WWI COMMEMORATIVE EDITION
Rhifyn Coffaol: Y Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf
NEWSLETTER
Cylchlythyr
‘Poppies at Normandy’ courtesy of The Royal British Legion.
Welcome to the summer edition of the Gwent Archives newsletter. This commemorative issue has been produced to tie in with the centenary of the Great War and
the events being staged by Gwent Archives as part of the commemoration. This
newsletter includes articles written as part of a talk given previously about sources
available in our Archive that can be used to research people’s involvement in
World War One. A hand-list can be found on http://www.gwentarchives. gov.uk/
news/1914-1918-world-war.aspx and this will be updated as we find more
sources.
Inside this issue: Yn y
rhifyn hwn
Welcome and news .....................1
World War One document sources at
Gwent Archives ...........................2
Local military tribunals in
Monmouthshire ..........................3
Families at war: the impact of the
Great War on life at home ..........5
The articles in this edition have been selected to give an insight into different aspects of the war and investigate the contribution of men and women to the war
effort, and also the impact of the war on the people that remained at home. The
sources available at Gwent Archives have been used extensively to demonstrate
how personal stories can still be revealed from an event that took place a hundred
years ago, and give a human face to those who participated in this event.
Staff of the 3rd Western General Hospital, Newport Section (Woolaston House) , June 1918.
Nurse Olive Jenkins may appear in this photograph (see page 12) (D3345/64).
Page/Tudalen 1
A letter from the front ................6
Escape from Germany .................7
War memorials and their stories..10
A recent accession: the William
O’Brien letters…………………………...14
Forthcoming Events ....................16
World War I document sources at Gwent Archives:
Ffynonellau Dogfennau Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf yn Archifdy Gwent
This brief article gives a taster of the type of records people may use when researching the First World War. It
considers documents which appear in our subject index, and some sources of which many may be unaware. The
first topic covered is personal papers. The example used is taken from a diary of a soldier from 1917. The collection this comes from is currently being listed (D5831). The soldier in question, Paul Baker Jones, was serving in
Palestine in 1917, and his entry for 26 March, for example, provides his view of the first battle of Gaza.
Next we look at war memorials, and the Roll of Honour CD published by the Newport Branch of the Gwent Family
History Society. This CD covers not only casualties of the First and Second World Wars and other conflicts, but also
those who returned. Two examples given are a gentleman called Allan Collins, where very little information is given on him save that he served between 1914 and 1918 and appears on a school and chapel rolls of honour. Later
on we look at Allan Collins on other sources. The second example picks up a gentleman called Walter Southwood.
The CD provides lots of information on him such as rank, service number, where he enlisted, division & battalion,
when and where he was born, when and where he died, names of his parents, where he went school, and where
he is buried in Greece. The different sources this information is taken from are also listed.
We also hold Absent Voters’ lists (C/ABSENTVOTERS) for the whole of Monmouthshire (minus Newport area),
which record those who were serving abroad but were entitled to vote in elections at home. These lists are particularly useful as they show the service number, regiment and sometimes rank of the individual serviceman. Allan
Collins mentioned above in the Roll of Honour, for whom little information was given, appears in the absent voters’ list and we can see that his service number was 79918, and that he was a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery. Using the service number given it is possible to look at further record sources such as the Medal Cards available on The National Archives website.
Having looked at those who had served, we now consider those who stayed behind. After conscription was introduced, military tribunals were established to hear the cases of individuals seeking exemption from military service. An example of a hearing from Brynmawr concerns a conscientious objector who wished to be exempted on
religious grounds (A320/C/323). Despite putting together a lengthy explanation of why he refused to bear arms
against another man, the tribunal decided not to exempt him from military service, only combatant service. Life at
home during the war is also revealed in many school log books. In the log book for Llantilio Pertholey school
(CEB63/23) the headmaster Albert George Greene recorded daily events such as the first use of Daylight Saving
during May 1916, the jingoistic lesson given on Empire Day on the history of the Union Jack, children picking
blackberries for jam making for the troops, peace being realised on Armistice Day, and the Peace Treaty of Versailles being signed in 1919.
