ELLIOT, Miss Margaret, Ford Nurse, half time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 20/07/1915 to 28/02/1919. Miss Margaret Main Elliott was the youngest of the four children of Thomas Elliott, gamekeeper, and his wife Margaret Mitchell. She had two older brothers, Joseph (b 1884, Castle Heaton) and George Mitchell (b 3rd April 1885) both of whom worked as gamekeepers like their father, and an older sister Mary Adelaide born in 1888 at Longhirst, Morpeth. Margaret was born on 4th May 1894, at Longhirst. The family were still living at Longhirst in 1901, but by 1911 they had moved to Ford Kennels, near Cornhill on Tweed. Only Margaret was still at home with her parents in 1911. Joseph was married with a young son and was working as a gamekeeper and living at Ford Moss. George had married in 1910 and his wife gave birth to their first son in September 1911. The couple lived at Etal. It is not clear where Mary Adelaide was in 1911, but in 1918 she married in London. Margaret Elliot volunteered as a nurse at Etal Manor Hospital from July 1915 when the hospital opened until February 1919 when it closed. She worked ‘half time’. Her brother George served with the Yorkshire Regiment (No. 31979) and then with the Labour Corps. It is unclear whether Joseph Elliott served in the Great War. Margaret Elliot married Frank Sitwell Cahill Crow in 1937. Frank Crow had been married before. His first wife was Alice Burns Marshall. Frank Crow had married Alice in 1908 and had first sailed to Malaya in 1911, travelling alone in 3rd class. He went out as a ‘fitter’. When he returned to Malaya in 1919 with his wife, travelling First Class, he was then described as a ‘rubber planter’. The couple briefly returned to Northumberland for a few months in 1928 before sailing back to Malaya. The couple returned to Northumberland for good in 1930. Alice Burns Crow died in 1935. In 1937 Frank married Margaret Elliott. The couple lived at Sunnyside House, Berwick upon Tweed, where Frank had a poultry farm. Frank served as an ARP head warden during the Second World War. He died on 22nd November 1965 and Margaret died aged 74 in October 1968. 29/12/2019 |
FENWICK, Miss Norah, Melkington, Cornhill-on-Tweed General Service, nursing, half time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 07/02/1918 to 20/03/1919. Miss (Beatrice) Norah Fenwick was the eldest daughter of James Charles Fenwick (b 25th February 1873, Marylebone, London) and his wife Margaret Beatrice Wilson. They married in London in 1898. Margaret Beatrice was the daughter of Sir Jacob and Lady Wilson of Chillingham Barns. Sir Jacob had been land agent to the Earl of Tankerville but was also a well-known agriculturalist. He had been made KCVO by Queen Victoria at Windsor in 1889. Norah Fenwick was born on 20th July 1899 and christened at Chillingham on 26th August 1899. She had three sisters, Ivy Margaret (b 1903), May (b 27 May 1906) and Phyllis Alison (b 1910), and one brother Ralph (b 1912, d 1934). The family were living at Berryhill Farm, Ford by 1901 and remained there until at least 1911. They later lived at Melkington House, Cornhill on Tweed. In 1922, the family moved to Embleton Hall, Longframlington, which James Charles Fenwick inherited following the death of his father Dr John Charles James Fenwick. Subsequently, Melkington House was occupied by Leonard Scott Briggs and his wife. Norah Fenwick volunteered for nursing and general duties at Etal Manor in the last year of the Great War when she turned eighteen. She continued to work for the Red Cross after the closure of the Etal Hospital in February 1919. None of her siblings were old enough to serve in any capacity in the War. Following the death of his wife Margaret Beatrice in 1932, James Charles Fenwick married Norah Fenwick Bulman in 1934. She was the widow of Harrison Bulman of Morwick Hall near Alnwick. Harrison Bulman, who was a civil engineer, had died in 1933. The 1939 Register records that James Charles Fenwick was living at Morwick Hall with his second wife Norah and his step-daughter Helen. In 1939 Norah and her sister May still living at Embleton Hall. May was serving with the Women’s Land Army and Norah was a driver with a mobile VAD of the British Red Cross Society. Beatrice Norah Fenwick did not marry, and died aged 74 in October 1973. 29/12/2019 |
