Nurse Maria Jane Maunsell, Voluntary Aid Detachment

Maria Jane Maunsell was the second daughter of John Maunsell and his third wife, Frances Caroline Lloyd. After twice being widowed and already the father of seven children, John married Frances in the Dublin area in the summer of 1867. Frances gave birth to a son, Richard Edward Lloyd, the following May and a daughter, Kathleen Isabella in 1869 before Maria was born on 30 Jun 1870 in Raheny, Dublin. Her birth was announced in the Belfast Newsletter and she was taken to nearby Clontarf for baptism on 30 June.

Little is known of Maria's early life, though we do know that she had two younger brothers and four more sisters before her mother died in 1882 and her father remarried in 1883 . It seems likely that his new wife undertook the upbringing of the nine children still at home. Newspaper reports show that Maria's father was a solicitor, legal advisor to several prominent organisations and Justice of the Peace for County Limerick.

In the late summer of 1899, Maria's father died and at the time of writing no further information has been discovered about her life until we read about her death in Cairo, though it appears from probate records that she was part of the family firm, Maunsell, Darley and Orpen. This was a prominent 18 St. Stephen's Green, North Dublin.

What prompted her to serve as a V.A.D. or for how long, is not known. The amount of War Gratuity Payment that was paid to her estate after her death suggests that she had served since the end of 1914, though another source suggests that she joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment in Ashford, Kent, UK, in July 1916.

We only know that she served for some time at the Citadel Hospital in Cairo, where she died on 7 January 1919. She had apparently been engaged using the name Marian rather than Maria, and preferred to be called 'Minnie'.

Maria was buried in the Cairo War Memorial Cemetery and after the war, when the Commonwealth War Graves Commission undertook the proper remebrance of those who died in the war, she was given a CWGC headstone.

For her service to her country Maria earned the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Her War Gratuity Payment of £19 was paid to the executer of her estate, her older brother, Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell.