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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John Lionel Calvert Booth
John Lionel Calvert Booth – research by John Broom Born in Catterick Village in 1876, he worked as a farmer and then became a 2nd Lieutenant in the Yorkshire Regiment 1897. He was the son of John Bainbridge and Margaret Alice who in 1881 were living at Killerby Hall, Killerby, Yorkshire. He had served 15 years as captain with the Yorkshire Regiment.He also appears to have been the editor of a book called ‘Sporting Rhymes and Pictures’ in 1898. Booth married in 1905. His two sons were born in 1906 and 1909. During the Boer and the Balkan Wars between Bulgaria and Turkey (1904 and 1909) he served as a war correspondent and artist, representing ‘The Graphic’ in the latter. In 1909 he was severely wounded at Constantinople. He also contributed to ‘Punch’, the satirical magazine and was author and illustrator of ‘Trouble in the Balkans’. In 1912 he began farming in Australia and later became a Boy Scout troop leader. At the time of his enlistment into the AIF he lived with his wife Margaret Caroline at The Cottage, Serpentine Road, Albany, New South Wales. He embarked from Freemantle on H.M.A.T. A7 Medic on the 2nd November 1914 for the Mediterranean. He was wounded in action near the Dardanelles on the 25th April 1915. On 1st May he died of his wounds while bound for Malta on Hospital Ship “Mashroba” and was buried at sea. He was Mentioned in Despatches.
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Captain M J Kavanagh
Information submitted by Liz Thompson, a resident of Richmond. Michael Joseph Kavanagh (Liz’s Great-Uncle) was born in Walsall, Staffordshire on 20 February 1879. He joined the South Staffordshire Regiment, serving in the Boer War in the Cape Colony, the Transvaal and at Wittegbergin. At the outbreak of the First World War he reenlisted into the same regiment as a Private and advanced to the rank of Colour Sergeant. He was Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in January 1915 and promoted to Lieutenant in September of the same year. He was wounded twice during the Battle of the Somme and was awarded the Military Cross. The citation published in the London Gazette stated “For conspicuous gallantry during operations. Though knocked over and wounded by a shell, he took over command of a machine gun company two days later, and, suffering from shock and considerable pain, stuck to his command and did good work”. He was promoted to Acting Captain on 8 March 1918. On his retirement in November 1919, Michael Joseph Kavanagh was granted the full rank of Captain. In later life Captain Kavanagh moved into local politics, being elected to the position of Mayor of Walsall in 1945. During the Second World War he served as Platoon Commander of No. 21 Platoon of the 27th Staffordshire Home Guard.