GILHOME, Miss Isabella, Etal, Cornhill-on-Tweed 'GILHORNE, Isobel' (sic) Nurse, half time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 20/07/1915 to 18/11/1918. Isabella Mary Gilhome (b 12th May 1893), whose parents were (John) Luke Gilhome of Milfield Hill and Isabella Gilhome (née Connell). Isabella Mary Gilhome had four siblings, two of whom died in infancy. She had two older brothers, George (b 1887) and William (b 1890) and a younger sister Margaret (b 1895) and younger brother Robert Victor (b 1897). William died aged 5 in 1895 and Margaret died in 1897 a little before her 2nd birthday. The births of all of the Gilhome children were registered in Glendale. However, the family were living in Lincolnshire in 1891, and Luke Gilhome was working as huntsman to the Blankney Hunt. It would seem that by 1898 the family had returned to North Northumberland, because Isabella Gilhome was registered as a pupil at Milfield School on 18th May 1898. She left the school (no date recorded) when the family again left the district, this time when Luke Gilhome became head groom at the foxhound kennels of the Percy Hunt at Lesbury, near Alnwick. The family were living at Lesbury in 1901. In 1911 the family was living at Slainsfield, near Ford, because Luke Gilhome had been appointed huntsman to the North Northumberland Hunt in 1910 (Berwick Advertiser, 18th March 1910, p 6). Isabella Gilhome worked half time as a nurse at Etal Hospital from when the hospital opened in July 1915 to 18th November 1918. The name of Miss I Gilhorne (sic) of 13th VAD Etal Manor was one of those put before the Secretary of State War for ‘valuable services rendered in connection with the establishment, organisation, and maintenance of hospitals’ (Newcastle Journal, 15th August 1918, p 4). Isabella Gilhome was the cousin of Mary Jane Connell (qv.). Their mothers were sisters. There is evidence that both Isabell’s surviving brothers - George and Robert Victor - served in the Army during the War. Gunner George Gilhome served with the ‘base details’ of Royal Garrison Artillery (No. 154955). His younger brother Robert Victor served successively with the 7th and 9th (Service) battalions of the Seaforth Highlanders (No. S/7095), both battalions with the 9th (Scottish) Division. The 9th battalion served as a pioneer battalion. He then served with 9th (Service) battalion Gordon Highlanders, another pioneer battalion, in 15th (Scottish) Division (No. S/14859) and then with 2nd battalion Gordon Highlanders, 7th Division. He was discharged from the Army on 14th July 1918 under King’s Regulation paragraph 392 (xvi) as no longer fit for military service. Robert was eligible for the 1914-15 Star having landed in France on 2nd October 1915. 29/12/2019 |
GLEADOW, Miss Clara, The Grange, Swanland, ER Yorks [Card 1] Nurse - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital, Etal Manor - 15/10/1917 to 20/11/1917 [Card 2] Nurse "(charge of full time nurses)" - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 15/10/1918 to 16/11/1918 Clara Gleadow was the eldest daughter of Henry Cooper Gleadow (b 1831, d 1912) and his wife Clara Jane Skelton (b 1833, d 1912) and was born on 6th December 1866 at Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire. She had three older brothers Frederick (b 1859, d 1920), Edward Skelton (b 1862, d 1889) and Robert Ward (b 1863, d 1929), and five younger sisters, Beatrice Mary (b 1869, d 1942), Margaret Helen (b 871, d 1872), Hilda Maria (B 1872, d 1944), Emily Cooper (b 1873, d 1932) and Florence Elsie (b 1877, d 1949). In 1911 Clara was visiting her brother Frederick and his family in Ladbroke Grove, London. Frederick was a civil engineer employed by the Great Western Railway. Clara Gleadow served as a trained nurse for two short periods at Etal: 15th October to 20th November 1917, and 25th October to 16th November 1918. She also served in France with the British Committee of the French Red Cross between March 1915 and December 1917 and between March and July 1918. She was eligible for the British War and Victory medals. It would seem that at the time of her first stint at Etal she was still officially attached to the British Committee of the French Red Cross. In 1939 Clara Gleadow was visiting her married sister Beatrice Luckman and her husband the Rev Charles Luckman at the Rectory, Castle Eaton, Wiltshire. Clara Gleadow of The Grange Hotel Harrogate died aged 75 on 20th October 1942. 29/12/2019 |
