- Medical Register online, from 1859, census and civil registration data, available on Ancestry.
- Surviving pension records identify the high incidence of chronic sickness found in men who had been passed fit on recruitment, and the Army's reluctance to support such men. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk WO 363, WO 364 (Burnt series)
- J.M.Winter The Great War and the British People. Ch 2, part IV, Medical Fitness and Military Service, Palgrave, 2003, pp 48 - 64
In the early chapters of the 1912 book and in a photo taken just before the holiday, the nameless young woman and Fred Pulford appear to be close, but their relationship came to an end. Attempting to trace a woman with no name at all seemed impossible. When the Nomads' story was published in the Liverpool Echo, Norman Westmore recognised this woman as his mother's close friend, known to him as 'Mrs Taylor'. The Taylors had two elder children, both boys. Born in 1924, Norman remembered only their youngest child, Helen, and knew that she became a doctor, reading Medicine at Liverpool University. Collating information in the medical register and national registration confirmed 'Mrs Taylor's' identity at last. Emma Irving and Llewellyn Strafford Taylor married in the late summer of 1914. (1)
The first search of the 1901 census didn't find Emma Irving anywhere in Liverpool. A second, advanced search failed too. There are glitches still, even on the official website, both mistranscriptions and omissions. Eventually, Emma Irving was traced to Liscard, on the Wirral, working as a typist. When the Westmores and Gleaves moved over the water, Emma would become a close neighbour. Born in the Scottish Borders, north of Carlisle, her father Richard is described as a foreman printer, though he had been the manager of a letter press. Emma's Presbyterian Scottish background explains her frosty attitude towards Catholicism. Throughout rural Cumbria, many Anglican churches are similar to Quaker meeting houses, with whitewashed walls and no stained glass or other ornaments. Over the border, in what was once Covenanter country, Lowland Scottish churches are equally spartan.
On the 1901 census, Emma's future husband didn't seem to exist. There was a plain Llewellyn Taylor, but no Llewellyn Strafford. Eventually, after an advanced search of institutions, he was traced to a small boarding school in Richmond, Surrey. On the website transcript, Llewellyn is described, bizzarely as a 'sister' of the headteacher. This is a classic example of mistranscription. The word should be 'sizar'. Later, Llewellyn gained his FIA, becoming a land agent. Llewellyn's surveying skills could have been very useful to the War Office, but there's no surviving evidence that he served abroad. After he and Emma married in 1914, they lived on Kingsway, Liscard. According to the street directories, he was away from home in 1915, but by 1916, he and Emma are together again. Llewellyn continued to work as a land agent until his early death, shortly after his forty-fifth birthday, in April 1929.
He isn't listed in the Medal Cards, nor is there any surviving record of attestation. Since many attestation and discharge records from the 'Burnt Series' have been lost, it's entirely possible that Llewellyn did volunteer, but was later discharged, as 'unlikely to make an efficient soldier', a catch-all phrase which could mean anything from chronic illness to insubordination. Men who'd enlisted but never served abroad didn't qualify for a medal. The so-called 'Burnt Series' records of army pensions and volunteers discharged during the war on medical grounds tell a grim story. Appalling injuries, mutilations, shell-shock, and the blue-lipped nausea of gas victims are familiar and well documented. The physical condition of men who'd been passed fit by over-enthusiastic recruiting officers and doctors is startling. Once the recruits reached their training camps, more exacting army doctors found that thousands were unfit for service. Many were suffering from TB, chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Others, cheating, had 'passed' the recruitment eye-test, but were hopelessly shortsighted. Some had marked deformities, including curvature of the spine and rickets. Already, in their early twenties, many lead miners were fatally ill, slowly dying from lead poisoning. The War Office couldn't use them and didn't want to pay pensions either. (2)
Norman Westmore was astonished to learn that Mr Taylor had been in his mid-forties, actually a few months younger than his wife. He remembered, distinctly, a very old man, thin and frail, apparently decades older than his wife. What the child really saw was a very sick man. Llewellyn's death certificate records that he died of haemetemesis - a wretched death, vomiting blood from a gastric ulcer. Emma was with him as he died. He could have been sick for years with recurrent ulcers, pitifully thin, and, though he might have been able to undertake civilian work, would be definitely unfit for military service. It's possible that Llewellyn was an unrecognised casualty of the Great War. In 1915, when he isn't listed in the street directories, he may well have been away in camp, training for service in France. During the war unusually high numbers of young men developed gastric ulcers, probably picked up in closely confined training camps in Britain, and in France, vast camps such as Bethune. Like Llewellyn, men with gastric ulcers faced years of chronic sickness. Retrospective analysis of this unusually high incidence of gastric ulcers in younger men during and immediately after WWI suggests widespread helicobacter infection. There would be no effective treatment until 1982, when the infective cause of most gastric ulcers was recognised. (3)
In 1912, Emma Irving hoped for long life and happy, happy days. With her friend 'Miss Gleave' and Frank Bourne, she ensured that the idea of producing a book was realised. Founding the C.H.A., Arthur Leonard hoped to overcome all man-made divisions of class, gender, faith and nationality. Sectarian divisions in Liverpool were intense, rivalling those of Belfast. At the end of her holiday, Emma has learned to respect people whose faith she cannot share. Her tribute to the people of France is wholehearted. Visiting the widowed Mrs Taylor in the Thirties, an eight year old boy recognised and remembered her sadness.