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Sorted by cause of death
Maggie Williams
Place of birth: Cwmpark ?
Service: Nurse
Death: October / Hydref 191, Chichester, Pneumonia following influenza / Niwmonia yn dilyn y ffliw
Notes: Nothing is known of Maggie Williams at present, apart from the press cutting below.
Reference: WaW0347
Mary Jones
Place of birth: Aberllefenni
Service: Nurse
Death: 1918/10/15, Brownlow Hill Hospital, Liverpool, Pneumonia following influenza? Niwmonia yn dilyn y ffliw
Notes: Nothing is currently known of Nurse Mary Jones, who died of complications of flu aged 24.
Reference: WaW0346
Margaret Jane Meredith
Place of birth: Erwood
Service: Farm servant
Death: 1916/02/23, Grugwyllt Farm, Margam, Poisoning / Gwenwyno
Notes: Margaret Meredith had been a farm servant at Grugwyllt Farm, Margam for ‘about a year’. She was 27 or 28. On the evening of February 23rd 1916 she ate yew leaves in an attempt to procure an abortion, and died of poisoning. She had a soldier lover, but had not seen him for a year. She was also said to be seeing a man from Cwmafon. A longer account of the inquest in the Brecon County Times shows that the coroner questioned her employer, Caradoc Jones, a widower, about her condition. He denied responsibility. The verdict was ‘death was due to poisoning by taking yew leaves while temporarily insane’.
Reference: WaW0298
Newspaper headline
Headline to the report of the inquest of Margaret Jane Meredith. Cambria Daily Leader 25th February 1916.
Newspaper report
First part of the report of the inquest into Margaret Meredith’s death. The full report can be found in the Cambria Daily Leader, 25th February 1916, p.6.
Mary Elizabeth Thomas (née ?)
Service: Munitions worker, NEF Pembrey, 1917 - 1918
Death: 1918/12/16, NEF Pembrey, Pulmonary oedema / Oedema ysgyfeiniol
Notes: Mary, aged 33, had been working at Pembrey for about a year. On 16th December she was demonstrating a process, how to disassemble shells, to a fellow worker. Suddenly she collapsed, and died soon afterwards. According to her husband she had suffered from bad headaches for 12 months, though she was well when she left for work that morning.
Reference: WaW0299
Lily Vinnicombe (née ?)
Service: Munitions worker
Death: 1918/05/22, Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport , Sepsis following abortion / Madredd yn dilyn erthyliad
Notes: Lily Vinnicombe was a 29 year old widow. She died as a result of a self-administered abortion.
Reference: WaW0356
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
Eva Martha Davies
Place of birth: Llantwit Major ?
Service: Nurse, VAD, Aug / Awst-1914 - 1918
Death: 1918-06-16, Newport, Septic poisoning contracted on duty. Gwenwyno septig a gafwyd tra ar ddyletswydd
Memorial: War memorial, Llantwit Major, Glamorgan
Notes: Worked at Newport Hospital. Eva’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. Two of Eva’s brothers were killed in France. Daughter of Mary Davies (WaW0172),
Reference: WaW0008
Eva Martha Davies
Eva’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.
Esther Davies
Place of birth: Swansea ?
Service: Driver
Death: 1919/09/22, Gowerton, Septicaemia / Gwenwyn gwaed
Notes: Esther Davies, aged about 30, died after complications from a miscarriage. A Swansea midwife, Mary Lavinia Beynon [qv], was charged with her murder, the charge being that she had used an instrument to procure an abortion. Esther Davies, described as ‘a woman of prepossessing appearance’, seems to have lived a rackety life driving for the Munitions service whilst her husband was in the army. ‘Gentlemen friends’ and ‘visits to Birmingham’ with another woman, Nurse Poulson, were reported in the Swansea press. She had been fined 10s by Neath Magistrates Court in 1917 for failing to produce her driving licence; on that occasion Esther was described as ‘stylishly dressed’ and ‘still smiling’. Mrs Beynon, a Police Inspector’s wife, was found not guilty.
Reference: WaW0302
Newspaper report
Report of first court hearing of the Esther Davies case. South Wales Weekly Post 16th August 1919.
Newspaper report
Report of verdict in the Esther Davies murder case. South Wales Weekly Post, 8th November 1919.
Mary E Smith
Place of birth: Dolgellau
Service: Forewoman, QMAAC
Death: 1918-08-21, Dolgellau, Sickness / Salwch
Memorial: War memorial, Dolgellau, Merionethshire
Notes: aged 42. Buried St Mary's Dolgellau.
Reference: WaW0056
Jean Roberts
Place of birth: Blaenau Ffestiniog
Service: Worker, WAAC, 1917/11/08 – 1918/01/05
Death: 1918/01/05, Bangor Military Hospital, Spotted fever / Teiffws
Notes: Jean, who was 18 when she died, was the eldest of six children of a widowed mother. In November 1919 her case was raised in Parliament by Haydn Jones, MP for Merioneth. Jean had been the chief support of the family, but her mother was not entitled to any form of compensation and was forced to ask for parochial relief. The matter was ‘considered’ by the Financial Secretary to the War Office, but we do not know the outcome. Jean Roberts’s name appears in the Welsh National Book of Remembrance.
Reference: WaW0260
Newspaper report
Newspaper report of parliamentary question about Jean Roberts. North Wales Chronicle 14th November 1919.
War Memorial plaque
Jean Roberts’s name on the War Memorial in St David’s Church, Blaenau Ffestiniog. It was obviously added after WW2, hence the mistake WAAF for QMAAC.rn. rn