Margaret Jane Evans

Place of birth: Treforest, Swansea ?

Service: Nurse, VAD

Memorial: Soar Chapel, Treforest, Swansea, Glamorgan

Notes: Margaret Evans nursed at the 3rd Western General Military Hospital in Cardiff. Her name appears on the Roll of Honour in Soar Chapel, Treforest.

Reference: WaW0170

Roll of Honour

Record of the war service of Nurse M J Evans on the Roll of Honour of Soar Chapel, Treforest

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card for Margaret Evans

Edith Moore-Gwyn (née Jepson)

Place of birth: London

Service: Commandant, VAD, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Edith Moore-Gwyn, born 1852, was President or Chair of a number of public bodies in and around Neath. Her interests were health and education, and she established the Laurels Auxiliary Red Cross Hospital at Neath. She was awarded the OBE at the end of the War.

Reference: WaW0178

Edith Moore-Gwyn

Edith Moore-Gwyn in the uniform of a senior official of the VAD

Edith Moore-Gwyn (reverse)

Reverse of photograph of Edith Moore-Gwyn listing her public roles.

Mary Eleanor Gwynne Holford (Gordon-Canning)

Place of birth: Gloucestershire

Service: Patron, VAD

Notes: Born in 1865, Mrs Gwynne Holford was responsible for the establishment of Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, the specialist hospital for soldiers and sailors who had lost limbs during the war. This followed a visit to a military hospital. She said "I will work for one object, and that is to start a hospital whereby all those who had the misfortune to lose a limb in this terrible war, could be fitted with the most perfect artificial limbs human science could devise.” Her social contacts enabled her to gain the patronage of Queen Mary. She lived at Buckland Hall, near Brecon, and died in 1947.

Sources: http://blog.maryevans.com/2013/09/

Reference: WaW0188

Mary Eleanor Gwynne Holford

Mary Eleanor Gwynne Holford CBE in Red Cross uniform

Mary Eleanor Gwynne Holford (reverse)

Mary Eleanor Gwynne Holford CBE in Red Cross uniform (reverse)

Eleanor Vachell

Place of birth: Cardiff

Service: Scientist, Botanist, Volunteer, VAD

Notes: Eleanor was born in 1879, the daughter of a doctor. She became a noted botanist, and took over responsibility for the Department of Botany and the Herbarium at the National Museum of Wales in October 1914 when the Keeper joined his regiment. She also volunteered at the 3rd Western General Hospital, Cardiff. She became a VAD in 1918, dividing her time very strictly between the hospital and the museum. Eleanor Vachell died in 1948.

Sources: https://www.routledge.com/The-Biographical-Dictionary-of-Women-in-Science-Pioneering-Lives-From/Ogilvie-Harvey-Rossiter/p/book/9780415920384

Reference: WaW0200

Eleanor Vachell

Eleanor Vachell botanist and VAD

Red Cross record card

Red Cross record card showing details of Eleanor Vachell’s employment.

Dorothea Margaret Seagrave Pryse-Rice (Evans)

Place of birth: London, 1894

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1914 – 1919?

Death: 1921/12/5, Cricket St Thomas, Devon, Influenza / Yffliw

Memorial: St Dingats Church, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire

Notes: Dorothea and her sister Nest were daughters of Margaret Pryse Rice, President of the Carmarthenshire Red Cross. Dorothea’s record card has not survived, but she probably served as a VAD most of the war. She married a war hero, Brigadier-General Lewis Pugh Evans VC, in October 1918, had a son in 1920, and died of influenza aged in 1921 aged 27.

Sources: http://www.wwwmp.co.uk/carmarthenshire-war-memorials/llandovery-carmarthenshire-red-cross-memorial/

Reference: WaW0203

Memorial Plaque

Memorial plaque commemorating Dorothea and Nest Pryse-Rice, St Dingat’s, Llandovery

Grave of Dorothea Pryse Rice

Grave of Dorothea Pugh, née Pryse Rice, St Dingat’s, Llandovery

Lewis Pugh Evans VC

Dorothea’s husband, Lewis Pugh Evans VC

Newspaper report

Report of the wedding in London of Dorothea Pryse Rice and Lewis Pugh Evans, October 1918

Carine Evelyn Nest Pryse-Rice

Place of birth: London

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1914 – 1919

Death: 1921, Forden, Montgomeryshire, Not known / Anhysbys

Memorial: St Dingats Church, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire

Notes: Nest and her sister Dorothea were daughters of Margaret Pryse-Rice, President of the Carmarthenshire Red Cross. She served through the whole war, mostly at the Llandovery Auxiliary Hospital but 1918 - 1919 at the Nannau Hospital for Officers, Dolgellau. She died aged 25

Sources: http://www.wwwmp.co.uk/carmarthenshire-war-memorials/llandovery-carmarthenshire-red-cross-memorial/

Reference: WaW0204

Memorial plaque

Memorial plaque commemorating Dorothea and Nest Pryse-Rice, St Dingat’s, Llandovery

Grave of Nest Pryse-Rice

Grave of Nest Pryse-Rice, St Dingat’s Church, Llandovery

Red Cross record

Red Cross record card for Nest Pryse-Rice

Flossie Hamer Lewis

Place of birth: St Asaph

Service: Nurse, VAD

Death: 1917/03/22, St Asaph, ‘strain and overwork’ / ’straen a gorweithio’

Notes: Flossie Hamer Lewis worked at the Red Cross Hospital, Rhyl, from its opening. Her father was the St Asaph diocesan inspector of schools.

Reference: WaW0207

Flossie Hamer Lewis

Photograph of Flossie Hamer Lewis, part of the collection ‘Deaths: Nurses Deaths 1919-1920’ at the Imperial War Museum

Letter

Letter from Flossie’s father, the Rev J Hamer Lewis to the secretary of the Women Collections, Imperial War Museum, June 29th 1918

Letter (r)

Letter from Flossie’s father, the Rev J Hamer Lewis to the secretary of the Women Collections, Imperial War Museum, June 29th 1918 (reverse).

Newspaper report

Report of the death of Flossie Hamer Lewis, Denbighshire Free Press 31st March 1917

Newspaper report

Nursing award for Flossie Hamer Lewis, Denbighshire Free Press 16th March 1918

Ryda Rees

Place of birth: New Quay, Cardiganshire

Service: Nurse, VAD, 1915 - 1919

Death: 1919/11/16, illness / salwych

Notes: Ryda, who was 29 when she died, served at the 3rd Western Hospital, Cardiff ‘until her health broke down’.

Reference: WaW0206

Ryda Rees

Ryda’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 Ryda’s mother Mary Rees 16th March 1920.

Red Cross record card

Red Cross Record card for Ryda Rees

Red Cross record card (reverse)

Red Cross Record card for Ryda Rees (reverse)

Gladys Maud Jones

Place of birth: Cambridge

Service: Nurse, VAD

Death: 1917/08/21, Salonika, Malaria

Notes: Gladys Maud Jones’s name appears on the Welsh book of Remembrance, and her photograph is in the Imperial War Museum’s collection. Unfortunately, despite her name, she appears to have no connection with Wales. Both her parents were from Lincolnshire.

Sources: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~macculloch/p79.htm#i4559

Reference: WaW0213

Welsh Book of Remembrance

Gladys Maud Jones’s name in the Welsh Book of Remembrance

Gwynedd Violet Llewellyn

Place of birth: Bewdley, Worcestershire

Service: Nurse, VAD

Death: 1918/11/03, Rouen, France, Influenza / Y Ffliw

Notes: Gwynedd Violet Llewellyn’s name appears on the Welsh book of Remembrance. Unfortunately, despite her name, she appears to have no connection with Wales. Her family connections were with Worcestershire and Somerset

Reference: WaW0214

Welsh Book of Remembrance

Gwynedd Violet Llewellyn’s name in the Welsh Book of Remembrance.