GRAY, Miss Lily, Ford Nurse, half time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 20/07/1915 to 28/02/1919. Miss Lily Gray of Ford was a volunteer nurse working half-time from the opening of Etal Hospital in July 1915 to its closure at the end of February 1919. She was christened Elizabeth but known as Lily. She was the younger of the two daughters of William Gray and his wife Jessie Lamb Gray. In 1901 William was estate bailiff on the Ford Estate; by 1911 he was estate manager. William was born in 1862 in Mordington, Berwickshire. He married Jessie Lamb in Edinburgh in August 1888. Jessie was born in St George, Edinburgh, Midlothian in 1868. The couple had four children, two boys and two girls: John (b c 1891, Scotland), Mary Pow (b c 1892, Ford), Craigie Lamb (b 1894, Ford) and Elizabeth (Lily) (b 29th April 1895, Ford). Elizabeth (‘Lily’) Gray volunteered half time as a nurse at Etal Manor from its opening in July 1915 until its closure in February 1919. In February 1916 the convalescent soldiers were entertained at Etal with a Whist Drive and Supper (Berwick Advertiser, 4th February 1916, p 3; Berwickshire News, 8th February 1916, p 6) and Nurses [Lily] Gray, [Mary] Paterson, and [Mrs Mary] Tait were respectively 1st, 2nd and 3rd of the ladies in the whist drive. Elizabeth (Lily) Gray married (Thomas) George Hilder the eldest son of Mr and Mrs G. Hilder, of Etchingham, Hastings, Sussex. The couple married at Ford Church on 21st August 1922. The couple probably met when George Hilder was working as a gardener to the Joicey family. Later George became head gardener to Major Edward Lascelles at Sickling Hall, near Wetherby, North Yorkshire. The couple seem to have had two sons (Berwick Advertiser, Thursday 30 May 1935, p 6). George Hilder died in 1935, and in 1939 the widowed Lily was living with her widowed mother Jessie and her unmarried sister Mary, at ‘Myrtle Bank’, Springhill, Berwick-upon-Tweed. She was a ‘general shopkeeper’. She died in 1976. There is no definite evidence that either of Lily’s brothers served in the War. 14/01/2020; 21/03/2020 |
GREENWOOD, Mrs F, 40 Leazes Terrace, Newcastle-upon-Tyne [Card 1] ‘Sister in Charge’, whole time - 1st Northumberland VA Hospital Howick Hall, Lesbury - January 1915 to November 1915 [Card 2] Trained Sister, whole time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 30/09/1917 to 30/09/1918 [Card 3] Trained Nurse – ‘T.N. Dept’ [Trained Nurse Department] 01/03/1916 to 14/01/1919 Mrs Florence Greenwood (née Swift) was born 8th February 1872. Her parents were Samuel and Leah Swift (née Woodhead) both of Halifax. The family lived on Pellon Lane, Halifax and her father Samuel was tailor by trade. Florence married Arthur Greenwood, clerk, of Colbeck Street, Halifax on 12th September 1891 in the Parish church of St John the Baptist, now Halifax Minster. Florence Swift was 19 and Arthur was 28. Within five years of her marriage Florence was in London where she trained at Guy’s Hospital, from 1896 to 1897. She also qualified as a midwife in 1900 at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London. She joined the Midwives’ Roll in 1904 (The Midwives Roll 1926, p 701) and first joined the Register of Nurses in 1917 (Register of Nurses, August 1916 – March 31st 1921, p 210). The whereabouts of Arthur Greenwood are unclear.[Note 1] Mrs Florence Greenwood has two, and probably three, VAD cards. One card records that she worked for the Trained Nurses Department of Red Cross from 1st March 1916 to 14th January 1919, a second card records her service at Etal Manor from 30th September 1917 to 30th September 1918. There is a probable earlier card for ‘Miss’ Florence Greenwood as ‘sister in charge’ of the 1st Northumberland VA Hospital Howick Hall, Lesbury between January and November 1915. It is likely that this is the same person, but it is not been possible to confirm this. Florence Greenwood was recorded in the 1939 Register as living at No 43A Simonside Terrace, Heaton, Newcastle. She was a widow and was described as a ‘retired private nurse’. She may have died in 1952 aged 80. 29/12/2019 |
