| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Annie was born in Beverley the 24 Nov 1893 and baptised at St Mary's Church on 25 Nov 1894, the daughter of William Green Norris and Annie (nee Hewson). William was from Lockington, and had been a farm labourer but then worked as a drainage labourer for Beverley Corporation. They married in Beverley in 1888 but then spent a few years in the Sowerby Bridge area of West Yorkshire before returning to Beverley where they lived on Stonemason's Yard (later called Spencer Street), Cattle Market Lane and then at 21 Prince's Gardens. Annie went into domestic service at a young age: in 1911 she was employed as a servant at Cold Harbour Farm, Hull Bank, in Cottingham.
During the war Annie was a Red Cross volunteer and served in The Yorkshire East Riding Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD). Made up of men and women, the VADs carried out a range of voluntary positions including nursing, transport duties, and the organisation of rest stations, working parties and auxiliary hospitals in the UK and abroad. Annie was in the "general service" section where she worked as a "cook" though some of her documents note that she "helped in wards" in auxiliary hospitals in France: the 10th Station Hospital at St Omer and the 74th General Hospital at Froville, and later at the 72nd General and 8th Station Hospitals. By 1918 there were 80,000 VAD members, 12000 serving as nurses in the military hospitals and 60,000 unpaid volunteers working in the auxiliary hospitals. They lacked the skills of trained professional nurses and there were many issues regarding their status. For her service in France Annie was awarded Blue Chevrons and the War and Victory Medals. She arrived in France in Dec 1917 and remained there until 21 May 1919.
Little else is known of Annie's life. A person of her exact name at the age of 26 (born in 1893), and describing herself as a "domestic servant" left Liverpool for Canada on 14 Nov 1919 on board the SS Empress of France. After her arrival in Montreal nothing more is known of her. Her brother, Robert Walter Norris, born in Beverley in 1900, served in the 52nd Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry in 1918 and was posted to Cologne in the post-war occupation of the Rhineland in Germany.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |