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Gertrude Powicke was the daughter of a non-conformist minister and was born in 1897 at Hatherlow in Cheshire.

She was educated at the University of Manchester, where she graduated with an Honours degree in French and German before being employed as a French teacher at Manchester High School For Girls.

When war broke out in August 1914, Gertrude was put in charge of the refugee clothes store and learned first aid. But this wasn't enough for the committed suffragette who learnt to drive and then applied in May 1915 to join the Quakers War victims’ relief committee to serve on the front line.

She arrived in France in June 1915 at Bar-le-Duc in north east France where she was based until May 1919, coming under German bombing raids at times.

Her first two years were mainly occupied with relief work among the French and Belgian refugees. Gertrude then helped resettle returning refugees until she was invited to go and work with the Quakers in Poland. There she worked to stop the spread of typhus from refugees returning from the east.

Sadly she contracted the disease on a visit to what is now the Ukraine and despite treatment she died in Warsaw in December 1919; the day after her 32nd birthday.

She was laid to rest in a cemetery in Warsaw. Her name is on a number of war memorials including Manchester University, Heaton Moor near Stockport and Hatherlow Church.

Location: Manchester High School for Girls, Grangethorpe Road, Manchester M14 6HS
Image: Gertrude Powicke (sitting at the front row wearing a tie) with her pupils in 1913, courtesy of Manchester High School for Girls

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