| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Muriel was born in Hull in 1896 the daughter of John Popple, a seed merchant’s manager, and his wife Catherine, her brother Gilbert was born in 1895. By 1900 the family had moved to Beverley where three further children, Leonard, Harry and Gertrude were born.
In Feb 1917, the War Office announced the formation of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and Muriel enlisted on 17 Jul 1917, just a week before her 21st birthday. She was a “Worker” in the Corps, which was equivalent to the men’s Army rank of Private. The women of the WAAC were largely employed on tasks such as cooking and catering, storekeeping, clerical work, telephony and administration, printing and motor vehicle maintenance. Muriel served in France, as evidenced by the publication of her photograph in the Beverley Guardian in Mar 1918. In Apr 1918 the WAAC organisation was officially renamed the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps, Muriel continued to serve until May 1919, and was awarded the British, War & Victory medals.
Muriel returned to Beverley and in 1922 married Percival Stanley Robson, originally born in Beverley but who had emigrated in 1914 to the USA with his father and two of his siblings. In 1917, aged 21, he had enlisted to serve in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force. Muriel and Percival had a daughter, Mavis, born and baptised in Beverley in 1926, they were living in Norwood, Beverley, and Percival was a draper’s assistant, but by 1939 the family was living in Bridlington where Percival was ‘proprietor of valet cleaning services’.
Muriel died in Bridlington in 1964, aged 67, and Percival in 1978.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |