Margaret Elizabeth Bramfitt was the only daughter of George Bramfitt and Mary Jane Birkbeck who married in Houghton le Spring in the last quarter of 1877. George was a coal miner and the couple made their home in Houghton le Spring.

When the census was taken in April 1881 George Addison and Mary Jane lived at 3 Mautland Street with their two year old son George and Mary Jane was expecting her second child, another son who they named Arthur.

Margaret was born in the summer of 1883 and sadly Arthur died in March 1885.  Mary Jane died in May 1886, aged just 28 leaving George with two small children to provide for and bring up alone.

In the summer of 1887 George married Isabella Nicholson, a dressmaker who lived in Houghton le Spring. The family still lived in Maitland Street, where Isabella cared for young George and Margaret before having children of her own.

By the time the next census return was made in April 1891, Isabella had had two sons, Thomas and Arthur. The family grew over the next few years with the addition of two more sons and a daughter. By the spring of 1894 they moved to 3 Bowlby Street and George had been promoted to deputy overman at the pit.

In 1901, the family was still living on Bowlby Street and Margaret’s older brother was working at the pit with his father. Two of Isabella’s children had died in infancy, leaving Thomas, Arthur and the youngest, Fred, at home. Margaret, at 17 would have left school but doesn’t appear to have been going out to work; she was likely helping Isabella at home.

By 1905, the family had moved to Bolsover in Derbyshire and in 1911 lived at Castle Villas; a terrace of properties built in 1894 near Bolsover Castle as homes for colliery officials. These houses were bigger than the homes built for colliery workers in the nearby ‘model village’.  The family attended Bolsover Wesleyan church, with Margaret involved in work in the church as well as teaching Sunday School there. Her half brother Thomas played the organ there for many years.  Margaret’s father George died aged 62 in January 1917 and  was buried in Bolsover.

On 8 April 1918, Margaret volunteered her services as a nurse to the Red Cross. I have found no evidence to date of whether, or where, she trained, but she was engaged as a nurse. Initially she was at the Bermondsey Military Hospital for ten days then had a week at the 2nd Western General Military Hospital in Manchester before being sent to the New Zealand Military Hospital at Brockenhurst where she served from 26 July until 13 September.

Margaret died aged 35, of a gastric ulcer whilst in service at the Military Hospital Lichfield on 9 December 1918. At the time of writing no report has been found of her funeral service.

Margaret’s life is commemorated in the  UK Book of Remembrance and on a brass memorial in Bolsover Methodist church which was dedicated in March 1921 and reads:

‘TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF NURSE MARGARET ELIZABETH BRAMFITT VAD WHO DIED AT LICHFIELD MILITARY HOSPITAL 9TH DECR. 1918 AGED 35 YEARS A DEVOTED CHRISTIAN WORKER IN CHURCH AND SUNDAY SCHOOL’

Margaret’s stepmother remained in Bolsover for the remainder of her life. When the 1939 Register was taken she and her stepson George were living at 5 Limekiln Fields, Mill Lane. George was recorded as incapacitated (he was blind). Both remained at that address until their death - Isabella in 1946 at the age of 91 and George in 1951 aged 72.