58551: Photographs of Private J.V.Davies service in Mesopotamia and North West Frontier of India, 1914 - 1920

John Vaughan Davies - a soldier of the Great War

John Vaughan Davies was born at 17, Glynllifon Street, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Meirionethshire, North Wales, on 20.5.1896. He was the third son, one of nine children of Morris Vaughan Davies, a slate quarry worker, and Eliza Davies.

John started work in the slate mines in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Meirionethshire, North Wales, at the age of 14 years, and became interested in First Aid. He joined the local branch of the St. John Ambulance Brigade and became the quarry's first aid representative.

consequently, at the outbreak of the first World War he volunteered early into the British Army and served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the U.K., Ireland, and from 1916 to 1919 at a base hospital in Basra, Mesopotamia (Present day Iraq).

He was unfortunate enough to be in Mesopotamia when the British Government decided to send armed forces to India to deal with an armed rebellion in the North West Frontier and Afghanistan in 1919. He was then posted to that area where he continued to serve in various military medical posts in the Peshawar and Khyber Pass areas. He was not demobilized until 1920.

On demobilization he resumed work at the Graig Ddu Slate Quarry, Blaenau Ffestiniog, until its closure in 1940. He was then employed as a railway shunter by the Great Western Railway company at their station at Blaenau Ffestiniog and remained there, retiring upon its closure.

He died on 11.7.1973