* GREET, Miss Constance Helen, of Norham, * Volunteer at Northumberland 13th VA Hospital Etal Manor, 1915 Constance Helen Greet was the fourth and youngest daughter of the late Thomas Young Greet of Surrey (b 1834, Kennington, Surrey; d 1873, Norham) and his wife Sarah Jane Laing of Cornhill on Tweed (b 1839, Cornhill; d. 1829, Norham). Her sisters were Mary (b 1866, Norham), Amy Elizabeth (b 1867, Norham) and Edith (b 1869, Norham). Miss Constance Greet was educated at St Leonards School, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. During the Great War Miss Greet was secretary to the Norham Hospital Supply Depot and helped with nursing at Berwick Infirmary and also reportedly worked at Etal Hospital. At the Norham and Islandshire Rural District Council meeting on Monday 28th May 1917, Miss Greet was elected to the council (Berwick Advertiser, Friday 1st June 1917, p 5; Berwickshire News, Tuesday 5th June 1917, p 8). In 1919 she was elected as the first ‘lady chairman’ of the Berwick Board of Guardians. In 1925 she joined the County Council retiring because of ill health in 1937. Originally living at Birchill, Norham, she later lived at New Haggerston, and finally moved to Horncliffe on the banks of the Tweed near Berwick. It was here that she died aged 67 on 14th September 1939. She was buried on 16th September 1939 at Norham (Berwickshire News, 19th September 1939, p 6). 29/12/2019 |
Mary Lizette Grey
Drever Joicey
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GREY, Miss Mary Lizette, Milfield, Wooler Commandant ("Com'dt Q.mstr & transport driver") full time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - from 20/07/1915 Miss Mary Lizette Grey (b 16 February 1887; d 16 January 1968) was the younger of the two daughters of George Grey (b 1851; d 1915), land agent, and his wife Christian Margaret Grey (b 1860; d 1932). Mary Lizette had three older brothers, John Neil (b 1879; d 1924), George Henry Ivar (b 1882; d 1943), and Eric Ida (b 1885; d 1933), and an older sister Christian Elfreda (‘Freddy’) (b 1883; d 1955), and two younger brothers, Charles Boyd (b 1888; d 1950) and Gervase Minto (b 1890; d 1927). Her sister ‘Freddy’ was married to Charles William Dixon-Johnson (qv) who was killed in action on 9th October 1917 serving with the 1/7th (TF) battalion Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). In August 1914 a Miss Grey was reported to be commandant of the Milfield VAD detachment (Berwick Advertiser, Friday 07 August 1914, p 2). This was almost Mary Lizette Grey who was the commandant of the Etal VA Hospital from 20th July 1915 and also quartermaster and transport driver. It is clear that she was involved also in setting up the hospital since she appealed for a gramophone for the hospital through classified adverts in the Newcastle Chronicle (eg. 12th July 1915, p 2 & 14th July 1915, p 2). Her name was one of those ‘brought to the notice of the Secretary of State for valuable services rendered in connection with the establishment, maintenance and administration of hospitals’ (Newcastle Journal, Saturday 02 February 1918, p 6). In June 1918 her services were recognised with the award of an MBE in June 1918 as organiser and commandant of the Etal Hospital (Gazette No. 30730, 4th June 1918, Supplement p 6728). Mary Lizette had been engaged to the Hon Drever Joicey, the youngest son of Lord Joicey of Ford Castle, but latter had died on 27th January 1915 as a result injuries sustained in a hunting accident, barely six weeks after the engagement that had been announced in December 1914. Mary Lizette never married. She died in 1968 at Flodden Edge, and is buried in the churchyard at Ford. 29/12/2019 |
It is possible that other people were living at No. 7 Parkfield Gardens. Three entries immediately following the Hall sisters are blacked out in the 1939 Register as available on-line. The next page begins with the occupants of No. 9 Parkfield Gardens. (There are no even numbered properties in Parkfield Gardens in the list.)
