Ladas May (Known as Gladys WAAC / in Gelwid yn Gl Powell ( later Pritchard)

Place of birth: Cwmaman

Service: Worker, WAAC/QMAAC, 24/05/1918 - 11/02/1920

Notes: Ladas Powell joined the WAAC underage. She served at Stonar Camp, near Sandwich, Kent. Ladas, or Gladys as she was known in the WAAC, kept an album with photographs and documents in it as well as entries by friends and colleagues.

Reference: WaW0044

Ladas May Powell

Ladas (Gladys) Powell in working clothes.

Photograph 7.11.19

' A few of the knuts …'

Discharge document

Certificate of discharge from the QMAAC on Termination of Engagement, 20.2.1920

QMAAC badge

Ladas Powell's QMAAC badge

Travel Pass

Travel Pass 27.11.19

Rose Powell

Place of birth: Tredegar ?

Service: QMAAC

Memorial: Wesley Church, Tredegar, Monmouthshire

Notes: The name of Rose Powell appears on the Roll of Honour (under QM WAACS) formerly in Wesley Church, Harcourt Terrace, Tredegar rn

Reference: WaW0164

Roll of Honour

Name of Rose Powell on Roll of Honour rn

Arvona (Fona) Powell Jones

Place of birth: Gorseinon July 10th, 1913

Service: Small child

Notes: Fona confirmed her address and date of birth: July 10th, 1913. She recalled a story about her mother during the First World War asking her, because her father had received call-up papers, ‘You don’t want your father to go to war do you? She replied’ ‘Oh! Yes!’, because she had seen her uncle, who was at sea, in a uniform with a whistle around his neck. She thought therefore that her father would have a uniform and a whistle too. So she was delighted at the prospect of her father dressed in a uniform and whistle. But she remembers her mother’s face falling. ‘Oh! She was terribly disappointed that I had said that I wanted my father to go to war.’ But her father worked in the steelworks and since steel was required during the war he worked there for the duration of the war. Her parent’s names were Mary Ann Powell and Richard Jones; her father came from Cydweli and her mother was local to Gorseinon area. Her father had worked in the steelworks in Cydweli too. She also talks of her uncle, Brynmor, who was in the navy and who hated the war. At the end of the war he gave his navy clothes to her mother and told her to do what she wanted with them. She made Fona a dress from the bell-bottoms – they were of serge and added flowers etc onto it. She wore it all the time – to chapel and all. This was when she was about 5-6 years old. She remembers wearing it and swinging of a tree branch in it. Her mother’s brother (Tom in 1915 according to the family’s family tree)) died of typhoid in Crystal Palace during the war and she has a photograph of a wedding during the war with the men dressed in black in memory of him. Another of her mother’s brothers (Baden) was called up but when he arrived at the mess plates were being thrown all over the place. The Armistice – peace agreement had just been signed. And that’s all he saw of the war. Fona also recalled how, for the duration of the war, her mother removed a model of an eagle which was on top of the family’s grandfather clock and stored it away in a drawer, because it was a reminder and symbol of Germany. After the war it was restored to its place on top of the clock! ‘Memory is a strange thing isn’t it.

Sources: fona_jones_gorseinon.wave_sound

Reference: WaW0075

Fona Jones bottom left (blurred) at family wedding.

A family wedding showing a blurred Fona Jones, bottom left. The women were all dressed in mourning for Fona's uncle Tom, who had died in 1915.

Mary Anne Jones née Powell c.1905

Fona Jones's mother Mary Anne Jones née Powell as a young woman.

Winifred May Price

Place of birth: Newport

Service: Nurse, Scottish Womens Hospitals

Notes: Winifred (born 1898) joined the Scottish Women’s Hospitals as a nurse in July 1915, aged 18. She was known as ‘Kiddie’ because of her youth. She nursed in Serbia, and was lucky to escape when the Austrians invaded.

Reference: WaW0127

Charlotte Price White (née Bell)

Place of birth: Scotland

Service: Teacher, suffragist, councillor

Death: 1932, Bangor, Cause not known

Notes: A former teacher who had studied science at university College, Bangor, Charlotte was a founder member of the Bangor Women’s Suffrage Society, and was one of only two women from North Wales (the other being Mildred Spencer from Colwyn Bay) to walk the whole NUWSS Great Pilgrimage to London in 1913. During the war she was extremely active in all kinds of support, raising money for the Welsh Women’s Hospital Unit in Serbia , the Patriotic Guild War Savings, the National Union of Women Workers, the Women’s Institute and many others. In 1926 she became the first woman member of Caernarvonshire County Council and was very active in the International League for Peace and Freedom.

