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Sister. Kezia Esther "Cassie" McConville CMBE.
British Red Cross
from:99 Hardshaw Street, St. Helens, Lancashire,
(d.6th December 1918)
My mother's sister, Kezia McConville (nee Allen) was born in Runcorn, Cheshire in 1885. In the 1911 Census, she was an asylum nurse at Winwick Mental Asylum at Winwick, Lancashire along with her future husband, Mark Roy McConville.
In July 1915, she enrolled with the Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment with Liverpool Merchants' Hospital in Liverpool, and was posted as a trained nurse to Bulstrode Park Hospital, Bulstrode, Oxford Road, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire until the hospital was closed 1st of December 1915.
I surmise that Cassie moved from the Winwick Asylum some time between 1911 and 1915 to begin training as a midwife at the Brownlow Hill Lying-in (Maternity) Hospital in Liverpool where she would have encountered the Matron Margaret Whitson, MC, BRCS (First Class) who in March 1915 was invited by the Liverpool Merchants to become Matron of the Liverpool Merchants' Hospital and later No.6 Hospital British Red Cross), Etaples, Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. Cassie was posted as a Sister or Trained Nurse VAD to Etaples on 2nd of March 1916 where she tended the wounded from the Front until 10th of March 1917.
Following her marriage to Roy McConville on Christmas Day in 1916 in Liverpool, and the birth of a son, James Roye, she was posted to the Hospital for Officers, 24 Park Street, Mayfair, London, which received officer casualties directly from the Front. She was finally discharged as a BRC VAD in December 1917 and in August 1918 received her Central Midwives Board Examination. Sadly, four months after her receiving her qualification she became a victim of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and died on 6th of December 1918 at the Westcliff Nursing Home, Pembury Road, Westcliff on Sea, Essex with her mother Harriet Allen (nee Jones) by her side.
At present, I have no idea why she came to die in Westcliff on Sea. I have recently discovered, however, that the Westcliff Nursing Home was also known as the Overcliff British Red Cross (VAD) Hospital in Westcliff on Sea, which was located at 14-18 Pembury Road, Westcliff (as listed in Kelly’s Directory, Southend, 1914) under Matron, Mrs. L H Robinson. So, Cassie could very well have worked there tending to the wounded before becoming a patient herself. Cassie is buried in St. Helens Cemetery, Rainford Road, St. Helens with her husband. In 1919, she was posthumously awarded the British and Victory medals.
In the Second World War, the Westcliff Nursing Home (Overcliff Hospital) became part of HMS Westcliff, and was used by the British Navy as a sickbay (as per Jefferies and Lee, The Hospitals of Southend, 1986). In September 2018, the houses comprising the hospital were still standing occupied by Melal Hotel Apartments.
