Lily Stock

Place of birth: Pontypool

Service: Nurse, VAD, November 1917 – August 1919

Notes: Lily served with the VAD in Hospitals in Bristol and Colchester. She was paid, her pay rising from £12 per annum to £20 per annum. Her name appears on the Griffithstown Baptist Church Roll of Honour – possibly twice, as both Nurse Stock and Lily Stock are named. There are two sets of Red Cross cards, one naming Beatrice Lily Stock and one just Lily. Otherwise the details are the same.

Reference: WaW0416

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card with name Beatrice Lily

Red Cross record card

Red Cross card with name Lily

Griffithstown Baptist Church Roll of Honour

Griffithstown Baptist Church Roll of Honour showing names of Nurse Stock and Lily Stock. Thanks to Gethin Matthews.

May Stratford

Place of birth: Newport Monmouthshire

Service: Waitress, WRAF, February 1918 – September 19

Notes: May Stratford, born 1898, joined the WRAF in 1918. She seems to have served, as a waitress, in various RAF bases in South East England. She died in 1982

Reference: WaW0191

May Stratford

May Stratford in WRAF uniform. Also in the photograph is a coin engraved with her name and ‘WRAF’.

Discharge papers

May Stratford’s discharge papers. September 1919

Autograph book

Inside cover of May’s autograph book, showing where she served.

Autograph book

Page of May Stratford’s autograph book with a drawing of a bi-plane.

Mary Sutherland

Place of birth: London

Service: Forester, WLA, 1916 -17

Death: 1955, Wellington, New Zealand, Cause not known

Notes: Mary Sutherland was the first woman in Britain to gain a degree in Forestry. She studied at University College, Bangor from 1912 to 1916. After graduation (in the same year as Mary Dilys Glynne and Violet Gale Jackson qv) she worked in the forestry division of the Women’s Land Army, and from 1917 as an assistant experimental officer for the Forestry Commission. Following the contraction of the Forestry Commission in 1922 she moved to New Zealand where she worked for the newly formed State Forest Service.

Sources: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 1998.

Reference: WaW0314

Newspaper report

Report of Bangor graduates including Mary Sutherland, Violet Gale Jackson and Mary Glynne. North Wales Chronicle 7th July 1916.

Mary Sutherland

Mary Sutherland in the 1920s in New Zealand. Te Amorangi Trust Museum.

Emily Charlotte Talbot

Place of birth: London

Service: Heiress, philanthropist

Death: 1918/09/21, London, Cause not known

Notes: Emily, ‘Miss Talbot’ as she was always known, was born in 1840. She inherited a fortune from her father the landowner, industrialist and Liberal politician Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot. She spent much time at the family home at Margam, and was a generous, often anonymous, benefactor of many charities, often church-based. She was in poor health by the outbreak of the War and lived mostly in London; amongst her support 1914 – 18 was provision of furnished cottages for Belgian refugees, converting Penrice Castle for a hospital (and bearing the running costs) and founding a chair of Preventative Medicine at Cardiff University. She also financed Church halls and YMCA huts and books for the new Carnegie library in Port Talbot. In February 1917 she subscribed £80,000 to the War Loan, an extraordinary sum for a private individual. On her death she was reported as ’reputed to be Britain’s Wealthiest Lady’.

Reference: WaW0411

Photograph of Miss Talbot

Photograph of Miss Talbot when younger. Her family were pioneers of Welsh photography.

Newspaper report

Report of Miss Talbot’s accommodation for Belgian Refugees. South Wales Weekly Post 31st October 1914.

Newspaper report

Report of Miss Talbot’s donation of library books. South Wales Weekly Post 13th March 1915.

Newspaper report

Report of Miss Talbot’s endowment of £30,000 to endow a chair of preventive medicine at the Welsh School of Medicine. Cambria Daily Leader 16th January 1918.

Newspaper report

Report in Australian Newspaper of Miss Talbot’s purchase of War Bonds.

War Bonds poster

Poster advertising War Bonds 1917

Newspaper report

Report of the death of Miss Talbot. The long article gives an account of her generosity. Cambria Daily Leader 28th February 1918.

Annie Lillian Thomas (later McLoughlin)

Place of birth: Cwmyoy

Service: Postwoman, WAAC

Notes: Annie Thomas joined the WAAC in June 1918, aged 21. She had previously worked at the Royal Gwent Hospital as a waitress. She was posted to the Australian Military Hospital, Dartford. By the time she was discharged in July 1919 she was married, though nothing is known of her husband.

Sources: National Archives WO-398-153-8

Reference: WaW0305

Discharge order

Discharge order for Annie Macloughlin on compassionate grounds.

