Caroline Jackson Davies

Place of birth: Llandovery

Service: Chief section leader Cook: , WRNS, 22/05/1918

Death: 1918-10-26, Carmarthen, illness/salwch

Notes: aged 22. Buried at Llandingat

Sources: http://www.wwwmp.co.uk/carmarthenshire-war-memorials/

Reference: WaW0005

Eliza Davies (née Belton)

Place of birth: Norfolk

Service: Supervisor, munitions, NEF Pembrey

Notes: Originally from Norforlk, Eliza was in service in Builth when she met her husband Huw Davies and they moved to Fforest Fach. Huw died in 1916 and Eliza began work at Pembrey, being promoted to supervisor. In 1920 she was awarded the MoBE ‘for courage and presence of mind in removing a burning fuze from a box of components, thus obviating what might have been a very serious explosion’. Her eldest daughter Mabel Elsie [qv] also worked at Pembrey.

Sources: Peoples Collection Wales

Reference: WaW0321

Eliza Davies and family

Eliza Davies and her family, probably taken in 1916 while they were still in mourning for Huw. Mrs Dorothy Jones 2018.

London Gazette

Notice of Eliza Davies’s award of the MoBE, London Gazette 7th July 1920.

Letter

Letting inviting Eliza Davies to her award of the MoBE, 23rd September 1920. Mrs Dorothy Jones 2018.

Elizabeth Davies

Place of birth: Burry Port

Service: Munitions Worker

Death: 1920:05:09, Llanelly Hospital, Accident: ruptured liver/Damwain, afu wedi ei rwygo

Notes: A young woman, Elizabeth Davies, of Sandfield House, Burry Port, died at Llanelly General Hospital on Sunday, from injuries sustained at the Pembrey National Filling Factory. The deceased was dismounting from a works train while in motion at its arrival at the Factory on Friday, when she slipped between the footboard and the platform. She was dragged some distance and sustained severe internal injuries. Llanelly and County Guardian 13th May 1920 Aged 17. 'A young woman, Elizabeth Davies, of Sandfield House, Burry Port, died at Llanelly General Hospital on Sunday, from injuries sustained at the Pembrey National Filling Factory. The deceased was dismounting from a works train while in motion at its arrival at the Factory on Friday, when she slipped between the footboard and the platform. She was dragged some distance and sustained severe internal injuries.' Llanelly and County Guardian 13th May 1920 A young woman, Elizabeth Davies, of Sandfield House, Burry Port, died at Llanelly General Hospital on Sunday, from injuries sustained at the Pembrey National Filling Factory. The deceased was dismounting from a works train while in motion at its arrival at the Factory on Friday, when she slipped between the footboard and the platform. She was dragged some distance and sustained severe internal injuries. Llanelly and County Guardian 13th May 1920

Reference: WaW0089

Elizabeth Davies.

Coloured photograph of Elizabeth Davies

Elizabeth Davies Death Certificate

Death certificate for Elizabeth Davies

Report of Elizabeth Davies's accident

Newspaper report of Elizabeth Davies's death

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

Cambria Daily Leader 1st June 1917.

Press photograph

Photograph of Mrs Esther Davies, South Wales Weekly Post 13th September 1919.

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.

Ethel Davies

Place of birth: Bodhyfryd, Holyhead

Service: ‘member’

Memorial: Armenia Chapel, Holyhead, Anglesey

Notes: Nothing is known of Ethel Davies, whose name appears on the Roll of Honour in Armenia Chapel, Holyhead

Sources: http://www.anglesey.info/holyhead-armenia-chapel-war-memorials.htm

Reference: WaW0160

Roll of Honour

Record of the war service of Ethel Davies, Bodhyfryd, member, on the Roll of Honour of Armenia Chapel Holyhead

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

Llantwit Major War Memorial

Name of Eva Martha Davies, VAD, on Llantwit Major War Memorial

Newspaper report

Report of Funeral of Eva Martha Davies

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.

Gretta Davies

Place of birth: Sully, Glamorgan

Service: Dairy worker

Notes: By the 1911 census Gretta, then aged 13, lived with her family on a farm in Llanspyddid near Brecon. Following a dairying course held in Brecon in early summer 1917, she was awarded a scholarship to the Dairy School at University College Aberystwyth. However Gretta seems to have taken a post of instructress at the new Gwynfe, Carmarthenshire, cooperative cheesemaking school in July 1919.

Reference: WaW0453

Newspaper report

Gretta and her family and neighbours perform in a comic sketch at a concert in Libanus. Brecon Radnor Express 18th April 1918.

