The Five Sisters - Durham women on the memorial

The Five Sisters window, York Minster [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Another post from Jo:

Once you are immersed in a research topic it can seem like it keeps popping up everywhere, sometimes right under your nose!  Victoria, officially the “Collections Access Officer” for Durham at War, and unofficially my office-mate and partner in Cumbercats (see 13 Feb 2015 blog post), is from York.  However, it came as a surprise to her that a building in the city, so familiar, houses an international First World War memorial.

During the First World War York Minster removed its stained glass from its glorious Gothic windows to safeguard them from zeppelin raids.  The oldest window in the Minster, the Five Sisters Window (about 1260), needed extensive repair which would take a decade to complete.  When the Minster replaced the window in 1925, Mrs Blakeway Little of York used the opportunity to propose a rededication of the Five Sisters to the women who died during the First World War in the service of the Empire.

As well as the restoration of the windows a number of panels were installed with doors that can be opened to reveal the names of the women and the organisation with which they served.  Over 1,500 names of women who died during and immediately after the war are commemorated on these panels. 

Thanks to York Minster we are working with them and our volunteers to try and dig up further information that might lead us to identifying any with a County Durham connection.  This is not an easy task as the women are only listed with their name and service organisation.  Where the women were a member of an organisation linked to the armed services, such as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, a search of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site can often turn up enough details to start fleshing out their stories.  However, those that aren’t recorded by the CWGC are more tricky and the most difficult of all are the munitions workers.  

“Women war workers..." by Unknown. The Imperial War Museum via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed April 30, 2015 Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive, Q 27866

There are 238 women munitions works are listed on the memorial and two have been tracked down to County Durham, so far.  The story of Annie Bell has been on Durham at War for some time but the list of women from York Minster led to me finding the other: Maria Christina Scratcher.  By trawling through the British Newspaper Archive I managed to find a report of her tragic death, aged 17, while working near Willington.  I then used the local newspapers we hold on microfilm to find a report of her inquest.  You can read Maria Scratcher's story here: http://www.durhamatwar.org.uk/story/11355/

You can also read about Annie Bell here: http://www.durhamatwar.org.uk/story/11223/

If you are interested in helping us to uncover the stories of the women on the Five Sisters Memorial please do get in touch:

contactdurhamatwar@durham.gov.uk

For an information fact sheet about the windows at York Minster:

http://www.yorkminster.org/geisha/assets/files/fact-sheet-the-principal-windows.pdf

York Minster’s Home Page:

http://www.yorkminster.org/

Article from the British Nursing Times about the scheme to rededicate the Five Sisters Window:

http://rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/data/VOLUME070-1923/page129-volume70-03rdmarch1923.pdf