Nellie Spindler was born in Wakefield in September 1891. Nellie was her actual Christian name, being baptised on the 11th November 1891.
In 1911 Nellie was a hospital nurse at the City Fever Hospital in Wakefield and from 1912 to 1915 was working at the Township Infirmary, Leeds. From November 1915 until May 1917 she was a staff nurse at Whittington Military Hospital in Litchfield. Nellie then worked as a Staff Nurse with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, which had been formed in 1902 from the Army Nursing Service of 1881. From May 1917 she was a staff nurse at Stationary Hospital in Abbeville, France.
Neillie also worked as a staff nurse in No. 44 Casualty Clearing Station, a British evacuation hospital located at Brandhoek, a small hamlet near Poperinghe in Belgium. It had a high mortality rate as No 44 CCS was closer to the front line than most and also close to a railway line and munitions dump. It was shelled often as the enemy tried to destroy the rail network thus preventing more munitions reaching the front line.
On the 31st July 1917 the Third Battle of Ypres began. On that day alone a total of 6869 casualties were registered in the four Casualty Clearing Stations and surgeons carried out 582 operations.
On Tuesday, 21st August, 1917 the hospital was shelled and at 11 o’clock in the morning Nellie was hit by shrapnel. She became unconscious immediately and although tended by her fellow nurses she died just twenty minutes later. Nellie’s body was taken to Lijssenthoek and she was buried, with full military honors the next day, Wednesday 18th August 1917. The ‘Last Post’ was sounded and it is thought that over one hundred officers, four generals and the Surgeon-General attended the funeral.
Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler is the only woman amongst 10,000 men in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, the second largest Commonwealth cemetery in Belgium (the largest being Tyne Cot). 9,901 British and 883 Commonwealth casualties rest there. She is also one of only two women members of the QAIMNS to be buried in Belgium, the other being Sister Elsie Mabel Gladstone who died on 24th March 1919 aged 32, and is buried in Belgrade Cemetery, near Namur, Belgium.
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Thomas Tidyman
Information submitted by Lynne Pengelly. Thomas William Tidyman known as Bill (although this may have only been after he moved to Bradford) Born 1st November 1896 in Norton, Stockton on Tees the 2nd child, eldest son of John and Mary Tidyman The 1911 census shows him living and working on a farm in Agglethorpe (possibly Brecongill) with his parents and 6 siblings, his older sister is listed as a diarymaid. He enlisted on 24th May 1918 at the age of 23 into the 9th battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment and was wounded by a gunshot in his right forearm sometime in September 1918, he was transferred to the Bangour War hospital in Edinburgh and was discharged on 19th June 1919. Carl at the Green Howard’s museum was able to tell me that my grandad had been a marksman when he saw the badge on his uniform and also explained about the silver war badge given to injured men to wear after they had been discharged as unfit for further war service. After the war he returned to the farm his father died in 1920 and his mother died in 1927, at sometime he met my grandma who was visiting some friends who had relocated to Coverdale and they were married in Bradford on 7th December 1929. He was a tenant farmer at Harrop Edge Farm in Allerton Bradford until 1942 and then the family moved to Allerton village and he had a milk round. He worked for the War Ag…
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Robert William Watson
Submitted by Jon Bemrose. Robert William Watson was the Fourth son of Alfred and Annie Watson, of 15, Ashville St., Bridlington. Before the outbreak of hostilities he was a fireman of the North Eastern Railway at Bridlington. 241608 Private Robert Watson served in the 5th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment and died on 28th October 1917 aged 21. His name is inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium and on the cenotaph in Bridlington.
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Cpl W G Padden
Anthea Dunne dropped into the museum with a photo of her father (pictured in the centre of the group), and after a little research she has managed to piece together the story of his service during the First World War. William George Samuel Padden was my father from Pontnewydd, near Newport, Monmouthshire, he volunteered and enlisted at Carmarthen in west Wales on 9th October 1914, as part of The Pembrokeshire Yeomanry, the Territorial Force. As a Private in the Pembroke Yeomanry, he was given the regimental number 4390. Although not compelled to, he signed up as willing to serve overseas. He was transfered to 210 Company of the Machine Gun Corps (part of the 4th Dismounted Brigade) on 22nd October 1916 and given the new regimental number 74792. Initially a private in the Machine Gun Corps, he later became a corporal (29th May 1918). In April 1916 he sailed for Alexandria as part of the 4th Dismounted Brigade, fought in Egypt, stationed at Wadi El Natrun for 2 years. By 1917 this brigade had become part of The Welsh Regiment. By May 1918 he was fighting on the Western front in France. He was wounded on September 25th 1918 and sent home to a military hospital in Reading with a fractured right femur. He was finally discharged from hospital on May 3rd 1919 with a 40% degree of disablement and a pension of 12 shillings a week [with a temporary bonus of 20%]. He received a Silver War Badge in…