birth: Llangefni

Service: Nurse, Territorial Nursing Service/Gwasanaeth Nyrsio Tiri

Death: 1919-05-10, Military Fever Hospital Liverpool, Influenza

Memorial: Nurses memorial, Llanelwy, Flintshire

Notes: aged 24/25. Buried in Mynydd Seion Chapel, Abergele. Her body was taken by train from Liverpool to Abergele, and straight to the cemetery to avoid infection.

Sources: http://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com/memorials/st-asaph-memorial/st-asaph-cathedral-welsh-nurses-ww1/rowlands-helena-may/

Reference: WaW0054

Nurse Helena May Rowlands's name on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph

Helena May Rowlands's name on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph

Nurses' Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral

The Nurses’ Memorial in the Lady Chapel, Liverpool Cathedral, listing names of nurses who died in the War and had worked in Liverpool. Ethel Saxon is also recorded here.

Nurses' Memorial Liverpool Cathedral

Name of Helena Rowlands on the Nurses Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral

Margaret Evans Thomas

Place of birth: Pwllheli

Service: Staff Nurse, TFNS, 1914 - 1918

Death: 1918-11-08, 1st London General Hospital, Pneumonia

Memorial: War Memorial; Nurses Memorial; St Bartholomew's Hospital, Pwllheli; St Asaph, Caernarfon; Flintshire; London

Notes: Margaret, from a Welsh-speaking family, was brought up in Pwllheli from the age of 9 by her aunt and uncle. She probably trained as a nurse in London, perhaps at St Bartholemew’s Hospital which became the 1st London General Hospital. During the war she served as a Staff Nurse there until her death from flu at the age of 28; she was described as ‘cheerful and willing’. The War Office paid her funeral expenses of £20 2s 0d. Her gravestone in Pwllheli cemetery is set with the commemorative plaque (dead man’s penny’) sent to her relations after the war. Her name also appears on the Nurses’ Memorial in St Asaph’s cathedral. Thanks to Wayne Bywater.

Sources: http://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com/memorials/st-asaph-memorial/st-asaph-cathedral-welsh-nurses-ww1/thomas-margaret-evans WO-399-14971

Reference: WaW0017

Pwllheli War Memorial

Name of M E Thomas on Pwllheli War Memorial

Letter

Letter from Miss Sidney Brown to Agnes Conway of the Womens Section of the Imperial War Museum listing Margaret’s name as having died of pneumonia.

Grave of Margaret Evans Thomas

Margaret Evans Thomas’s grave in Pwllheli cemetery, set with her ‘dead man’s penny’. Thanks to Veronica Ruth.

War Memorial

Name of Margaret Evans Thomas on 1st London General Hospital memorial

Nurses memorial St Asaphs Cathedral

Name of Margaret Evans Thomas on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph's Cathedral

Letter

Letter from Margaret’s aunt Mrs Summers, explaining the differing names on her funeral payments.

Letter

Letter from Mrs Summers’s son in law, explaining the differing names on Margaret’s funeral payments.

Ethel Saxon

Place of birth: Abertillery

Service: Staff Nurse, TFNS

Death: 1917-09-03, Karachi, Appendicitis/Llid y pendics

Memorial: War Memorial; Nurses’ Memorial; Delhi Gate, Kingsland; Liverpool Cathedral; Delhi, Herefordshire; Lancashire; India

Notes: Born 1891, her father was a builder and joiner. She worked for some time in Liverpool before serving overseas. Her parents retired to Kingsland, Herefordshire where she is memorialised; her name also appears on the Nurses’ memorial in Liverpool Cathedral, the Nurses’ memorial in York Minster and the Indian war memorial the Great Gate at Delhi.

Reference: WaW0134

Kingsland War Memorial

Name of Ethel Saxon on Kingsland War Memorial

Roll of Honour, Kingsland Church

Name of Staff Nurse Ethel Saxon on the Roll of Honour, Kingsland Church

Death Notice

Death Notice of Ethel Saxon

Nurses's Memorial

Nurses’ Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral

Nurses’ memorial Liverpool

Name of Ethel Saxon on the Nurses’ Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral

Janet Parry

Place of birth: Newtown

Service: Nurse (Sister), TFNS, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Before the War Nurse Parry worked at Heswall Hospital, Wirral. After a spell working in the First Western General Hospital (Fazackerly Hospital), Liverpool, she served on HMHS Mauretania, sailing to and from Egypt several times. On arrival in Egypt the second time, she wrote home “I can't say that I am in any way struck with Egyptian life, and the food, oh dear! I suppose you get used to it. ... ‘. She later served in France and was awarded the Royal Red Cross in January 1919.

Sources: Montgomeryshire Express, Montgomeryshire County Times

Reference: WaW0149

Hannah Dunlop Mark

Place of birth: Bridgend

Service: Nurse, TFNS

Death: 1918/10/10, No 1 General Hospital, Fazackerley, Liverpool, Pneumonia following influenza / Niwmonia yn dilyn y ffliw

Notes: Hannah, a trained nurse, seems to have been a victim of Spanish Flu. She was 23 when she died, and is buried at Bridgend Cemetery.

Sources: http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1

Reference: WaW0208

Hannah Dunlop Mark

Hannah’s photograph was collected by the Women’s Subcommittee of the Imperial War Museum as part of its collection of women who died during the War.

Letter

Letter to the Secretary of the Women’s Committee from Hannah’s brother, Lieut David Mark, November 16th 1918

Newspaper notice

Notice of Hannah’s death, Glamorgan Gazette, 11th October 1918.

Memorial notice

Notice commemorating Hannah’s death, Glamorgan Gazette 10th October 1919

Gwenllian Morris

Place of birth: Aberystwyth ?

Service: Nurse, TFNS, 1914 - 1918

Notes: Gwenllian Morris was district nurse in Holywell, then Aberystwyth. She was posted to a military hospital in St Malo with the French Red Cross in October 1914. She contracted diphtheria while there, but recovered and volunteered to join the Serbian Relief Fund Hospital in 1915. Her unit worked in Malta and the Dardanelles before arriving in Serbia. They were captured in the winter of 1915/16 by the Austrian/Bulgarian army , but continued to work mainly with typhus patients. It is not known when she came back to Britain, but she received her war medals in 1921 (on the card, she is described as being a Sister with the 2nd British Farmers Unit – a mystery.*)
*The mystery about the British Farmers Unit has been solved by Nigel Callaghan, to whom many thanks. ‘I've sort-of explained the comment about Gwenllian Morris's record referring to her as British Farmers Unit. It really existed. There were at least two, and were funded by money raised by farmers (British Farmers Red Cross Fund), and were in Serbia in 1915.’

Reference: WaW0258

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card for Gwenllian Morris.

Newspaper article

Article about Gwenllian Morris’s work in France. Flintshire Observer 19 November 1914.

Newspaper article

Article about Gwenllian Morris’s work with the Serbian relief Fund. Flintshire Observer 19th August 1915.

Newspaper article and photograph

Illustrated report of Gwenllian Morris’s time in Serbia including her captivity. Cambrian News 11th February 1916.

Medal card

Medal card for Gwenllian Morris, giving her unit as 2nd British Farmers Unit.