Lilias Stuart Mitchell (née Wilsone)

Place of birth: Straights Settlement

Service: Committee woman, mother.

Death: 1949, Kent, Cause not known

Notes: Lilias Mitchell was the wife of A A Mitchell, Alderman and JP in Brecon, and mother of Isabella Mitchell [qv] who drove ambulances in France. Her elder son was killed in Mesopotamia in 1917, and her younger son seriously wounded in France in 1918. She and her husband were noted local Conservatives; Lilias supported refugees and Penoyre Red Cross Hospital. She was also Secretary of the Brecon Hiring Fair Committee and was a member of the Mental Deficiency Act Committee. In June 1918 She was awarded the Medaille de la Reine Elisabeth for her work with Belgian refugees. She and her husband left the area in 1919.

Reference: WaW0396

Newspaper report

Report of Mrs Mitchell’s appointment to the Mental Deficiency Act Committee. Brecon County Times 5th August 1915.

Newspaper letter

Letter to the newspaper about provisions for girls at the Brecon Hiring Fair. Brecon County Times 26th April 1917.

Newspaper report

Report of Mrs Mitchell’s award of the Medaille de la Reine Elisabeth. Brecon & Radnor Express 27th June 1918.

Notice of auction

List of garden and stable items sold by the Mitchells before their departure from Brecon. Brecon County Times 21st August 1919.

Elizabeth Anne Montgomery Wilson

Place of birth: not known

Service: Nurse (Principal Matron), TFNS, 1914 - 1919

Notes: Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson was a veteran of the Boer War, in which she served as a superintendent in Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service. She was already Matron of Cardiff Infirmary, and became Principal Matron when it became the 3rd Western General Hospital in 1914. She reverted to the post of matron at the end of the War.

Reference: WaW0339

Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson

Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson in Margaret Lindsay Williams’s painting of the 3rd Western General Hospital. She is on the left.

London Gazette

Award of a bar to the Royal Red Cross announced in the London Gazette. Elizabeth Montgomery Wilson had already been awarded this decoration earlier in the War. London Gazette13th January 1920

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.

Gertrude Morgan

Place of birth: Bridgend ?

Service: Ticket cillector, GWR

Notes: Gertrude, a ticket collector at Bridgend railway station, was subject to an assault by Lewis Davies, who kicked her in the thigh. He and another collier had been attempting to travel without a ticket. The magistrate said that ‘there was far too much of this hooliganism’ at Bridgend and Davies was fined £2.

Reference: WaW0458

Newspaper report

Report of the fracas at Bridgend Railway Station. Glamorgan Gazette 13th September 1918

Hilda Morgan

Place of birth: Newport

Service: Nurse, VAD

Notes: A trained nurse, Hilda served at Baldwin’s Auxiliary Hospital, Griffithstown . Her name appears on the Roll of Honour of Griffithstown Ebenezer Baptist Church.rn

Reference: WaW0428

Red Cross record card

Red cross record for Hilda Morgan

Red Cross record card [reverse]

Red cross record for Hilda Morgan [reverse]

Roll of Honour

Name of Hilda Morgan on Roll of Honour, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Griffisthtown. Thanks to Gethin Matthews.

M Morgan

Place of birth: Ton Pentre

Service: Munitions worker

Memorial: Jerusalem C M Chapel, Ton Pentre, Glamorgan

Notes: Nothing is known of Miss M Morgan whose name appears on the Roll of Honour in Jerusalem Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, Ton Pentre.

Reference: WaW0158

Roll of Honour

Name of Miss M Morgan on Roll of Honour

Mary Morgan (née Corfield)

Place of birth: Swansea

Service: Nurse, VAD

Notes: I nursed during World War I, in the YMCA building. It lent itself to be a hospital, it was never used before. We worked right through from 6 am to 2 pm. Eventually we had little single bedrooms upstairs, could sleep there, so worked full time – all day from 6 to 10.30, with a midday meal. I slept there. We worked hard, had to do what we were told. Second World War was very different. I nursed during World War I, in the YMCA building. It lent itself to be a hospital, it was never used before. We worked right through from 6 am to 2 pm. Eventually we had little single bedrooms upstairs, could sleep there, so worked full time – all day from 6 to 10.30, with a midday meal. I slept there. We worked hard, had to do what we were told. Second World War was very different. There were officers from the war, we had to take orders from them, had to stand up, but WWII was quite different. Went to the workhouse (on Mount Pleasant) for training in the early days. Before the YM, go to casualty ward in Swansea Hospital – we saw a lot. The soldiers went straight to the YM from the docks or the station. They seemed to by-pass London. Bad cases by boat to Swansea and Cardiff by sea. We saw some terrible injuries. One thing I hated doing ... Blood didn’t worry me – dressing the empty sockets of eyes. We did work hard....There were not many things for young women – some drove cars ... got into khaki. Father never let me leave home, but nursing during the war was different. He gave me a good allowance - £60 a year. Father said to me, you’ve got to look after yourself, and don’t you get into debt. I did love it [nursing]. We did pull our weight. We had to take orders from people we’d have looked down our noses at [before]. We were just ordinary VADs, war was war. We kept in touch with quite a lot of the men.

Sources: Recorded at Bloomfield Care Home, Sketty by Jenny Sabine, c. 1990

Reference: WaW0124

Red Cross card

Red Cross card for Mary Corfield

Red Cross card (reverse)

Red Cross card for Mary Corfield

Mary Morgan

Service: Munitions worker

Notes: ‘There is one girl here [Pembrey], Mary Morgan, who gets the most appalling fits. She goes dead and stupid for a moment and then very red in the face, and then starts the most violent struggles, pulling at her own hair, scratching her own face, and twisting herself into the most violent contortions. It takes four or five of us to hold her down and prevent her from harming herself. The favourite ‘cures’ among the girls is to souse the sufferer with cold water, thump and slap her, shake her, pour hot tea between her teeth (although being unconscious she can’t swallow), stand her on her head (when she is purple in the face already) and last but not least sit on her ‘stummick’. This particular girl told me [Gabrielle West] after her last fit that she was so glad the policewomen had looked after her and kept the other girls away as last time she was that bruised in her inside that it made her sick for a week!’ Diary of Gabrielle (Bobbie) West, policewoman at Pembrey 10 March 1917

Sources: Ed Avalon Richards: Menus, Munitions and Keeping the Peace: The Home Front Diaries of Gabrielle West (Pen and Sword Publishing, 2016)

Reference: WaW0223

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

Daisy Morris

Place of birth: St Dogmaels

Service: Munitions ? then Clerk-Telephonist, QMAAC, 1918/06/06 – 1919/05/06

Notes: Born in St Dogmael’s in 1895, her father was a coastguard, Daisy may have worked in munitions in Barry Docks. When she joined QMAAC in 1918 she was living in Barrow, near her sister at Flookburgh, north Lancashire.

Sources: National Archives WO-398-159-25

Reference: WaW0309

QMAAC application form

Daisy Morris’s application to join the QMAAC.