WAAC enrollment form

Enrolment form for Annie Thomas. Her surname and marital status have been changed.rn

Reference

Reference form for Annie Thomas.rnrn

Catherine Dorothy Thomas

Place of birth: Crai, Sennybridge

Service: Girl

Death: 1918-11-28, Influenza / Y Ffliw

Notes: Dorothy was the second to youngest of 8 children. Her mother died in 1912. The story goes that the family were struck by the great flu after WWI. Dorothy who was 21 years old at the time she looked after the family and nursed them back to health but in 1918 she succumbed and died that year on the 28th of November.' Catrin Edwards

Reference: WaW0105

Catherine Dorothy Thomas c.1912

Catherine Dorothy ‘Dollis’ Thomas, aged about 14. She seems to be wearing mourning, so it may have been taken in 1912 when her mother died.

Celia Janet (standing) and Polly Thomas, c.1912

Celia Janet (‘Sis’) Thomas and her older sister Polly. They seem to be wearing mourning, so it may have been taken in 1912 when their mother died.

Eleanor (or Sarah Jane) Thomas

Place of birth: Cwmbwrla

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: 1919-01-08, NEF Pembrey, Explosion/Ffrwydrad

Memorial: Cenotaph, Swansea, Glamorgan

Notes: aged 20. 'Evidence showed that the explosion occurred when Gwenllian Williams was drilling out a screw from a shell. Eleanor Thomas was carrying in a shell at the time of the explosion.'

Sources: http://newspapers.library.wales/search?query=gwenllian&page=14; The Carmarthen Journal and South Wales Weekly Advertiser

Reference: WaW0059

Swansea Cenotaph

Name of Eleanor Thomas on Swansea Cenotaph

War memorial

Name of Eleanor Thomas on the war memorial at St Stephen's church Swansea.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Thomas

Place of birth: Seven Sisters

Service: Nurse, QAIMNSR, 1915 - 1920

Death: 1921/09/27, Neath ?, Tuberculosis / Y dicléin

Memorial: Seven Sisters , Glamorgan

Notes: Born in 1890, Lizzie attended Neath County School and trained as a nurse at Swansea General and Eye Hospital. She volunteered for QAIMNS Reserve in 1915, and was sent to Salonika via Egypt in November. It is said that the troopship she was on was torpedoed, and that she spent some hours in the water. She returned home in December 1916, and in January 1917 was given a reception by the local community, including the presentation of a medal and the singingof an embarrassingly effusive poem in Welsh. She spent the rest of the War, until she was demobbed in October 1920, at Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross in April 1919. Lizzie returned home to nurse in Neath, but died less than a year later of TB. Her name appears on the Seven Sisters War Memorial

Sources: Jonathan Skidmore: Neath and Briton Ferry in the First World War

Reference: WaW0477

Elizabeth Thomas

Lizzie Thomas in uniform

Poem / song

The embarrassing song performed at the reception for Nurse Thomas in January 1917. ‘Composed by Mr R. D. Harris and sung by Messrs. D. T. Davies and John Hughes’. Llais Llafur 6th January 1917

Army Form W. 3538

Lizzie Thomas’s new posting to Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham, 1st September 1917

Seven Sisters War Memorial

Photograph taken shortly after its opening 1920?

Emily May Thomas (née Matthews)

Place of birth: Carmarthen

Service: Teacher

Death: November /1918 / Tac, Carmarthen, Influenza / y ffliw

Notes: Emily was educated at the County Girls’ School Carmarthen, and matriculated at the early age of 16. She became a teacher at the Model (Church) School in Carmarthen. In February 1918 She married Lieutenant Richard Thomas of the Machine Gun Corps, also a teacher. He was wounded in October 1918. In November, just after he came home from hospital, Emily contracted influenza and died.

Reference: WaW0423

Newspaper report

Report of Emily Matthews’s matriculation success. Carmarthen Weekly Reporter 9th September 1910.

Newspaper report

Report of Emily Matthews marriage to Richard Thomas. Carmarthen Weekly Reporter 15th February 1918.

Newspaper report

Report of Lieutenant Thomas’s wounding. Cambria Daily Leader 4th October 1918.

Newspaper report

Report of Emily Thomas’s death. Carmarthen Journal 22nd November 1918.

Eunice Thomas

Place of birth: Swansea ?

Memorial: Mynydd Bach Chapel, Swansea, Glamorgan

Notes: Nothing is known of Eunice Thomas, whose name appears on the Roll of Honour in Mynydd Bach Chapel, Swansea (60)

Reference: WaW0162

Roll of Honour

Record of the war service of Eunice Thomas, on the Roll of Honour of Mynydd Bach chapel, Swansea