| Administrative History | Nancy Garnett and Douglas Spafford both spent their early lives in Buxton between the 1900s and the early 1920s, living in the Park Road and Manchester Road area of Buxton, and also near the Brittain family, which included Vera Brittain.
Frances Alison Garnett (always known as Nancy) (1892-1980), was the daughter of a cotton merchant and lived at the outbreak of the war at Cold Springs, Buxton. Nancy had French and German cousins, who she visited just prior to the First World War. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Nancy began working as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse. During the war she worked at Devonshire Hospital, Buxton, Barlow Fold Hospital, Poynton, Cheshire, and the Canadian Speical Red Cross Hospital, Buxton [Buxton Museum]. She nursed Belgium, Canadian and British troops.
In 1919, Nancy visited Belgium and visited many of the places affected by the war.
Nancy's younger brother, Jerry Knowles Garnett, 1895-1915, was a Lieutenant in the East Lancashire Brigade. He served in the Gallipoli campaign, and was admitted to hospital in Malta on the 4 November 1915 suffering from typhoid and gastroenteritis. He died of gastroenteritis on the 6 November and was buried on the 7 November 1915 at Pieta Cemetery, Malta.
After the war, Nancy became engaged to, and subsequently married, Douglas Norman Spafford, (c1890-1961), at St John the Baptist Church in Buxton on the 14th June 1922, who had been her neighbour. He was in the army, sent initially to India, where he lived the life of a young officer in the Raj until he was sent with an Indian artillery regiment to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and saw action against the Ottoman army. |
| Custodial History | These records were donated to Derbyshire Record Office by a descendent of the creators in May, 2024. |