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Alfred Townshend Cobbold F/M [Cobbold-73] c Married Married Married Married Married Married Married Married Married Married: 1886 Alice Bessie Nunn F/Mc | |||||
| Gwyneth (Gwen) Alice Cobbold [CFT #396] Born: 1887-Oct-14 Died: 1927-Apr-7 |
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| d Great Waltham. Buried: New (A) Municipal, Woodbridge, Suffolk Extract from Bramford WWI Memorial Project: Gwyneth was born in Ipswich on the 14th October 1887 to Alfred Townshend and Alice Bessie Cobbold (née Nunn). In 1891 the couple were living at 222 Woodbridge Road Ipswich and Alfred was described as a “Solicitor and Clerk to Samford Board of Guardians”. At the time there were four children, all daughters, and three servants. By 1901 the family had moved to “The Rookery” in Sproughton and now had seven servants. Gwyneth doesn’t appear with the family in the 1911 census when they were living at Bramford House and cannot be traced in the UK. It is possible she had gone abroad as a Miss G Cobbold appears on the passenger list of a ship bound for Port Said on 27th January 1911. If correct this would explain her absence from the England census. Alfred is now Clerk of the Peace and Clerk to both East and West Suffolk County Councils. Gwyneth’s brother, Rowland Townshend Cobbold, born in 1891, had gone to work in Argentina. On the outbreak of war Rowland returned home and gained a Temporary Commission as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery. He was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of Loos (1st September 1915). Gwyneth went to train as a nurse at Endell Street Military Hospital in London in April 1915. Endell Street was set up by the Women’s Hospital Corps (WHC) led by two suffragist Doctors, Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson. The WHC had successfully set up and run hospitals in France for the French Red Cross but when British casualties were being evacuated back to the UK in 1915 they offered their services to the British Army. The Army accepted the offer and Endell Street, which opened in May 1915, was set up under the auspices of the Royal Army Medical Corps but staffed almost entirely by women. Dr Murray was Doctor-in-Charge and Dr Garrett Anderson was Chief Surgeon. In November 1915 Gwyneth transferred to the Post Office Home Hospital, 20 Kensington Palace Gardens, London and spent 6 weeks there. She then went to France to work at the Hospital d’Alliance, Yvetot, France for 6 months and then on to the Hospital Temporaire d’Arc-de-Barrois for a further 8 months. The latter hospital was set up by four English sisters towards the end of 1914 to help with the chronic shortage of medical facilities and trained nurses suffered by the French military. From the 12th July 1917 she came back to the UK and was based at Gifford House Auxiliary Hospital, Roehampton but her records indicate another spell over in France from 24th July (probably at Etaples) for an unstated period. It was here that she experienced a bombing raid on the hospital. Gwyneth ended her nursing career in 1919 but died at age 39 at her sisters house in Great Waltham, Essex. The cause of death was primarily ovarian cancer but also “exhaustion”. She is buried in Woodbridge New Cemetery. In recognition of her services abroad she was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal. |
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