Newspaper report

Report of Gretta’s results on the Brecon dairying school. Brecon Radnor Express 24th January 1918

Newspaper report

Report of Gretta’s scholarship to study for a diploma in Dairying. Brecon County Times 30th January 1919.

Newspaper report

Report of Gretta’s appointment as instructress in cheesemaking. Carmarthen Journal 18th July 1919.

Gwendoline Elizabeth Davies

Place of birth: Llandinam

Service: Collector, philanthropist, canteen worker, French Red Cross, 1916 - 1918

Death: 1952/07/03, Leukaemia /Lewcemia

Notes: Gwendoline, born 1882, was the elder granddaughter of David Davies the coal owner and builder of Barry Docks. She, her sister Margaret [qv] and her brother David each received one third of his vast fortune on the death of their father in 1898. All three were strict Calvinistic Methodists, with a strong philanthropic streak. The two sisters began to travel widely, and to study art in Europe. In their early twenties they were beginning to form the collection that is now at the National Museum Wales. In March 1913 the collection was exhibited, anonymously, in Cardiff; the sisters covering all of the cost. It attracted 26000 visitors. At the outbreak of war the sisters promoted a scheme to invite Belgian artists and musicians to come to Wales, settling them in Aberystwyth and Llanidloes [see De Saedeleer]. In 1916, following the death of her cousin in the Dardanelles, Gwen volunteered to join the French Red Cross, leaving in July to open a Cantine des Dames Anglaises where she remained until the end of the war. The Cantine was moved in 1917 to Troyes, where her sister joined her. Gwen’s job as Directrice meant visits to headquarters in Paris, which in turn enabled her to add pictures, including two Cézannes, to her collection. In early 1918 her collections in Paris were at risk from air-raids and long distance shelling, so it was arranged for them to be shipped back to Britain. By 1922 she had given up collecting art. She felt she could not spend money in this way ‘in the face of appalling need everywhere’. During the 1920s Gwendoline set up a centre for the arts at Gregynog near Llandinam, promoting art in the cause of peace and social progress. She continued to give generously to educational and other causes. On her death in 1951 she bequeathed her remarkable collection of paintings and sculpture to the National Museum of Wales.

Sources: Oliver Fairclough [ed] Things of Beauty: What two sisters did for Wales. National Museum Wales 2007. Trevor Fishlock A Gift of Sunlight. Gomer 2014\r\nhttps://museum.wales/articles/2007-07-29/The-Davies-Sisters-during-the-First-World-War/

Reference: WaW0333

Oprning of the Ocean Coal Company pithead baths

Gwendoline Davies (centre) and Margaret (left) at the opening of the first pithead baths in Wales, summer 1916. This was shortly before she left for France.

Cantine des Dames Anglaises

The Canteen in Troyes, France, of which Gwendoline was Directrice.

Loan exhibition 1913

Loan exhibition of the Davies sisters’ collection in City Hall, Cardiff, February 1913. It includes Rodin’s The Kiss, bought by Gwendoline in 1912.

Midday, L'Estaque

This Cézanne landscape was bought in Paris by Gwendoline Davies in February 1918.

Hannah Davies

Place of birth: Glog, Pembrokeshire

Service: Sister

Death: 1918 ?, Glog, Pembrokeshire, Influenza / Ffliw

Notes: Hannah was the sister of two soldiers, William and John, both serving overseas. John, the younger, was killed and is buried in Jerusalem. William survived, but brought home Spanish flu. He survived that too, but Hannah caught it nursing him, and died. Letters from both brothers, in Welsh and English, survive.

Reference: WaW0243

Letter

Letter in English from William to Hannah Davies, written on YMCA paper, on January 21st, 1918.

Letter (reverse)

Reverse of letter in English from William to Hannah Davies, written on YMCA paper, on January 21st, 1918.

Letter

Letter in Welsh from William to Hannah Davies, written on Church Army Recreation Hut paper. Winter 1917-18

Letter (reverse)

Letter in Welsh from William to Hannah Davies, written on Church Army Recreation Hut paper. Winter 1917-18 (reverse)rn

Hannah Davies (Hughes)

Place of birth: Brymbo

Service: Nurse, Not known / anhysbys

Notes: Hannah was a trained nurse who may have served in one of the Liverpool military hospitals, or in Chester. Whilst there she met and later married Pte Joseph Hughes, who also came from the Brymbo area. Many thanks to Nikki Dutton.

Reference: WaW0427

Photograph

Photograph of Hannah (left) and a friend playing tennis. Thanks to Nikki Dutton.

Photograph

Photograph of Hannah (seated) and a friend. Thanks to Nikki Dutton.