There could be long-term consequences for those returning from the war as the Abergavenny Asylum documents
show. Many men that were admitted to Pen-y-fal in the post-war period were possibly suffering from the effects
of combat such as post-traumatic stress disorder and shellshock as we now know them. The example we consider
is for a Reginald Dodge from Pontypool who was admitted to the asylum in 1923. His case record (D3202/42/1)
details some of his war service, he had his left ring finger amputated from an “accidental” (the assessor’s inverted
commas) gunshot wound, for this he was given 1 day’s field punishment and 3 months confined to barracks. By
1915 he was serving in Salonika in Greece and during this period he was blown up by a shell, suffering concussion. From this injury he eventually lost the sight in his right eye. Despite his problems the gentleman in question
was discharged within a year. Due to their sensitive nature the asylum records are subject to a 100 year closure
period. Mr Dodge’s entry is open as he is deceased, however, others in the volume may well still be alive.
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The last record source (which is yet to be fully catalogued) is the honourable discharge certificate of a Private Ernest Bond, from Cwm (Fig. 1) (D5948), who served with the Royal Berkshire Regiment. Although not conveying a
massive amount of information, it is an example of one of the many miscellaneous items connected with the First
World War in the archive, and is one of our more eye-catching pieces.
Kai Michael
Fig. 1. The honourable discharge certificate of Ernest Arthur Bond (D5948)
Local Military Tribunals in Monmouthshire:
Tribiwnlysoedd Milwrol Lleol yn Sir Fynwy
When Britain declared war on Germany in the August of 1914, recruitment into the British Army was done so
on a voluntary basis. Initially this system proved adequate, with high levels of recruitment generated by reasons such as the sense of adventure associated with going off to fight in a foreign land, and the introduction of
the pals’ battalions. Recruitment during the First World War is best represented by the iconic poster of FieldMarshal Lord Kitchener, who was Secretary of State for War at the time, declaring that ‘Your Country needs
you.’ However, as the war dragged on into a second year, with very high casualties due to the unprecedented
scale of fighting, greater number of recruits were required. This dilemma was eventually solved through the
introduction of compulsory conscription, which came in the form of the Military Service Act, introduced at the
beginning of 1916. This act declared that all single men aged between 18 and 41 had to volunteer for military
service. A second act was passed in the May, to include all married men within this age range.
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Yet within this piece of legislation, there was also an opportunity for those selected for military service to apply for
exemption. A man could appeal against his call up if he was either unfit for military service, engaged in work deemed to
be of national interest (Fig. 1), faced possible financial hardship due to business obligations, or objected to the war on
moral grounds. These applications for exemption were made to Local Military Tribunals. The National Archives at Kew
have recently digitised the records of the Middlesex Military Service Appeal Tribunals, which contain over 8000 case
files. To have a collection of this size is rare as in 1921 the Ministry of Health ordered that all individual case files of
men seeking exemption from military service should be destroyed.
Fig. 1. War service badge and certificate of William Henry Jenkins employee at Henry White & Co. Ltd’s Pontymister foundry and
steelworks(D394/B3)
Here at Gwent Archives, we are fortunate to hold quite a sizeable collection of Local Military Tribunal records for the
County. Amongst these, we hold individual case files for men seeking certificate of exemptions from the Tribunal
Boards of Aberbargoed (D4279), Brynmawr (A320/C/320-339), Chepstow (CSWBGC/M5/71), Cwmbran (D4279),
Llantarnam (D4279), Newport (D4279), and Pontnewydd (D4279). These records contain a host of information. They
provide the type of information which we would expect to find in a document of this nature, such as the personal details of the man seeking exemption, the grounds for his application, and the decision of the Local Tribunal.
