Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Dorothy Mary Reed Nunes

1998 –1994

Served in the WRNS and later secretary at the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women

Relatives

Mary Jane Nunes (1134a/1135) — mother

• Melanie Hilton

Plot 1134a Dorothy Mary Reed Nunes (1898-1994)

Dorothy was born at Caradoc, Clun, Shropshire to Herbert FitzStephen and Mary Jane Nunes

Her father was a surgeon. She was baptised 5 June 1898 in Clun and in 1901 the family were living in Church Street Clun with a cook and a domestic servant.

By August 1904 they had moved to Mumbles on the Gower Peninsula of Wales.

Her father died June 1 1908.

In 1911 Dorothy was living at Caradoc, North Road, Berkhamsted with her widowed mother and a domestic servant.

On 8 October 1918 she enrolled in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a shorthand typist. It is not known where she spent the war but by June 1921 she was living with her mother at 65, Gunnerstone Road, Fulham. She was employed as secretary/clerk at the “Society for Overseas Settlement of British Women” at 45, Victoria Street, London SW.

According to the National Archives, “The Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women was established as a direct response to the economic and social position of British women after the end of the First World War. Many women who had been trained for jobs vacated by enlisted men found themselves unemployed after 1918 and in financial hardship. Emigration to parts of the Empire was regarded as a solution to this problem.”

In her book on the Society Bonnie White wrote: “The Society for the Oversea Settlement of British Women (SOSBW) was created in 1919 to facilitate the transportation of female migrants to the former white settler colonies. To do so, the SOSBW worked with various domestic and dominion groups to find the most suitable women for migration, while also meeting the dominions’ demands for specific types of workers, particularly women for work in domestic service. While the Society initially aimed to meet its original mandate, it gradually developed its own vision of empire settlement and refocused its efforts on aiding the migration of educated and trained women who were looking for new, modern, and professional work opportunities abroad.”

In 1926 the records of the Union Castle Steamship Company show Dorothy leaving London on the Guildford Castle for Tanga, Mozambique. Her home address was shown as 89, Kensington Gardens Square, London. Perhaps Dorothy was making the journey in connection with the work of the SOSBW rather than emigrating herself, as in 1939 she was back in Berkhamsted, living with her mother at 88, King’s Road. Her mother died in 1944 and is buried here.

In July 1988 The Gazette reported on the 32^nd birthday of the Happy Wanderers Club for the disabled at Sunnyside church hall. “Miss Dorothy Nunes [by then aged 90] was enjoying every moment as she sliced into the celebration cake.”

Her home address when she died in Kilfillan House Nursing Home in Berkhamsted, 9 March 1994, aged 95 was 94, Kings Road.

Dorothy left £331,367 (worth just under £700,000 in 2024).