Reference: WaW0410

Charlotte Price

Photograph of Charlotte Price White, c.1930

Newspaper report

Report of the work of the Bangor Medical Aid Committee, of which Charlotte was Hon Secretary. North Wales Chronicle 18th December 1914

Newspaper report

Report of a meeting of the War Savings Committee. North Wales Chronicle 19th October 1917

Newspaper report

Part of a report on fundraising for a North Wales Women’s Hospital Unit in Serbia. Charlotte was Hon Secretary (again). North Wales Chronicle 23rd April 1915

Newspaper report

Report of difficulties arising between the Women’s Institutes of North Wales and the Board of Agriculture. Charlotte Price White chaired the meeting. North Wales Chronicle 21st December 1917.

Janet Price Williams

Service: Volunteer

Notes: Mrs Janet Price Williams, of 87 Kimberley Rd, Cardiff, was awarded the MBE in January 1918. She seems to have been an indefatigable worker acting as Secretary or Treasurer to a number of bodies including the Cardiff Women’s Advisory Committee which she set up in 1914, and the London-based Soldiers’ Comforts Department.

Reference: WaW0249

Janet Price Williams

Mrs Janet Price Williams MBE

Janet Price Williams (reverse)

Reverse of photograph listing some of her occupations.

London Gazette

Janet Price Williams’s citation in the London Gazette, 7th January 1918.

Gladys Irene Pritchard (née Harris)

Place of birth: Newport

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: TNT poisoning / Gwenwyno TNT

Notes: Gladys was a war widow aged 28. Her husband had been killed in July 1916. She had two small children. Her father was granted 2s a week for the upkeep of each child; the children also benefited from their father’s military pension.

Sources: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums

Reference: WaW0045

Gladys Pritchard

Gladys’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 collection from Gladys’s sister, Mrs Summerfield.

Newspaper report

Report of maintenance grant to Gladys’s father, Joseph Harris, for the upkeep of her children. Weekly Argus 11th November 1916.rn

Alice Prosser

Place of birth: Builth Wells

Service: Waitress then Cook, WAAC, 1918/05/O7– 1918/08/05/

Notes: Alice, aged 23, served first as a waitress, then as a cook during her brief career in WAAC/QMAAC. She was discharged on medical grounds.

Reference: WaW0133

May (Mary) Prosser

Place of birth: Gilwern

Service: Munitions Worker, 1916 - 1917

Death: 1917-04-03, Rochdale, TNT poisoning / Gwenwyno TNT

Memorial: Recreation Ground gates; Market hall, Christchurch Govilon, Govilon, Monmouthshire

Notes: May, born 1891, was the fourth daughter of a farm labourer and his wife. She followed two of her sisters into domestic service in Rochdale. She began munitions work late in 1916, but soon became ill with ‘toxic jaundice’ and died at her sister Margaret’s home in Rochdale. She was also sister of Nellie Prosser [qv].

Sources: Ryland Wallace: May Prosser, Munitionette. AMC/WAW Newsletter, June 2016

Reference: WaW0046

Christchurch, Govilon

Name of May Prosser on memorial, Christchurch, Govilon

Govilon War Memorial

Name of May Prosser on Govilon War Memorial

Death Notice

Death notice of May Prosser, Abergavenny Chronicle, 13 Aprill 1917

Nellie Prosser

Place of birth: Govilon

Service: Forewoman, munitions worker, NFF Rotherwas

Notes: Nellie Prosser was charged in the autumn of 1919 with dishonestly obtaining £15.10s in unemployment pay when she was in fact working as a servant for Mrs Solly-Flood [qv], a leading figure in society locally. She had been laid off from Rotherwas shell filling factory with all the other women workers at the end of the war, but claimed to the Labour Exchange in Abergavenny that she was waiting for the factory to re-open. According to the Rector of Govilon, who knew the family well, Nellie had progressed to forewoman at the factory despite suffering from TNT poisoning and resulting fits. She was also one of the elder sisters of May Prosser [qv]. Nellie Prosser was fined £25, or three months hard labour.

Reference: WaW0382

Newspaper report

Report of the Abergavenny Police Court proceedings against Nellie Prosser. Abergavenny Chronicle 3rd Oct 1919.