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HALL, Miss Maria Seymour, The Cottage, Humshaugh, Northumberland [Card] Orderly, Certificate No. 13442, Scottish Women’s Hospital Convalescent Hospital, Ajaccio. Corsica – 10/07/1917 to 28/01/1918 [Red Cross Register of Overseas Volunteers] Hospital assistant, Certificate No. 13442 Miss Maria Seymour Hall was the youngest of the ten children the Rev George Rome Hall, minister at Birtley, Northumberland, and his wife Wilhelmina Bellamy, who married in 1863. Maria was born at Birtley in 1880. Miss Maria Hall volunteered as a VAD and served as an orderly at the Convalescent Hospital run by the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Ajaccio on Corsica. The hospital was set up in 1915 to look after women and children refugees from Serbia who were displaced the war. The hospital was still operating in Ajaccio to care for refugees at the end of the War. Maria Seymour Hall, who lived at The Cottage, Humshaugh, Northumberland worked at the Hospital from July 1917 to January 1918. From 1930 to 1934 Maria was living with her three unmarried sisters at ‘Housesteads’ Parkfield Gardens, Pinner, Middlesex. In October 1934 her sister Jessie Margarette died. In 1939 Maria and her older sisters Wilhelmina Bellamy Hall and Mary Taylor Hall were still in Parkfield Gardens and living on ‘private means’. Maria unlike her sisters was also working as a civil servant. Maria Seymour Hall never married and died in Colchester on 13th May 1971 aged 90. She had been living at ‘Sunnyholme’, Sturrocks Lane, Great Bentley, Colchester, Essex.
Her brother the Rev William Hall RN, Chaplain and Instructor (b 1868, d 1916) (qv), although born in the North Tyne Valley is nonetheless commemorated on the 1914-1918 Memorial Plaque at Etal, where his younger brother the Rev Charles Rome Hall (b 1878) was minister between 1913 and 1919. Her other brothers included Dr George Rome Hall, RFC/RAF (b 1864), acting Fleet Paymaster Captain Hugh Seymour Hall RN (b 1869) and Fleet Paymaster Commander Allison Bellamy Hall RN (b 1871), who served in the Great War. Her nephews Lt George Rome Hall RN (b 1888, d 1916) and Cpl William Folds Hall, Royal Artillery (b 1893), who were the sons of Dr George Rome Hall, and Lt Cyril Seymour Hall, RNAS/RAF (b 1898), who was the son of Rev William Hall RN, also served during the War. 14/01/2021 |
HAMILTON, Mrs Eleanor M [Card 1] Trained Nurse – Trained Nurse Department - 17/08/1917 to 14/02/1919 [Card 2] Trained Sister - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 17/08/1917 to 04/10/1917 [Card 3] Night Sister – The Red House Auxiliary Hospital, Leatherhead, Surrey - 28/12/1918 to 14/02/1919 Mrs Eleanor M Hamilton’s first VAD card records her attachment to the Trained Nurses Department from 17th August 1917 to 14th February 1919, and records that her age was 45 years old and gives her address as 25 Francis Street London WC1. Her second card records her posting to Etal Manor VA Hospital between 17th August and 4th October 1917, where she served as a ‘trained sister’. Her third card records her posting between 28th December 1918 and 14th February 1919 as night sister at the Red House Auxiliary Hospital at Leatherhead Surrey. Her address was then recorded as 24 John Street, Bedford Row, London WC. The card also records that she was engaged in ‘War work from August 1917 to December 1918 under Jt War Comm’ (i.e. the Joint War Committee of the British Red Cross Society and Order of St John of Jerusalem). Very little in the way personal details have been established thus far about Mrs Eleanor M Hamilton. 08/02/2020 |
