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Worker Lilian Saunders – Served her country as a member of the QMAAC
30/06/2025
First World War Army United Kingdom Women at war BLETCHLEY CEMETERY
By Mike Chapman

United Kingdom

Worker Lilian Saunders
75229099
Image: Lilian Saunders (family photo used with the express permission of her great niece, Dawn Bigmore)
EARLY LIFE

Lilian Mary Saunders was born in 1893. Her parents were John and Elizabeth Saunders of Fenny Stratford (now part of the city of Milton Keynes).

The 1901 Census shows the family home was in Tavistock Road, Fenny Stratford (now part of the city of Milton Keynes). Her father was employed as a bricklayer. Lilian had four siblings (Emily, Florence, Edith and Frederick).

Image: 1901 Census extract for the Saunders family (source FindMyPast)
PRE-WAR EMPLOYMENT
The 1911 Census records that Lilian was employed as a housemaid for the Bocquet family at their family home at 4 Kimbolton Avenue in Bedford. She was 18.
Image: 1911 Census record showing Lilian Saunders employed as a housemaid in Bedford (source FindMyPast)
It is recorded that she later worked as a children’s nurse at Carlton Lodge, Heath
ENLISTMENT
Miss Saunders enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in December 1917.
Image: QMAAC recruitment poster (IWM Art.IWM PST 7813 - IWM Non Commercial Licence)
FIRST WORLD WAR SERVICE
Lilian Saunders served in the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) with the rank of Worker, as a cook at a large military camp in Dover.
CASUALTY
Lilian Saunders was taken ill with appendicitis which was followed by post-operation jaundice. She died at the Royal Victoria Hospital on 1 May 1918. She was 25 years of age.
Lilian’s parents did not want their daughter to receive a military funeral but her coffin was escorted to the train for carriage back to her home by a large contingent of her QMAAC colleagues and men of the ‘Buffs’ (Royal East Kent Regiment).
Image: Funeral report in the North Bucks Times, Tuesday 14 May 1918 (source FindMyPast)
COMMEMORATION

Lilian Saunders’ burial at Bletchley (Manor Road) Cemetery appears not to have registered by the Imperial War Graves Commission at the time of her death. It was however identified by a local historian in 2010.

The exact location of the grave in the cemetery could not be located so following the non-commemoration case being submitted, the original plan was for her name to be the Brookwood (UK 1914-1918) memorial. A Type 1 headstone was however installed in 2014, the inscription including the words “Buried near this spot”.

Lilian is not named on either of the two war memorials in Fenny Stratford or Bletchley, but in 2024 the Year 5 pupils from Knowles Primary School placed a memory stone bearing her name next to her headstone. (The primary school is located just behind the cemetery, and it is believed that she would have attended the girls' school that used the same buildings in the period before the outbreak of the First World War).
Image: Memory stone placed next to Lilian Saunders' headstone by pupils from a local school (source author)
Image: Lilian Saunders' CWGC headstone (source author)