This blog is as much a plea for help as a history. Researching the contribution of the women of Aberystwyth concludes with the sad though that many were indeed ‘Hidden from History’; including those who made such an effort to patrol the streets and help safeguard the town.
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| Image Archify Ceredigion Archives |
The Women's Voluntary Service (W.V.S.), formed in June 1938, was tasked to recruit and train women for various ARP duties. As you can see from the above photograph, third of the Aberystwyth ARP were women. They represent a fusion between the university and the town. For all the men in the photograph, the census records ‘ARP Warden’ by their names. Not so for the women; across Britain there are no archival lists of ARP wardens. Neither the National Archives nor the Imperial War Museum can help but if you spot one of your forebears, or someone you knew, in the photograph, please get in touch. That will help us to give credit where it is due and show the significance of the work of these women.
The generational fashion for the use of particular first names has made census and electoral data tricky to unravel. For example, which of the sixteen women called M. Edwards, all born around the same time, is the one in the photograph? It has been easier to track down scant details about some ARP wardens who did not change their names through marriage, as in the women featured below.
Alice Gwendoline Denley Spencer was born on 21 August 1908 in Aberystwyth and Baptised in Holy Trinity Church. Daughter of John Denley Spencer, born in Covington Kentucky, USA, in 1869, and Alice Annie Spencer, born in Chester in 1874. Alice Gwendoline had a brother eleven years older than her, Thos Hamphrey, and a sister a year younger, Marjorie. It seems another brother, the Denley Spencer’s second son John Dennis, born in 1894, had died aged just seven in Aberystwyth.
There must be an interesting story as to why John Denley Spencer moved to Wales from a booming city in the USA. Covington had a population of 743 in 1830 and had grown to a population of 42,938 in 1900. He was publisher for the Montgomery County Times and Shropshire and Mid-Wales Advertiser from his branch office in Chalybeate Street Aberystwyth. The first edition was published on 1 July 1893.
In 1939 Alice was living in the family home, Highfield, Dinas Terrace. Her occupation is recorded as a beauty specialist. She is the sole woman on the front row of the
ARP Wardens’ photograph, something that presents an interesting conundrum. She is also the
only woman who is not recorded as ‘Miss’, and why is she on the front
row? If she had a particular role within Aberystwyth ARP, no record of
that role is accessible. Was it because her father was a journalist and
printer, the person printing the newspaper in which the photograph was
printed? The Women’s Royal Voluntary Service recruited women for ARP
duties. Was Alice the WRTVS official who recruited the other women?
Unless someone can fill in the gaps, we are left to speculate. Alice was still living in Aberystwyth when she died in 1990, aged 81.
Miss Sally E Mathias (Second Row, 7th from the left)
Sally E Mathias was born in Aberystwyth on 16th June 1903. She worked as a cashier in an Aberystwyth cinema during WWII. It is not clear whether she was employed in the Coliseum, now the home of Ceredigion Museum, or the Pier Cinema. In the first week of the war, in September 1939, the BBC reported that all places of entertainment were closed on the orders of the Home Office. Aberystwyth was the only town in Great Britain to ignore the instruction and cinemas remained open. Ceredigion Museum holds a priceless photograph depicting would-be cinema goers in London who were confronted by a notice showing an arrow, pointing toward Aberystwyth, telling them it was 239 miles to the nearest cinema open that evening. The government climbed down; all venues opened again by the weekend.
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| Image Amgueddfa Ceredgion Museum |
We can imagine Sally wending her way home from work, after the last film, easily able to spot any shafts of light escaping from windows along the way. Her home, which she shared with her father, Thomas C Mathias, and her younger sister Rachel E Mathias, was at Glan-Hafan, Pen-yr-Angor. Those homes since demolished and replaced by a more modern estate. She died in 1978 and is buried in Plascrug Cemetery, Aberystwyth.
Born on 10 May 1904, Irene lived during the Second World War at 11 South Marine Terrace. Irene was welcomed to Aberystwyth University in October 1936, when she arrived from London having already been awarded a MSc. Her role is recorded, in the 1939 Report to the Court of Aberystwyth University Governors about College Staff, as a Demonstrator in Botany. She is praised for her role in conducting field work excursions to North Wales, where first year Honours students observed inland and coastal floras. Irene was a specialist in ‘peziza rutilans’ an orange fungus which grows on soil, in particular its cytology, its cell-structure. In 1937 she presented a paper in Nottingham and its publication coincided with her PhD (London) award. Irene was busy publishing in academic journals during WWII.
Miss D E Carr (Second Row, 8th from the right)
Doris E Carr lived at 1 Maesheli, Penparke during the war. The only available record of Doris suggests that she married a Peter M Devereux in north Ceredigion in January 1960. More speculation, the Devereux’s seem to have come from Ireland. Was Peter one of the Irish workers who moved to Wales during WWII?
Miss Kathleen Ellis (Second Row, 6th from the left)
Kathleen was born on 3 September 1903 and is recorded as attending Alexandra Road Board School in 1908. Alexandra Road School was built in 1874 for 600 children aged 5-14. There were boys’, girls’ and infants’ departments, all with their own headteachers. During WWII she is listed as a single person, living at 15 Portland Street. Her occupation is recorded as ‘domestic home duties’. Clearly her sense of duty far exceeded that modest description.
Miss (Florence Gwendoline) Rees D.Sc, FRS. (Second Row, 14th from left.)
Incorrectly recorded on the ARP photography caption as Miss G. R. Rees, Gwen was an eminent Welsh scientist. Born on 3 July 1906 in Abercynon, she was the younger daughter of Ebenezer Rees (1865-1948) and Elizabeth Agnes (nee Jones) of Cilybebyll (1877-1921). On Gwen’s father’s appointment as Superintendent of Police, the family moved to Aberdare. Educated at Abercynon Intermediate School for Girls from 1918-24, Gwen went on to study chemistry, biology and zoology at Cardiff University. Her doctorate in zoology was awarded in 1930, after just eighteen months’ research. It established her expertise as a parasitologist researching trematode parasites in snails - her science was literally down to earth, involving the collection of snails. She is said to have collected more than 5,000 for her research, from 90 locations in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. Focused on the practical, Gwen endeavoured to find a scientific solution to the problem of infested snails which were causing liver fluke disease across flocks of sheep.
Meticulous attention to detail and faultless scientific method were the hallmarks of Gwen’s work. Of significance beyond the life of snails, and hours spent foraging in Welsh fields, Gwen developed a wide understanding about the relationship of parasites to their hosts. Whilst she delivered lectures abroad, she was too modest to accept the posts she was offered to spend a year in some overseas universities. She appeared in ‘Vogue’ magazine, in 1975, as shown in the above photograph, in an article about influential female scientists.
Appointed to the Zoology Department of Aberystwyth University in 1930, she was a lecturer throughout the Second World War, progressing to the post of Professor in 1971, after she became the first Welsh woman to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Linnean Society presented her with their medal for services to zoology in 1990. Gwen lived at Grey Mist, North Road, Aberystwyth for the rest of her life. She died on 4 October 1994 in Penglais Hospital.
Blog by Alison Elliott
The Peter Devereux you mentioned was probably the same Peter Devereux who kept the Blue Bell on the corner of Terrace Road and Corporation Street. Later he kept the Black Lion in Bow Street, now called the Welsh Black. He passed away a good few years ago.
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