WRIGHT, Kate Irene (Miss)

Д On the Wesleyan Memorial 1922. She was from 12/7/1918 until 13/9/ 1919, a shorthand typist in the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF). She joined in Doncaster and was demobilized from Lympne in Kent, age 20. This would seem to make her the first female from Hathersage to belong to the military and certainly to the Air Force.  b Sheffield 1/11/1898 (possibly Millhouses Road).  Listed on the 1911C as Irene Wright, living with her grandparents (the Harrisons) in Sheffield. According to the family tree her mother Clara Wright (neé Harrison) died in Hathersage 1908. Her father had died in 1904. The Harrison family who lived in Hathersage were keen Methodists, and Kate (In later life, she was always known as Renie), and William Snow (Billy) were married of the old Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, (now demolished and replaced) in 1922. Renie met her husband while in the forces.

She was an Aunt to Peter Manning’s Mother, who said she spent a few summers with Renie and her children in Hathersage in the first few years of WW2, and she thinks their house in Hathersage was bequeathed to Renie at some time. Further research has shown that in 1941 Renie received no less than three bequests, and 9 Park Edge and ‘The Cottage’, Baulk Lane (now a listed building and recently renamed ‘Further House’) are mentioned. A maiden Aunt Katie (aunt of Renie), probably Kate Evelyn Harrison, (b 1859 Sheffield) who was living in ‘The Cottage’ when she died, left nearly £2,800 and a property on Roslyn Road to Renie. Kate Irene Wright’s ‘Harrison’ family did not move into the village till after the 1911C, Probate and family tree records indicate that in 1915 they were living at Park Edge and Roslyn Crescent.