TOPIC:

At first glance Ruth Elizabeth Bagley (née Taylor) was a fantasist - there were no survivors of the sinking of the Titanic with the surname Taylor - but it's possible that she served in South Africa. There was 191 Sister Elizabeth Taylor, of Princess Christian's Army Nursing Service (Reserve).



....A strange story was related at the London Sessions, yesterday, concerning an attractive woman named Ruth Taylor, aged 37. described as a nurse, who stood in the dock in her professional dress, weeping silently. She pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining credit to the amount of £23 15s. by false pretences, at the Washington Hotel. Paddington.
....Accused, it was stated, arrived at the hotel on the 16th of September in her uniform, on which were sewn two South African medals, with clasps for a number of engagements during the war. After 35 days' residence at the hotel she was arrested for fraud at Aldershot, and sentenced to a month's imprisonment.
....Evidence having been called to prove that the medals the accused wore were not issued by the War Office to women, Detective-Sergeant Parsons said that during the accused's stay at the hotel telephone messages were received for her purporting to come from the War Office, and requesting her attendance at Aldershot. A bugler in the Yorkshire Light Infantry also came to the hotel and was introduced by the accused as her orderly, who, she said, had come from the War Office with her instructions. These were directed to "Sister Taylor, M.D." Later the bugler explained that he met the woman at Aldershot and used to walk out with her, but he had "broken it off." She afterwards wrote to him to renew the acquaintance, stating that she had come into money and they could now settle down together comfortably. She added that she would buy his discharge. When he called at the hotel she impressed on him that he was not to appear friendly with her. The officer added that the accused was really a maternity nurse, and when unable to obtain employment as such she had taken domestic situations with success.
....Mr. Wallace. K.C., sentenced her to three months imprisonment, to run concurrently with the sentence of one month, which she was at present serving.
Manchester Courier, Saturday 20th November 1909


The Dundee Evening Telegraph, of 19.11.1909, had reported that "She had previously been cook-chamberlain at an Aldershot hotel."


....Death of War Heroine.—The funeral took place at Brownhills, on Thursday week, of Mrs. [Ruth] Elizabeth Bagley, an Army nurse, who served throughout the South African War and the earlier stages of the present war. By sheer perseverance Mrs. Bagley, who died at the age of 47, gained her M.D. degree. Attached to the Northumberland Fusiliers, she served in the South African War, and was honoured with the King's and Queen's medals, the latter with five bars—Cape Colony, Tugela Heights, Orange Free State, Relief of Ladysmith, and Transvaal. Her other medal bore two bars—one South Africa, 1901, and the other South Africa, 1902. It was during one of the Boer War engagements that Mrs. Bagley was struck by a bullet, which entered her side and inflicted a painful wound. Operations were necessary and pieces of bone were removed, but the injury gave trouble for the remainder of her life, and her death in a Birmingham Hospital, where she had been an inmate for nine weeks, was consequent upon a complaint arising from the wound. When war broke out. Sister Taylor, as she was then, was about to retire from the service, but sent straight to France, and at Mons she was tending the wounded in a hospital which the Germans heavily shelled. For the second time she was wounded, on this occasion in the foot and both arms, and towards the end of 1914 she was invalided home and granted her discharge. Her devoted services were recognised by the award of a special silver medal, accompanied by a personal note written by the late Lord Kitchener :—"Presented to Sister Taylor, M.D. With every success, hoping you live many years to wear it. Lord Kitchener." This message and medal arrived on the day previous to her marriage, on Jan. 3rd, 1915, to Mr. Amos Bagley, a widower with six children with whom she made a home at High Street, Brownhills. Mrs. Bagley was one of the survivors of the ill-fated Titanic, and she had also intended returning from Canada on the Empress of Ireland, but happily just missed the boat. The funeral took place with military honours, the Curate-in-charge (Rev. W. H. Scott) officiating. There was a large attendance at the Ogley Hay Cemetery, where the interment took place. A party of South Staffords from Lichfield was present, and twelve of them carried the coffin on their shoulders. When the coffin had been lowered the "Last Post" was sounded.
Lichfield Mercury, Friday 19th January 1917

I am researching Ruth as part of my family tree. She is my second cousin three times removed (so quite distant). I would not ordinarily research someone so distant but the newspaper clipping caught my interest.

She was born in 1868 in Walsall Wood to Elijah and Georgiana Whitehouse.

