Whitchurch Cottage Hospital in the Great War - The Wartime Memories Project -

Whitchurch Cottage Hospital

If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.

We are currently building a database of patients treated in this hospital, if you know of anyone who was treated here, please enter their details via this form

Patient Reports.

(This section is under construction)
No information has been added for this hospital, please check back later.

Those known to have worked or been treated at
Whitchurch Cottage Hospital
during the Great War 1914-1918.

Powell Wifred John Godfrey Mercy. Pte.
All names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List

Records of Whitchurch Cottage Hospital from other sources.

The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.

1st of September 2024 marks 25 years since the launch of the Wartime Memories Project. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over this time.

Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the Great War? Our Library contains many many diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text.

Looking for help with Family History Research?
Please see Family History FAQ's

Please note: We are unable to provide individual research.

Can you help?
The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors.
If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.

Announcements

19th Nov 2024
Please note we currently have a massive backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 264989 your submission is still in the queue, please do not resubmit.

Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to the Great War. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.

World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great battalion regiment artillery
Did you know? We also have a section on World War Two. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.

Want to know more about Whitchurch Cottage Hospital?

There are:-1 items tagged Whitchurch Cottage Hospital available in our Library

These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.

262570
Pte. Wifred John Godfrey Mercy Powell 2nd Btn. Monmouthshire Regiment
Wilfred Powell was born in Redbrook near Gloucester in 1890, but around 1895 he moved with his parents Henry and Rose and his sister Annie, to Pontnewydd, Cwmbran where his father worked in the tinplate works. Wilfred married Alice Flippance in 1910 and worked as a haulier underground at Cwmbran Colliery.
Although only 5 feet 3 inches tall Wilfred had joined the 2nd Battalion of the Monmouthshire Regiment, a territorial unit prior to getting married. Pension records say he enlisted on 5th March 1907 but silver war badge records say 16th of March 1909, he was still a part-time soldier when war was declared in August 1914.
The 2nd Battalion was immediately mobilised at Pontypool and then in quick succession moved through Pembroke Dock, Oswestry and Northampton before landing at Le Havre in France on the 7th of November 1914 as part of the 12th Brigade in the 4th Division of the British Expeditionary Force.
Like many others, Wilfred Powell's service records were destroyed by bombing during WW2. Family history tells us he fought with the Monmouthshires at the Second Battle of Ypres in western Belgium in April and May 1915 and that he also spent some time as a tunneller, before joining the Royal Army Medical Corps. The records that do survive suggest that he never formally joined the Royal Engineers as a tunneller but he may well have been attached to the tunnellers as were many men from the Monmouthshires. It's also possible that he was one of the men drawn from the 2nd Battalion who, under Captain Arthur Edwards of Blaenafon, formed the 4th Divisions' Mining Party and exploded the first British mine of the war.
What we do know is that the 2nd Battalion fought in the battles of the Marne, Aisne and Messines in 1914 and in the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. The 2nd suffered so many casualties in the latter battle that it had to be amalgamated with its sister battalions for several months before its ranks could be refilled.
The photograph shows him wearing his Monmouthshire cap badge, a wound stripe and two service chevrons suggesting it was taken in the late summer or autumn of 1916.
From November 1916 to January 1917 he spent time in Whitchurch hospital recovering from a bought of trench fever.
By the end of 1916 he had transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps and the 1st Welsh Field Ambulance where he became a stretcher bearer. Silver war badge records show him as being in 1st Welsh Field Ambulance but this unit served with the 53rd Welsh Division in the Middle East? There is no indication anywhere else that he served anywhere other than the Western Front. Family history says that on hearing the gas whistle Wilfred stopped to help an injured soldier with his gas mask before putting on his own and was exposed to gas as a result. He was invalided out the army just two months before the end of the war but due to his injuries he was unable to return to his job at Cwmbran Colliery. Wilfred gave his daughter Francis, born in 1914, the middle name Louvain in memory of the Belgium town that was destroyed by the Germans in the first month of the war. For his service in WW1 Wilfred received the 1914 Star, British and Victory medals, an honourable discharge and a Silver War Badge. He died in 1941 aged 51.
Mark Lucas

Add to this record.

Recomended Reading.
Available at discounted prices.

Links

Suggest a link

The Wartime Memories Project
- Whitchurch Cottage Hospital during the Great War -

Whitchurch Cottage Hospital

Patient Reports.

Those known to have worked or been treated at
Whitchurch Cottage Hospital
during the Great War 1914-1918.

Can you help?

If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.

Announcements

Want to know more about Whitchurch Cottage Hospital?

Recomended Reading.

Links

The Wartime Memories Project - Whitchurch Cottage Hospital during the Great War -

Whitchurch Cottage Hospital

Patient Reports.

Those known to have worked or been treated at Whitchurch Cottage Hospitalduring the Great War 1914-1918.

Can you help?

If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.

Announcements

Want to know more about Whitchurch Cottage Hospital?

Recomended Reading.

Links

The Wartime Memories Project
- Whitchurch Cottage Hospital during the Great War -

Those known to have worked or been treated at
Whitchurch Cottage Hospital
during the Great War 1914-1918.