CARDIFFREMEMBERED Historian recalls men and women of WWI who made our city proud

I HAVE read many books on the First World War, both fact and fiction – but one book that brought home to me the part played by Cardiffians in that terrible conflict is The Welsh at Passchendaele 1917.

Author Dr Jonathan Hicks is an award-winning military historian and he is to be congratulated on unearthing numerous previously unpublished stories.

As a Cardiffian I was most interested in reading the accounts of those longgone brave citizens of my beloved city.

And not all of them were male, either, as we are informed: “Three Welsh nurses returned home to Cardiff as the battle ended. Agnes Sooley Johnstone and Emma Hardy had each gained an efficiency stripe. The third nurse was Alice Davies.

“All three had undergone a course of training at the Ninian Park section of the 3rd Western General Hospital, Cardiff.”

Miss Johnstone, born in 1879, had lived at 3 Morlais Street, Miss Hardy resided at 10 Australia Road and Miss Davies lived at 3 Partridge Road.

Two other nurses from Cardiff who served their country were Beatrice James, of 88 Monthermer Road, and Rose Crowther, of Miskin Street.

Among the casualties suffered by the division (38th Welsh) were the Tregaskis brothers.

Leonard and Arthur served as lieutenants with the 16th Welsh (Cardiff City) Regiment and they now lie side by side in Flatiron Copse Cemetery after being killed during the attack on the first day – July 7, 1916.

Both were born in Cardiff and when war broke out they were farming in Canada. They at once decided that it was their duty to offer their services. So they came back to Cardiff and enlisted with the Cardiff City Battalion.

Sadly both were killed in the attack