Gladys Corfield Hughes was born on the 11 June 1889 to Thomas Hughes and Martha Titley Hughes (nee Corfield). She had eleven siblings and the family lived Cambrian House, Nantmawr. Her father was a local Farmer and Grocer.
Before the War Gladys worked at Brampton Boarding House, Llandrindod Wells as a Boarding House Keeper.
Gladys trained to be a nurse at the Mill Road Infirmary in Liverpool from 3 May 1912 to 2 June 1915. She worked there until she joined the Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserves (QAIMSs) on 16 March 1916.
Gladys was sent to France on the 8 November 16 and served as a Staff Nurse on a ward in a Military Hospital. She was sent back from France to serve in the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich and began work there on the 24 October 1918.
Unfortunately, whilst working here she contracted Spanish Influenza and Pneumonia. She died on the 6 November 1918 with her mother and brother by her side. She was brought by train from London to Gobowen for burial in Nantmawr Congregational Churchyard, Plot 3.6.
She was buried with full military honours and her coffin was covered by a Union Jack and conveyed on a gun carriage. A firing party and buglers from Park Hall Camp were in attendance. Sister Rook and Sister Cook, Red Cross Nurses, attended the funeral alongside many friends, villagers and family.
Gladys’s name is on the Trefonen War Memorial and the Memorial to Nurses at the National Memorial Arboretum in Stafford
Sources: www.Ancestry.co.uk
www.Scarletfinders.co.uk, Chris Woods – www.lights-out-trefonen-ww1.org,
Mike Read via Ancestry (relative of Gladys)