Elsie Oates
Date of death: 2.2.1917
Area: Knottingley
Regiment: Barnbow Munitions Factory
Family information: Daughter of Annie Oates
War Service
Elsie Oates of Racca Green, Knottingley was a gun shell filler, working at Barnbow Munitions factory at Crossgates.
Elsie Oates died aged twenty years old on 2 Feb 1917. Her inquest was held at the Cherry Tree Inn, Knottingley on 6 February 1917, where it was found that she had died from “Malignant jaundice consequent on Trinitro-toluene poisoning by absorption. Misadventure.” She was buried the same day in Knottingley Cemetery on Womersley Road - plot 4727.
Her mother, Mrs Annie Oates, sent a photograph of her daughter to the Imperial War Museum when it appealed for information as its Women’s Collection was being established. The letter she enclosed with it said “Dear madam, I am enclosing my daughter’s photograph. It is only very small and was took when she went to school, but if it will be of any use I shall be pleased for you to keep it. I only wish I had a larger one of her.”
Elsie Oates