HAYTON, Miss Mary Jane, Springbank, Hawick [Card 1] Trained nurse, whole time - VA Hospital Etal Manor - 13/09/1915 to 13/03/1916 [Card 2] Trained sister, whole - VA Hospital Etal Manor - 01/01/1916 to 13/03/1916 Mary Jane Hayton (b 30th April 1867) was the daughter of Bryan Hayton and his wife Annie Crayston. She was born in West Derby, Lancashire. In 1891 Mary Jane was working as a dress maker, but between January 1897 and January 1899 she trained as a nurse through the Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Institute for Nurses at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh. She then trained as a District Nurse in Edinburgh from February to August 1899 and subsequently worked as a district nurse at Blantyre, Lanarkshire from September 1899 to February 1902. Then she worked as a nurse in Hawick, and lived at Springbank, Hawick. Mary Hayton became a senior nurse on 13th September 1915 and was posted to Etal VAD Hospital as a trained nurse (British Journal of Nursing, Vol. 55, No. 1433, 18th September 1915, p 236). Her Red Cross card records that she was at Etal between 13th September 1915 and 13th March 1916. She seems to have been promoted to sister on 1st January 1916. After her six months at Etal she returned to Hawick. She was apparently away from Hawick again between October 1918 and February 1919. She passed the examination of the Central Midwives Board for Scotland in January 1919 and was added to the Scottish roll of midwives (The Midwives Roll For Scotland 1923, p 99). She was also added to the Register of Nurses in 1919 (The College of Nursing Ltd, Register of Nurses, August 1916 – March 3st 1919, London 1919, p 152). She returned to Hawick in 1919 – her address was 21A Bridge Street, Hawick - and she was working there when she successfully applied to the General Nursing Council for Scotland for Registration in 1923. She possibly continued working at Hawick until 21st September 1929. However the 1923, 1926 and 1932 editions of the Midwives Rolls for Scotland give her place of residence as 29 Castle Terrace, Edinburgh. By 1932 Mary Hayton would have been 65 years old and possibly retired. Mary Jane Hayton never married and she died on 10th January 1954 in Lancashire. Her death was registered at Fylde. 08/02/2020; 21/03/2020 |
HEAP, Mrs Lily, Fowberry, Belford Member, “Put up & did for nurses”, whole time - 12th Northumberland VA Hospital Fowberry-Hetton - 15/06/1915 to 30/12/1915 Mrs Lily Heap (née Bird) was the wife of Albert Heap who was a gardener at Fowberry. Albert was born at Guiseley, Yorkshire in 1870, and Lily at Darlington, Co Durham in 1878. The couple married at Middlesbrough in 1900. By 1911 they were living at Fowberry and had a daughter Clarice aged 8 (b Darlington, Co Durham) and two small boys, Albert aged 6 (b Witton Le Wear, Co Durham) and Norman aged 4 (b Aldbrough, Yorkshire). A fourth child Lily was born on 26th November 1913. Mrs Heap worked full time at Fowberry from June 1915 to the end of December 1915. She ‘put up & did for nurses.’ She does not appear to have worked for the Red Cross after the closure of the Fowberry Hospital. Lily Heap died in 1936 in Droitwich, Worcestershire, where her husband was head gardener at Waresley House. In 1939, the widowed Albert and his family lived in Waresley Lodge. The eldest daughter Clarice was a school teacher, her brother Albert was a labourer, and youngest child Lily was at home helping with domestic duties. The younger son Norman had died in 1932. 29/12/2019 |
* HENDERSON, Miss Arabella Redpath, Wooler * Quartermaster - Wooler Voluntary Aid Detachment, 1914 In August 1914 ‘Miss A R Henderson’ was reported to be the quartermaster to the Wooler Voluntary Aid Detachment, with Miss Douglas as Commandant (Berwick Advertiser, 7th August 1914, p 2). Miss A R Henderson is Arabella Redpath Henderson, the oldest daughter of Robert Forster Henderson and his wife Isobel Nichol Redpath. The couple had had seven children although oldest Robert George born in 1880 died aged 5 in 1885. The oldest surviving son was James (b 1883), who was followed by Arabella (b 1887), then Charles William (b 1891), John Alfred (b 1894), Gertrude (b 1898), and Agnes Olive D Henderson (b 1906). Robert Henderson was a tobacconist and dealer, and Arabella assisted him in his business. This suggests that she had a head for business and potentially a good choice as quartermaster to the Voluntary Aid Detachment. Although there is no Red Cross VAD card for Miss A R Henderson, there is evidence that she was undertaking training in first aid and that she was awarded proficiency badges (Berwickshire News, 28th March 1916, p 4). More significantly there is photograph of her in a VAD uniform in 1915 with her brother John Alfred who was