However, in addition to this, these records also reveal details about the health, work, and domestic arrangements of
these men. For example, as part of their appeal process, those seeking exemption for financial reasons included quite
detailed descriptions of either the business they owned, or worked for. This can be seen from the individual case file of
William Peacock of St Woolos Road, Newport (D4279/8). The file not only reveals the details of his own job as a mineral
water factory mechanic, but also the trading sales, weekly output figures, and employee numbers of his employers,
Lloyd and Yorath Ltd the Mineral Water Manufacturers. The case file of Geoffrey Strong Thorne (D4279), who along
with his brother were partners of C and GS Thorne, Grocers, Provision Merchants and Bakers, informs us that they had
shops in Newport, Cardiff, Caerleon, Pengam, and Blackwood.
The Brynmawr records are a particularly good collection as they appear to be a complete set, helping to build a picture
of how many men within this town applied for exemption during the conflict. However, this particular collection is also
noteworthy from the point of view that it contains an individual case file for a man seeking exemption from call up due
to the fact he was a conscientious objector. William George Chappell of King Street, Brynmawr, listed his occupation as
Evangelistic Canvasser, and Missionary. Among the reasons he gave to support his appeal for exemption were that he
was a Seventh Day Adventist, and therefore opposed to war. His initial application for exemption was refused; when he
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appealed against this he was granted a certificate of exemption from combatant service only, which was a
common procedure for conscientious objectors.
The case files can also provide us with valuable information of the relatives of those applying for exemption. The Brynmawr records tell us that William Shaw Clement, also of King Street, was appealing against
his call up as he was the only remaining son of a widow. His three other brothers were all serving their
country, with two in France, and one recovering after being wounded in action.
As a result of the wide variety of information which can be gathered from these documents they have a
wide appeal to many different types of researcher, including those with an interest in family, local and
military history.
Kerry Evans
Families at War: the impact of the Great War on life at home:
Teuluoedd yn y Rhyfel: effaith y Rhyfel Mawr ar fywyd cartref
It can be seen from the previous article about tribunals that there was much concern about men being
conscripted, partly as the main breadwinners having to leave their families to fend for themselves. In an
era when few married women worked, there was no welfare state, and poor relief and the workhouse
were stigmatised, there may have been difficult decisions to make regarding the upkeep of wife and children versus doing one’s bit for one’s country. These very real worries are exemplified in the admission and
discharge register of the Tredegar Children’s, or Cottage Homes (CSWBGB/I/2). From October 1914 children were being admitted whose fathers were stated as being at war. The Barrett family are the first to
appear, with siblings Frank, Alexandra, Edwin, Cecil Herbert, Winifred and Amy, ranging in age from 5 to 14
years. They were admitted separately into the homes between 23 October and 12 November 1914, their
father was away at war but the children’s mother was not mentioned.
Other families seemingly affected by the war before conscription started for married men include the
Jones children whose mother had been committed to the County Gaol while their father was in the Army,
and Charles and George Harris whose mother had died. Examples of children admitted after conscription
for married men started in 1916 include: Florence and William Hurley the two children of Phoebe Jane Hurley who was also in the workhouse; Lilian, Stanley and Pearl Death whose father was in the Royal Engineers
and mother was serving a three month prison sentence; Mary, Martha, William, Miriam and Thomas Sambrook whose mother was also in prison and whose father was serving with the South Wales Borderers in
France.
It is not known what crimes the women had committed to be given prison sentences, but possibly these
were acts of desperation of an impoverished family? Although the children above were separated from
their parents and other siblings some were reclaimed by their parents. The Sambrook children were discharged into the care of their mother in January 1918 only one month after they were admitted. The Hurley children also only spent about a month in the home, being collected by their father in September 1917.
