With thanks to Heather Johnson for sharing this information about Margaret Mayne, who is not included on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission List of Female Casualties of the First World War.
Margaret trained as a nurse at North Staffordshire Infirmary, Hartshill, Stoke Upon Trent. Immediately World War One broke out, she came down to the Harwich Garrison Hospital in Essex (Great Eastern Hotel) with two other trained nurses from Stoke Infirmary. Margaret took charge of the Surgical Ward.
On 29th April 1917, Margaret died of Cerebral-spinal meningitis, three days after admission to the local Infections Hospital. She was buried on 3rd May 1917 in Colchester Cemetery – the local newspaper reported “Over 200 bunches of primroses were received from the patients at the Harwich Hospital.” The primroses were placed in the form of a cross over the grave. The following month the R.R.C. medal that Margaret had been awarded was sent to her mother in Ballinamalla.
A Memoral Plaque, designed by British sculptor Ellen Mary Rope (1855–1934), was commissioned in honour of Margaret (it gives 20th as date of death). It used to hang in the old North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary’s chapel but, when the new hospital premises were built, it was felt that the plaque and a First World War Memorial Board would not be appropriate in the new building and the plaque remained in situ! However, thanks mainly to the efforts of one significant local historian John Mason Sneddon, the plaque now hangs in the public Atrium of the new Royal Stoke University Hospital – for all to see.
Interestingly, the plot (which is in the area of our military graves) is not owned and it must have been felt appropriate to bury Margaret there and give permission for the Celtic Cross headstone to be erected.
