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Margaret Dorothy Roberts

Place of birth: Dolgellau

Service: Staff Nurse, QAIMNS Reserve / Wrth gefn, 29/09/1915 - 31/12/1917

Death: 1917-12-31, SS Osmanieh, Drowning

Memorial: Cathedral Nurse, Llanelwy, Flintshire

Notes: aged 47. SS Osmanieh was sunk by a German mine off Alexandria, Egypt. Grave in Hadra War Memorial Cemetery, Alexandria, Egypt. Born in the Workhouse in Dolgellau, she spent many years in Australia before returning to Britain to join the QAIMNS Reserves.

Sources: http://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com/memorials/st-asaph-memorial/st-asaph-cathedral-welsh-nurses-ww1/roberts-margaret-dorothy/; http://emhs.org.au/person/roberts/margaret_dorothy

Reference: WaW0051

Nurse Margaret Dorothy Robert's name on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph

Margaret Dorothy Robert's name on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph

Margaret Dorothy Roberts

Jane (Jennie) Roberts

Place of birth: Bryncrug

Service: Staff Nurse, QAIMNS

Death: 1917-04-10, HMHS Salta, Drowning / Boddi

Memorial: Cathedral Nurse, Llanelwy, Flintshire

Notes: aged 30. She died when His Majesty’s Hospital Ship “Salta” was sunk off Le Havre on 10 April 1917. She was lost at sea and her body was never recovered. Her name appears on the Salta Memorial at Ste Marie Cemetery, Le Havre, Normandy, France, and on the memorial plaques in the porch of St Cadfan's Church, Tywyn

Sources: http://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com/memorials/st-asaph-memorial/st-asaph-cathedral-welsh-nurses-ww1/roberts-jane/http://www.mawddachestuary.co.uk/warmemorials/#TywynChurch

Reference: WaW0052

Nurse Jane Robert's name on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph

Jane Robert's name on the Nurses' Memorial, St Asaph

Tywyn Church

Name of Jane Roberts in the memorial porch, Tywyn Church

Jane (Jennie) Roberts

Jane/Jennie’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

Catherine Williams

Place of birth: Colwyn Bay

Service: Staff Nurse, QAIMNS

Death: 1919-08-04, Cause not known

Memorial: War memorial, Colwyn Bay, Caernarvonshire

Notes: aged 38. Buried Bron-y-Nant cemetery Colwyn Bay.

Sources: http://historypoints.org/index.php?page=colwyn-bay-memorial-fww-surnames-s-y

Reference: WaW0064

War Memorial Colwyn Bay

Name of Catherine Williams on Colwyn Bay War Memorial

Ethel Saxon

Place of birth: Abertillery

Service: Staff Nurse, TFNS

Death: 1917-09-03, Karachi, Appendicitis/Llid y pendics

Memorial: War Memorial; Nurses’ Memorial; Delhi Gate, Kingsland; Liverpool Cathedral; Delhi, Herefordshire; Lancashire; India

Notes: Born 1891, her father was a builder and joiner. She worked for some time in Liverpool before serving overseas. Her parents retired to Kingsland, Herefordshire where she is memorialised; her name also appears on the Nurses’ memorial in Liverpool Cathedral, the Nurses’ memorial in York Minster and the Indian war memorial the Great Gate at Delhi.

Reference: WaW0134

Kingsland War Memorial

Name of Ethel Saxon on Kingsland War Memorial

Roll of Honour, Kingsland Church

Name of Staff Nurse Ethel Saxon on the Roll of Honour, Kingsland Church

Death Notice

Death Notice of Ethel Saxon

Nurses's Memorial

Nurses’ Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral

Nurses’ memorial Liverpool

Name of Ethel Saxon on the Nurses’ Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral

Gladys Mina Watkins

Place of birth: Abergavenny

Service: Staff nurse, QAIMNS

Notes: Gladys Watkins, born about 1882, joined QAIMNS in April 1909, and was sent to France very shortly after the outbreak of war. She was invalided home in September 1917, suffering from ’neurasthenia’; she seems to have had a complete mental breakdown. She spent much of the next two years in hospital, nursing homes, or staying with her sister Edith who was also a nurse. She faced numerous army medical boards, most of which declared her fit for home or sedentary service. Letters from Gladys herself, her sister and various doctors survive in her records in the National Archives. They describe her agoraphobia, suicidal tendencies and night terrors ‘associated with bursting shells’. She tendered her resignation from QAIMNS in the summer of 1918, though this was deferred and later withdrawn. By summer 1919 her health was improving: ‘I have been doing outdoor work, poultry etc, for the last three months and now feel much stronger’. She was passed fit ‘for home service’ in October 1919, and continued her career at Netley Military Hospital. The last record of her is summer 1923, when her file says ‘Warn for tour of foreign service’.Gladys was awarded the Royal Red Cross on her return from France in 1917.

Sources: National Archives WO 399_8743

Reference: WaW0279

Newspaper report

Report of the award of Royal Red Cross to Gladys Mina Watkins. Abergavenny Chronicle 26th January 1917

Letter

Letter from Gladys’s doctor in Ross on Wye describing her condition.

Letter

Letter from Gladys’s doctor in Ross on Wye describing her condition, continued.

Letter

Part of letter from Matron in Chief, QAIMNS, suggesting Gladys should be demobilised.

Official record

Record of Gladys’s medical boards.

Margaret Ann (Peggy) Lyons

Place of birth: Tregaron

Service: Staff nurse, QAIMNSR, 1915 - 1919

Notes: Peggy Lyons was born in Tregaron in 1875. She trained at Carmarthen Infirmary, and in 1900 moved to London where she worked in two hospitals, and with private patients. She applied to join QAIMNS in January 1915, and served in British military hospital for 18 months. In June 1916 she was posted via Bombay to Mesopotamia where she remained until she was invalided home in September 1919 suffering from malaria. After treatment she was demobilised with excellent references on 29th September 1919. She may subsequently have moved to work in South Africa. Peggy was awarded the Royal red Cross in June 1916. Her sister Kate Phyllis Davies [qv] worked as a sister at Aberystwyth Red Cross hospital.

Sources: National Archives WO 399_5063

Reference: WaW0280

Newspaper artcle and photograph

Photograph and report of Peggy Lyons’s receipt of the Royal Red Cross. Cambrian News 23rd June 1916.

Newspaper article

First part of a letter home from Peggy Lyons in Mesopotamia, published in the Cambrian News 24th August 1917.

Letter

Letter from Peggy Lyons concerning the treatment of her malaria, 21 September 1919 (1)

Letter

Letter from Peggy Lyons concerning the treatment of her malaria, 21 September 1919 (2)

Alice Lidster

Place of birth: Pontypool ?

Service: Station mistress, Great Western and Rhymney Railway

Notes: Alice, daughter of a GWR Chief Inspector, was appointed ‘station mistress’ of Troedyrhiw Halt in April 1915, probably the first such appointment in Wales. She seems to have been a trained nurse.

Sources: httpsfriendsofsaron.wordpress.comtagtroedyrhiw-halt

Reference: WaW0342