The Death children were given back to their mother in March 1918 after she had finished her prison
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sentence. In the minutes of the Children’s Homes Committee (CSWBGB/M2/23) it is recorded on the 20
March 1918 that Fred Barrett was expected shortly to remove all his children from the home, however his
eldest son Frank had already been adopted and one of his other sons, Cecil Herbert, had been admitted to
the National Nautical School in January 1918 as he had expressed a desire to become a sailor.
Victoria Jackson
A Letter from the Front in the Primrose Hockey Collection:
Llythyr o’r Ffrynt yng Nghasgliad Primrose Hockey
The Primrose Hockey Collection (D4165) held at Gwent Archives is a miscellaneous accumulation of notebooks, newspaper cuttings, maps, postcards, photographs and assorted ephemera collected by Elizabeth
Temperance Primrose Hockey MBE between the years 1915-1993. Born in 1903 at Llanfrechfa, Monmouthshire, Primrose Hockey attended the village school where she was generally regarded by teaching staff as a
gifted pupil with immense potential. She received higher education at Pontypool College and later at Kennington St Gabriel’s College in London. She became a respected and highly esteemed teacher in both London and America, eventually returning to Wales and a teaching post in Griffithstown. In 1948 she became
headmistress at the Charles Williams Charity School in Caerleon, a post she held until retirement in 1968.
Prim, as she was affectionately known to friends, was also a keen local historian and founder member of
Caerleon Local History Society and in 1970 she published a history of Caerleon.
The collected papers largely reflect Primrose Hockey’s activities and interests in local history and travel with
notebooks and printed material on various historic buildings, parishes and place names. However, amongst
the personal ephemera of ration books, invitation cards and programmes is a letter dated 5 May 1915 and
signed by E.S. Williams. It is a short message scrawled in pencil on a sheet of lined notepaper addressed to
5/5/15
Primrose thanking her for gifts received at the front. But who was E. S Williams and what was his story?
Dear Primrose
Thank you very much for the primroses chocolates & cigarettes it was very kind of you all to
send them. We have been fighting hard for 8 days. It is getting warm out here I am very tired
& sleepy and cannot write anymore. Remember me to your mother & Jennifer
Yours truly
E.S. Williams
After a search of the various census, newspaper and military records freely available online at Gwent Archives, it became apparent that the author of the letter to Primrose Hockey was Edmund Styant Williams, a
Major in the First Battalion Monmouthshire Territorial Force. He was born on 13 July, 1875 at Gold Tops in
Newport, the only son of George Waters Williams a JP of Llanfrechfa and owner of a brick manufacturing
company. Educated at King’s School in Warwick, he excelled at sport and was renowned as a formidable
rugby player. He joined the school cadet corps and from an early age displayed great enthusiasm for the military life, later joining the Monmouthshire Volunteers. He rose to the rank of Captain in 1906 and was
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promoted to Major in the First Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment in September 1914. The regiment
left for the front in February 1915 and by the end of April the men of the First Battalion were involved
in heavy fighting as the Second Battle of Ypres gathered momentum.
They were positioned to defend the lines north-west of Ypres and to the east of an area called Frezenberg Ridge; however, by 1 May 1915 the sheer ferocity of the relentless German shelling and gas
attacks precipitated the decision to withdraw to a new defensive line closer to Ypres itself. The regiment marched west to Brielen where they were billeted in huts and it would appear that the officers
and men were anticipating a short period of rest and recuperation, but three days later the German
bombardment of Ypres increased in intensity and on 6 May the battalion received orders to move back
east to the front line. They arrived at Frezenberg Ridge under cover of darkness and began to shore up
and repair the battered defences, a task that they worked on until dawn. Early on the morning of 8 May
1915 the German onslaught started again with shelling and infantry attacks as the Battle of Frezenberg
Ridge began.
It was a disastrous day for the Battalion. After hours of fighting
they found themselves isolated, and without communications
to their headquarters or artillery they were forced to fight on
against overwhelming odds facing German attacks and heavy
fire from all quarters. In the midst of the chaos and carnage
Major E. S. Williams took a group of men with him to repel the
German marines who were now swarming into a trench on the
battalion’s right flank. At some point during this action he was
killed, just three days after writing the letter to Primrose Hockey.
