Bertha was born in 1872 to George and Margaret Duncombe and worked as a nurse at the Isolation Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Willesden, Middlesex in 1901.
Bertha’s father George ran a Tobacconist shop at 4 Cross Street, Oswestry where she returned after working in Middlesex. According to the 1911 census she was a Maternity Nurse and George had become ‘feeble minded’ a year earlier, at the age of 61. He required help at home from a ‘Mental Nurse’ and a ‘male attendant’. His son Harry ran the business and on Harry’s death, Harry’s brother Arthur.
Margaret died in 1913, George in 1914 and Harry in 1918. Bertha moved in with her sister Florence towards the end of her life. She died in Southfield, Higher Road, Halewood, Lancashire on 14/8/1922 leaving £349 16s 5d to her sister.