then recovering from a wound received in action. Her oldest surviving brother James Henderson (qv.) was killed in action on 12th May 1917 and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial. Charles William her younger brother, who worked as bank teller, enlisted as an aircraftman II in the Royal Naval Air Service on 22nd February 1918 and subsequently transferred to the newly formed RAF. Arabella’s youngest brother John Alfred, who was an electrical engineer by profession, had served in the Army until discharged and transferred to a post in Ministry of Munitions to follow his profession. Arabella Redpath Henderson qualified as a midwife and was added the Roll of Midwives on 11th May 1918 and she worked as a midwife at the Maternity Hospital, New Bridge Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She married James Nesbit in 1923 and couple had one son James Miller Fleck Nesbit (b 1930, d 2018). Her husband James Nesbit died in 1936. In 1939 Arabella was living at 53 Glendale Road with her son who was still at school. She died aged 87 in 1974. 29/12/2019 |
HUNTER, Miss May, Milfield, Wooler Nursing, whole time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 20/07/1915 to 28/02/1919 This is probably Catherine May Hunter (b 9th April 1887), daughter of Andrew Hunter, school teacher, and his wife Rachel Fish. She had an older sister Ann Hilda (b 1884) and three younger brothers Robert How Hunter (b. 1889), Wilfrid Bertram (b 1891) and Norman Archbold (b 1895). May Hunter served as a full time volunteer nurse at Etal from July 1915 until its closure in February 1919. All three of her brothers served during the war. The middle brother Bertram had joined the Royal Navy before the War and served through the war and after. Robert How Hunter (qv) and Norman Archbold Hunter (qv) both served in the Army and both were killed on the Western Front and are commemorated on Wooler war memorials. In 1923 Catherine May Hunter married the Rev Robert Edgar Brown of Chesterfield at the Crookham Presbyterian Church. The couple were married by the Rev. Moses Forsyth assisted by the Rev. Stanley W Brown, brother of the groom. In 1939 the couple lived at Farnworth, Lancashire. 08/02/2020 |
JACKSON, Miss Annie, 4 Burdon Terrace, Bedlington [Card 1] Reserve VAD - from 23/02/1918 to [?] [Card 2] Cook, full time - 13th Northumberland VA Hospital Etal Manor - 01/06/1918 to 30/09/1918 [Card 3] Cook, whole time - 14th Northumberland VA Hospital Holeyn Hall - 23/11/1918 "still working" Miss Annie Jackson of 4 Burdon Terrace, Bedlington, Northumberland was christened Mary Anne Baty Jackson (b 1892). She was the oldest of the eight children of James Baty Jackson (b 1859, Morpeth) and his wife Mary Elizabeth Short (b 1869, Bedlington). The couple had married at Morpeth on 13th December 1890. Annie Jackson had two younger sisters, Nora (b 1895) and Susannah (b 1905) and five younger brothers: Thomas (b 1896), John George (b 1899); Robert (b 1900), William (b c 1903) and an unnamed male infant one month old recorded in the 1911 Census. He was subsequently named James. Miss Annie Jackson worked as a full time paid cook at Etal Manor from June to September 1918, and then at Holeyn Hall VA Hospital, Wylam on Tyne, Northumberland from 23rd November 1918. When her VAD card for Holeyn Hall was filled out it was noted that she ‘still working’. There is evidence that two of Annie Jackson’s brothers – Thomas (b 1896) and John George (b 1899) - could have served in the War. Thomas joined the Army and served with the East Yorkshire Regiment but did not go overseas. John George Jackson may have served with the 10th (Service) battalion Northumberland Fusiliers (68th Brigade, 23rd Division) and then with the 13th (Service) battalion Durham Light Infantry (68th Brigade, 23rd Division). He was wounded but returned home from the war.[Note 2] Another brother Robert (b 1900) was just old enough to have been conscripted towards the end of the War. William and James Jackson were too young to have served in the war. There is no clear evidence to indicate whether or not Annie Jackson married after the war. 29/12/2019 |