The letter appears to have been written during the short respite in Brielen just before orders were received by the battalion to move back to the front line at Frezenberg Ridge on the 6
May 1915. With this in mind, the poignancy becomes even
greater in E.S Williams request for twelve year old Primrose to
“Remember me to your mother & Jennifer” at the end of the
letter.
Gareth Thomas
Escape from Germany: ‘The account of the capture, imprisonment and escape of 906
Corporal Lovell Jolliffe, 1st Monmouthshire Regiment’: Dianc o'r Almaen: ‘Adrodd hanes
cipio, carchariad a dihangfa Corporal Lovell 906 Joliffe, Catrawd 1af Sir Fynwy'.
Cuthbert Lovell York Jolliffe was born in Chepstow in 1892. His parents had married in Merthyr Tydfil in
1876, then moved to Derbyshire where Cuthbert’s father Frederick worked as a solicitor’s accounting clerk.
However, the family had settled in Chepstow by 1883. Following in his father’s footsteps Cuthbert
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became an accountant working alongside his brother Charles Gordon Jolliffe. Cuthbert served in the 1 st Monmouthshire Regiment (Fig. 1) during the early years of the Great War, but unfortunately was captured by the
Germans in May 1915, during an intense battle fought from the trenches near Ypres while fighting with the
British Expeditionary Force (he would have fought alongside Edmund Styant Williams, see previous article).
The 1/1st, 1/2nd and 1/3rd battalions of the Monmouthshire Regiment suffered so many casualties during this,
the Second Battle of Ypres that they were amalgamated on the 27 May into one battalion.
The 1st Monmouthshires were ordered up to the front line at Frezenberg Ridge on the Ypres Salient on the 6
May. After reaching the Ridge on the 7 May they had to repair the badly damaged trenches, but as dawn
broke on 8 May the British were hit by intense German artillery fire and infantry attacks. This is the point at
which Cuthbert started his traumatic, but sometimes comic, account of his capture, internment and escape.
During the battle in the early morning of 8 May 1915 Cuthbert was wounded by shrapnel 6 times within two
and a half hours. As the Germans advanced the British soldiers were told to withdraw but there were so many
wounded men in the trench that Cuthbert could not move down the trench to get out and he and the remaining troops surrendered to the Germans. Cuthbert describes being ‘treated kindly’ by the Germans as he was
taken to the dressing station and also by the staff in the hospital at Duisburg in western Germany where he
convalesced from his wounds until 19 July.
Fig. 1. Cuthbert Jolliffe in his 1st Mons. Regt. Uniform. (D396/329)
After he had recovered from his wounds Cuthbert was taken by
train to prison camp Munster II where he found the food and
drink poor but was able to receive parcels from home. This was
the first of many prisoner of war camps that he was interned in
over the next few months. The next camp, Sennelager III was
one of the biggest prisoner of war camps in Germany, and along
with Munster was a Manuschaftslager (enlisted men’s camp)
reserved for privates and N.C.O.s. In November Cuthbert was
sent to Alfen a ‘small working camp’ where he participated in
farm and quarrying work. He then returned to Sennelager ‘to
have a piece of shrapnel taken out from my side which was
working itself out’. After this he was moved to the worst camp,
Soltau. On the 9 January 1916 he was moved to Bexten Listrup,
approximately 12 miles as the crow flies from the GermanNetherlands border. Cuthbert was trusted from mid-June to
look after the pay and post of the English prisoners and the pay
of the Russian and French prisoners. Although interned and
forced to work, life did not seem too harsh for Cuthbert. The
prisoners who worked on farms had dinner with the farmer’s
family, and in camp the prisoners had some ‘fun’ by creating
nicknames for the German sentries. Yet Cuthbert states that in
Soltau the Russian prisoners were treated badly by the Germans.
