Mumbles: The Home Front 1914-1919
By Carol Powell
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During the Great War and beyond, people on the Home Front worked hard caring for injured servicemen in the two Red Cross hospitals at Victoria Hall and Dan y Coed House, while Nurse Henrietta Lloyd, strove for better conditions for Mums and babies at her clinic on Myrtle Terrace >.
The Victoria Red Cross Auxiliary Hospital opened in April 1915 with twenty-five beds, after local builders and tradesmen had carried out, free of charge, all the small structural and decorative work needed. Its many nurses included a Mother and daughter, Lucy and Margaret Wood (nicknamed 'Little Miss Sunshine' by the patients). Victoria Hospital was open for 1,343 days and treated 438 patients at a cost of 4s. 10½d. per head per day, with an average stay of 43 days, until its last patients left on 15 February 1919.
Dan-y-Coed Red Cross Hospital, June 1918
Dan-y-Coed Red Cross Hospital was opened on 1 November 1915 with sufficient supplies to equip the complement of 65 beds. Matron was Miss Ada Davies and one of the Nurses was Eunice Fairchild. All those well enough, were permitted to go out into the community, wearing the ‘hospital blue’ uniform. Dan-y-Coed was open for 1,220 days, treating 732 patients at a cost of 4s. 3½d. per head per day, with an average stay of 64 days, until it closed on 27 March 1919.
The Mother & Baby Clinic
The Mumbles Maternity and Baby Welfare Association was opened on 9 October 1917 at Nurse Lloyd’s home at 3, Myrtle Terrace, 'with the aim of encouraging natural feeding of the infant and to look after the welfare of expectant and nursing mothers and children up to five years of age'. It operated as a voluntary organisation with a grant from the Oystermouth Urban District Council and voluntary support, plus the goodwill of the local Doctors. Gifts were received, such as two tons of coal from Mr. Coonan, jugs of soup from Mrs. Eley, six eggs from Mrs. Smale or cash gifts such as 30/- ‘as thank- you offering for baby’s recovery’ from Mrs. Humphrey Davies.
School girls and helpers held sewing meetings every Tuesday evening during the winter months, where maternity bags, containing items for the new babies, were made. Two of the Newton schoolgirls were reported to have ‘not missed one meeting and to have done good work.’
Lessons in baby care
Clinics were held every Tuesday afternoon from 2.30 to 6, when mothers brought their babies to be weighed and to receive help and advice. At the first clinic in November 1917, only four mothers attended, but soon numbers grew and ‘during the last nine months of 1918 and the first three months of 1919, a total of 1,014 mothers and 1,148 babies had used the Centre.’
Nurse Henrietta Lloyd
Mothers were taken to Mr. Thomas, the Dentist on Wednesday afternoons and Nurse Lloyd also took Mother-craft classes in the local schools, ‘the beginnings of useful knowledge . . . the future mothers of this depopulated land.’
During the 'flu epidemic in October and November of 1918, she made beef tea, soups and milk-food at the Centre, which were distributed to 51 families, besides going into homes and caring for many sick babies and mothers. In May 1918, she collected £11..10s..0d and bought 26 pairs of boots for the children and wives or widows of local soldiers and sailors and during the shortage of fats, she obtained a grant of extra butter and margarine for the expectant and nursing mums.
Mumbles Press, paying tribute, commented that 'very few places of its size, if any, can claim a better all-round record . . . amongst the manifold activities of the good folk who stayed at home.'
My grateful thanks go to
Penny Hehir, Joyce Hewett and Mary Barnes for photographs