JOHNSON, Mrs Annie Barbara, Glendale Rd. Wooler [Card 1] Nurse (sic), paid - Westbourne Aux Hospital, 55, Porchester Terrace, Bayswater 02/08/1917 to 21/07/1919 [Card 2] Head Cook to the staff, whole time - 4th Northern General Hospital Lincoln - 06/02/1918 to 27/01/1919 - Previous engagment - Westbourne VAD Hospital - August 1917 to December 1917 Annie Barbara Johnson (née Avery) was born in Lowick on 11th February 1871. Her father John Avery was a miller and farmer, and her mother was Margaret Bolton. John Avery and Margaret Bolton had married on 14th November 1861 and the family lived at Holborn Mill, Lowick. Annie Barbara had two older sisters, Lydia Margaret (b 1865; d 1889) and Marian (b c 1869), an older brother George William (b c 1867), and a younger brother Henry Howey (b c 1873). By 1901, (Annie) Barbara Avery was working as a ‘domestic economy instructor’, and was lodging with Thomas and Katherine Osborne at 105 De Vere Gardens, Ilford, Essex. Katherine Osborne was also a domestic economy instructor, and her husband Thomas Osborne was an elementary schoolteacher. Annie Avery married Thomas Johnson at Holy Innocents Church, Hornsey, Middlesex on 15th February 1906. Thomas Johnson was an engineer, who was from Holy Island, Northumberland (b 5th December 1868). In 1911 he was lodging at 66 Frodingham Road, Crosby, Scunthorpe, were he was working as an engineer erector in the steel works. It is unclear where his wife was living in 1911. When Annie Barbara Johnson volunteered in 1917 her permanent address was recorded as c/o Avery, 52, Glendale Road, Wooler, which was the address of her sister Marian and their widowed mother Margaret. She worked first at the Westbourne Auxiliary Hospital in Bayswater, London from 2nd August to December 1917, presumably as a cook and not as a nurse as recorded on her first VAD record card. She then worked as head cook to the staff of the 4th Northern General Hospital Lincoln from 6th February 1918. She was still working at Lincoln on 13th February 1919.[Note 3] By 1923 Annie and her husband were living 91 Appletree Gardens, Walkerville, Newcastle. Thomas Johnson died on 23rd August 1943 aged 76. Annie Barbara continued to live in Appletree Gardens until at least 1954. 29/12/2019 |
JOHNSTONE, Miss Agnes, Coupland, Kirknewton, Wooler Nurse, paid - 1st Eastern General Military Hospital Cambridge - 15/06/1916 to ? - transferred to France - 10/04/1917 to 10/05/1919; - Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London - 21/07/1919 to "present" It has not been possible to identify either Agnes Johnstone of Coupland, Kirknewton, Wooler, or her family and antecedents with any confidence.[Note 4] What seems certain from her VAD record cards is that Agnes Johnstone of Coupland was 20 years old when she became VA nurse in 1916, and that she served as a paid nurse from June 1916 to the end of the war and beyond. She worked first as a nurse at the 1st Eastern General Military Hospital Cambridge from 15th June 1916. The hospital was constructed on land that before the War had been used as cricket grounds and had been shared by King’s College and Clare College. The site is now occupied by the Cambridge University Library. The doctors and nurses were housed in the King’s College buildings. Agnes then served as a VAD nurse with Territorial Force Nursing Service in France for two years and one month between 10th April 1917 and 10th May 1919. Her overseas service entitled her to the British War and Victory medals. After her return from France she worked as a nurse at the Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill. She began at the Maudsley on 21 July 1919, but there is no record of how long she remained at the hospital. The Maudsley Hospital was a satellite hospital of No.4 London General Hospital (Territorial Force), which was located at King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill. The Maudsley treated neurological cases and in the latter part of war served as a neurological clearing hospital. It is not known when Agnes ended her service. Indeed it has not been possible find out anything certain about her post war life, where she lived, whether she married or remained single, and not even when and where she died. 08/02/2020 |