EMMA BREWSTER HAYNES 1886–1952
Photograph from Radcliffe on Trent Local History Society
Born: 1886 in Radcliffe on Trent
Marriage: Remained single
Died: 21st April 1952
Before the War
In 1891, Emma, 5, was staying with her uncle Thomas Ashling Curtis, a lace manufacturer, aunt Emma (her father’s sister) and family at ‘Vermont’, Magdala Road, Mapperley, Nottingham. The family had a cook and a housemaid. By 1901 Emma was back in Radcliffe and living at Royal Oak Yard, Main Road with father Thomas, a maltster (employer), mother Ellen, sister Charlotte, 11, and step-sister Clara Lester, 22, born in Auckland, New Zealand. There were two servants, Sarah Sharman, cook, and Sarah Dunmore, housemaid. Emma’s brother William was away at boarding school in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire at Haywardsfield Hall (part of Wycliffe College).
By 1911 Emma, 25, was living at The Grange, Radcliffe with father Thomas, now a widower (Ellen died in 1908), brother William, 24, sister Charlotte, 21, step-sister Clara Lester, Susan Cook, cook and Eliza Fall, servant from Michigan, U.S.A.. Thomas was a maltster and employer; William was a farmer and maltster, also an employer.
During the war
The following information about Emma Brewster Haynes has been extracted from transcribed Red Cross V.A.D. records, available at www.redcross.org.uk
Emma was in the Notts. 94th Voluntary Aid Detachment, the Radcliffe on Trent branch of the Red Cross which was organised by Claire Birkin. She began her war service as a Red Cross V.A.D. member in March 1915. She was still living at The Grange, Radcliffe. Her sister Charlotte also served as a Red Cross V.A.D. Her brother William Brewster Haynes was a 2nd Lieutenant serving firstly with the South Nottinghamshire Hussars, then with the Royal Field Artillery.
Emma served from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. from March – June 1915 on unpaid ward work and nursing at the V.A.D. Hospital, Trent Bridge, Nottingham.
1921 Census
Address: The Grange, Radcliffe
Employment: home
Household: brother William, maltster, cook, Edith Upton, maid Alice Hardy
After the war
On 6th June 1923 Emma and her brother William sailed from Southampton to New York on the SS Homeric. From there they travelled to Auckland, New Zealand on board the RMS Niagara. William’s occupation was given as farmer and next of kin was recorded as Mrs W.E. Hands, 25 Gedling Grove, Nottingham (their sister Charlotte). Emma was living at the same address as Charlotte.
Emma remained single. She died on 21st April 1952 at Ashludie Hospital, Monifieth, Angus, Scotland. Her home address was The Vicarage, Sibton, Saxmundham, Suffolk. Probate to Charlotte Ellen Hands and William Brewster Haynes, farmer. Her brother William also lived in Sibton, at Park House.
V.A.D. Hospital Trent Bridge
In 1914 the Committee and membership of the Nottinghamshire Cricket Club made the Pavilion at the Trent Bridge cricket ground available for use as a hospital for wounded servicemen.
The Cricket Club annual report for 1917 includes the following:
‘The Hospital at the Pavilion has now 100 beds. 1,074 Patients were admitted during 1917, making the number of patients treated since the opening of the Hospital 2,309. The West Bridgford Masonic Electrical and Mechanical Wards, established through the generosity of the Freemasons of Nottinghamshire, to which has been added the ‘Monty Hind’ Ward, erected and equipped by Mr. J. W. Hind, makes this probably the most efficient and best equipped hospital in the country.’
The Pavilion continued as a hospital until March 1919, by which time more than 3,500 patients had been treated.
Author: Pauline Woodhouse