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During the autumn of 1916 Cuthbert and a group of other prisoners began thinking about escaping from the
camp. Rather lax security in the camp produced a somewhat comic scenario. Hayon, Cuthbert’s Belgian roommate, had a map: ‘Our map was a copy of one left behind in camp, which Hayon brought from Soltau, and
which he was given or sold by one of his prisoner friends.’ (Fig. 2) The men prepared for their escape by gathering information about the terrain from the Germans and other prisoners who had escaped but been recaptured. A compass and a torch were bought from the German staff and food hoarded from their rations. Yet
they were only able to take four biscuits and two tins of Horlicks tablets eventually and had to eat raw swedes
and an apple they found on the road.
Fig. 2. The escape map used by Cuthbert and the other prisoners to escape from Bexten Listrup camp. (D396/329)
On the day of the escape 12 October 1916, the group of prisoners were escorted to Salzbergen railway station to collect parcels for the camp by one prison guard. Earlier in the day the prisoners had given some of
their food to the German guard to help feed his eleven children. They then persuaded the guard to reciprocate by buying cigars for them from a hotel on the way back to the camp. The guard asked the men to wait
outside the hotel while he went inside to purchase the cigars, but Cuthbert and three other prisoners took
the opportunity to run away after he had gone inside.
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Their journey to the Netherlands took two days as they hid during the day, because they knew there was a
reward of ’50 Marks given for re-capturing prisoners’. By the third night they suspected that they had
reached the Netherlands and Hayon, acting as interpreter, went into a shop to ask where they were, finding
out that they were in De Lutte the first village over the border. The shopkeeper gave them a free supper of
bread and butter, toasted crumpets and beer before a policeman handed them over to the military authorities. Although the Netherlands was neutral during the Great War, Cuthbert had heard a rumour that the
Dutch would ‘enquire of Germany if we had escaped and if we had done any damage or killed anyone.
We presume, if we had, they would have sent us back.’ However, the men were sent to the British
Consul in Rotterdam where they were given new clothes and their passage back to England.
C.L.Y. Jolliffe wearing the uniform of the Herefordshire Regiment. (D396/329)
It is not clear what, if any, part Cuthbert played in the rest of the
war, although he was made a Second Lieutenant in the Herefordshire Regiment on 27 February 1918 (D396/409), and later joined
the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and retired from the army in
1923. After the war Cuthbert carried on in his profession of accountancy, possibly with his brother Charles Gordon who had a
chartered accountancy practice in Chepstow High Street. In February 1939 the two brothers journeyed to Europe together, sailing to
Genova in Italy and returning via Marseilles approximately one
month later. It appears that Cuthbert never married and when he
died on 16 February 1951 he left his estate to his brother Charles
Gordon Jolliffe and Harold Edward Halliday, both chartered accountants. Cuthbert’s address at the time of his death was 7 High
Street, Chepstow, the same house that his widowed mother was
living in at the time of the 1911 census.
Victoria Jackson
War memorials and their stories: Cofebion rhyfel a’u storïau
How often do you walk past a war memorial? Do you think about the names commemorated on these monuments to the fallen? Who were these people? What were their stories and experiences of the war? Could they
have even been your ancestors? Using the Pontypool and Newport areas this article looks at some of the
names commemorated on the memorials in those towns (Figs. 1, 2). The examples mentioned here represent
just a few of the many men and women commemorated and as such the many varied stories that are waiting
to be discovered about the people who experienced, participated in and gave their lives in WWI.
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Figs 1 and 2. Programme for the unveiling ceremony of Abersychan and Pontypool War Memorial (D2824/6).
On the Abersychan and Pontypool Memorial Gates in Pontypool town centre under the motto ‘Dulce et
decorum est pro patria mori’ are listed 380 names of those from Pontypool and area who died in WWI.