Her mother died when she was 14. Both mother and father had some criminal convictions for theft and her mother spent time in prison for quite a few months in the 1870s. Her father died in 1886.

I am still researching 1881 and 1891 censuses but my initial research shows that she is with her aunty Sarah in 1818 (I believe her to be dad's sister) - likely staying there as mum and dad could not care for her and home life seemed 'chaotic'. 1891 a couple of months before her wedding I think she is in Burton on Trent working as a servant but calling herself Elizabeth not Ruth.

She married Charles Taylor in 1891 in Burton on Trent.

I believe her marriage was not happy and by 1895 she was in Lincolnshire where she married a John Gibson. This was a bigamous marriage and she went to court and spent 2 weeks in prison. Witnesses to the wedding were a Charles H Taylor (coincidence) and Frances his wife. Ruth had been nursing Frances Taylor and clearly the relationship was strong enough for them to be witnesses for her (bigamous) marriage. The curate who married her in Burton on Trent gave evidence at her trial.

On the 1901 census she is in hospital in Lincolnshire and with hindsight I think she may be there for a kidney stone. If she had surgery was this the origin of a wound in her side which in her mind she translated to a war wound?

In 1909 she is in court again for fraudulently obtaining clothing on credit using her position as a decorated nurse.

Later that year she is charged with obtaining money fraudulently in a hotel in Paddington. In the newspaper reports it mentions she was a cook and cleaner at a hotel in Aldershot. It also mentions that she bought the medals in a shop in Lincoln and tearfully admits she has 'no right to wear them'. I also saw in a newspaper clipping that she had had them engraved (likely adding her name Ruth - this would still allow for the existence of the real Sister Elizabeth Taylor)

Two years later in 1911 I have found a Ruth Taylor who is working as a 'domestic nurse' in Northamptonshire working for a well to do family. She states she is single and was born in Camden (next door to Paddington where she had committed fraud a couple of years before). Age, name and occupation match so I do think this is the right person with a bit of Ruth's tall stories mixed in.

She marries Amos Bagley in 1915.

The next I have for her is the military funeral in Ogley Hay in 1917.

There is mention of her 'wound' contributing to her death as she had suffered for a while from the wounds. She actually died from kidney stones and uraemia - is had previously had surgery, she could have had a chronic discharging sinus on her flank.

I am writing a short biography for her as it is so fascinating, but I am not used to researching military records - any information anyone could add about the real Sister Elizabeth Taylor would be interesting and why did her medals find their way into a shop in Lincoln??

I have a fair amount of research still to do and have several avenues to explore still.

A Ruth E Taylor does in fact appear in military records from WW1 that Find My Past threw up, but this is 1921 4 years after her death - I cannot explain this.

Surviving the Titanic and Empress of Ireland disasters are complete fabrication and it seems strange that any reporter did not think this was unusual.

Ruth clearly had mental health issues and I wonder if her finding the medals with her name on set off some sort of a fugue in her mind? I don't know. But her life does seem to be filled with fantasies. She died fairly young and I feel quite a pang of sorrow for her. I hope she enjoyed her life even though a lot of it was in her own mind.

Interestingly Amos Bagley who was her third husband had already been married to my 2nd great grand aunt Emily Marklew née Whitehouse. There seems to be quite a lot of ties between the Whitehouse and Bagley families in Pelsall (my deceased grandmother was a Whitehouse and used to talk of the Bagleys) so I wonder did Amos Bagley already know Ruth in some way before the marriage??

Riveting stuff! A small point - no women, rightly or wrongly, were awarded the Queens of Kings South Africa medals with any clasps.

If she did buy the medals from a shop they would have been named up to a soldier who saw service in the Natal theatre (the battle clasps on the QSA confirms this) but they could not have been named to anyone with her monikers.

Do let us know how you progress with her story.

Regards

Rory

Thank you - any information like this is useful. I am attaching the record I have seen on Find My Past - I think this says Ruth E Taylor received a British War medal and Victory Medal. The writing in the remarks column has been struck through (Issued From Roll. QAIMNSR Nurse 2-155). I believe the initialism stands for Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve? This is dated 1921 and I cannot explain this.....

A Ruth E Taylor does in fact appear in military records from WW1 that Find My Past threw up, but this is 1921 4 years after her death - I cannot explain this.

Ruth E Taylor received a British War medal and Victory Medal.

This is possibly Ruth Edith Taylor, a hospital trained midwife and nurse. Borne Kent 1879, died Kent 1974

Pete