Among these names are Private John James Denton (Fig. 3), an experienced soldier who had fought in the
Boer War. Born in London, John had moved to Abersychan and was working as a collier at Llanerch Colliery
when he was called up at the beginning of the war due to being a reservist. He joined his old cavalry regiment the 12th Royal Lancers and experienced some of the first fighting of the war. After visiting home in
1917, John returned to France where he died of wounds on the 13 April 1918. John’s obituary in the Free
Press states that he was one of five brothers, one who had been killed at the beginning of the war and four
were still fighting.
Able Seaman Alfred Joseph Allen (Fig. 4) died of fever at the Plymouth Royal Naval Hospital on 18 April
1918. Only 18 years old, he had left his family and job as a coal cutter in Talywain to join the Navy less than
a month before he became ill while he was stationed at the Navy barracks in Devonport. Sergeant William
Prosser (Fig. 5), a collier at the Gwenallt Colliery, Cwmffrwdoer and a member of Pontypool Male Voice
Choir, had transferred from the North Lancashire Regiment to the Monmouthshire Regiment in 1915. The
Monmouthshire Regiment had been caught up in the severe fighting of the German Spring offensive in
April 1918 in which William Prosser was severely wounded. After a Canadian soldier volunteered to give
William a transfusion of blood the wounded soldier was taken to hospital in Camiers, Nord Pas de Calais.
William’s wife travelled over to France and stayed with him until he died about a week later on 26 April
1918.
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Fig. 3. Private J. J. Denton
Fig. 4. Able Seaman A. Allen
Fig. 5. Sergeant W. Prosser
Albert ‘Bert’ Victor Prosser from Cwmavon was specially enlisted into the Army Service Corps in 1915 for
his skills as a shoeing smith. Described as a driver on his army service records he would have played a crucial role in a war that relied on horsepower, driving the horses that pulled gun carriages and wagons as well
as shoeing and caring for them. After three years in France tending to the horses Bert contracted influenza
and broncho-pneumonia and died in a military hospital in Dieppe on 1 December 1918. Bert was awarded
the British War Medal, Victory Medal and 1914/15 Star.
Although there are women commemorated on the memorial, information about them appears to be more
scarce than that for the men. Nurse Olive Jenkins of the Volunteer Aid Detachment and Worker (Private)
Lucy Jane Saint of Queen Mary’s Army Auxilliary Corps are not mentioned in the newspaper roll of honour,
only in the regular births, marriages and deaths column. Voluntary Aid Detachments were non-military organisations but worked alongside all branches of the armed forces in Britain and abroad during World War
One. Their mostly women members were all trained in first-aid and nursing and undertook other jobs such
as cooking and driving. Olive from Pontnewynydd died in Newport District on 13 December 1918 and may
have been working at Woolaston House which was being used as a military hospital (see photo on front
page). The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps was renamed Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps in April 1918.
Although a civilian corps QMAAC was originally formed to take over non-combatant tasks in France to freeup soldiers for front line service. The women who joined the corps could expect to become clerks, telephonists, cooks, waitresses or motor drivers. Lucy Jane Saint from Pontypool enrolled in Bristol and spent her
time in service in Britain, possibly in Bournmouth where many wounded soldiers were treated. Lucy died in
the Royal Victoria and West Hants Military Hospital in Boscombe, Bournmouth on 27 October 1918; the
hospital is stated as her place of abode in the burial register of Llanfihangel Pont-y-moel church.
Sister Ethel Saxon of the Territorial Forces Nursing Service is commemorated on the Snatchwood Road
Methodist Church memorial and like the above women is mentioned only in the newspaper deaths column
rather than the roll of honour (Fig. 6). Ethel, born in 1891 and listed as a mother’s helper living in Pontnewynydd in the 1911 census would have undergone three years of training to qualify as a sister in the
TFNS. Although most members of the service worked in Britain during the war some nurses were sent to
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help staff the territorial hospitals abroad. In the early twentieth century Karachi was an important sea port in
India (now Pakistan) and many British and Indian soldiers were stationed in the city during WWI. In 1915 the
Karachi Port Trust Building was converted into a 500 bed military hospital and this is possibly where Ethel was
working when she died on 3 September 1917. Ethel is also commemorated on the India Gate Memorial, New
Delhi.
Fig. 6. Death notice of Ethel Saxon in the Free Press of Monmouthshire, 14 September 1917.
Fig. 7. Thomas Arthur member of the Newport Athletic Club. (D1836/47)
As well as town and village memorials there are
many smaller ones that commemorate members of religious congregations, schools, workplaces and clubs. In Newport examples of these
include the Newport Transport Corporation
plaque, the Orb Works memorial, the Newport
Hebrew Congregation Synagogue Roll of Honour, and the Newport Athletic Club memorial
(see R. Westlake, First World War Graves and
Memorials in Gwent). The NAC formed a pals
platoon as part of the 8th Battalion South Wales
Borderers and among the eighty six members of
Newport Athletic Club commemorated on the
memorial in Rodney Parade is Sergeant Thomas
Arthur (Fig. 7), a Welsh cross country champion,
who served with the 8th Battalion. The 8th Battalion were stationed in Salonika, Macedonia
(Greece) from Autumn 1915 helping the Serbians hold the line against the Germans, Austrians
and Bulgarians. Sadly several men on the memorial died at Salonika including Thomas Arthur on
9 May 1917.
Victoria Jackson
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A Recent Accession: The William O’Brien Letters:
Ychwanegiadau Diweddar: Llythyrau William O'Brien
Here at Gwent Archives, we have been very fortunate to receive a very special World War One collection.
Mrs Joan Nash, of New Inn, has recently deposited approximately 100 letters and photographs which were
sent to her mother-in-law, Rose Nash (nee Curtis), by her boyfriend at the time, Private William O’Brien (Fig.
1). A collection of this magnitude would be a worthy addition to our holdings at any time, yet as we prepare
to begin four years of commemoration of the First World War, their arrival here at Ebbw Vale is all the more
exciting. We are very grateful to Peter Brown of the University of South Wales, who first alerted us to the
existence of this collection, after reading about them on-line. Mrs Nash has had custody of her mother-inlaw’s letters since first discovering them in 1982, yet, after meeting with our County Archivist, Tony Hopkins,
Mrs Nash decided that she would like to deposit them with us here at Gwent Archives. Despite being over
100 years old, the letters are in a very good condition; however, storage in our state of the art strong rooms
will guarantee their preservation for many years to come.
Fig. 1. One of Private William O’Brien’s letter to Rose Curtis. (D5963)
Rose, whose father kept the Crown Inn, in Abersychan, met William whilst he was a police constable in the
village. William, originally from Newport, had joined the police in 1914, and appears in our Monmouthshire
Constabulary records (D3297). However, in 1915, William left his job as a policeman in order to answer the
call of his country, joining the Grenadier Guards in the summer of that same year. Once he left Abersychan,
William began writing to Rose on a regular basis. During his time in the army William was based in Caterham in Surrey, and Chelsea Barracks in London, before finally being sent to France in the summer of 1916.
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The attraction of this large collection of letters is twofold, as not only do they offer researchers the opportunity to discover more about the wartime romance between William and Rose (Figs. 2 and 3), they
also provide a unique commentary on life during the First World War. In his letters, William comments
on such incidents as Zeppelin attacks over London, the death of Kitchener, and as one would expect
the mud and discomfort of life in the trenches of northern France. Sadly, William was eventually killed
in France in the August of 1917, which we discover through a moving letter written by his mother.
Rose Curtis
William O’Brien
The letters are currently being catalogued by our staff here at the Archive, yet once this process has been
completed they will be available for reading in our research room under the reference number D5963. In
the near future we hope to use the letters for educational purposes in association with local schools, and
focus on them as part of our ‘Explore your Archives’ campaign.
Kerry Evans
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