Died: County Hospital Dartford
Address / Local links: 51A Bellegrove Road, Welling
Family / Relatives: Wife of Benjamin R Halford of Welling
6th September 1940 marked the date when the Luftwaffe changed tack, and commenced massive, targeted attacks on British cities and citizens…One of these first waves of aerial terror saw a high-explosive bomb demolish a hospital ward block at Dartford’s West Hill County Hospital – a ward primarily devoted to pre-natal and maternity care. 2 nurses and 22 patients died in this attack – it is impossible to imagine the terror these women must have felt as they realized that their hospital ward was being bombed…
One of those women was 27 year old Marjorie Mary Halford.
Marjorie was born on 30th October 1912 in Peckham, to Henry George Brown (a Compositor) and Susan Louisa Brown who had married in Nunhead three years before. Marjorie had two brothers, Leslie Lionel born in 1910 and Stanley Richard born in 1917 (both were special constables in 1939 at the outbreak of war).
In 1938 Marjorie married Benjamin Richard Halford, an Ordnance Mechanical Examiner originally from Camberwell. The 1939 Register lists Marjorie as living at 3 St Michael’s Road Welling with her parents – her occupation was given as ‘housewife’. Later listings show her living at 51A Bellegrove Road.
It is quite possible that Marjorie was in hospital expecting her first child on that fateful day of 6th September – records suggest that all of the newborn babies in the ward survived the bombing, so Marjorie cannot have had her child by then.. .
A newspaper report describes how “One of the ward sisters, Mary Gantry, regardless of her own safety, crawled through the wrecked building and administered injections of morphine to the trapped, injured women” – although, sadly, she was unable to save Marjorie Halford…(Nurse Gantry is pictured below).
Another lady listed on our East Wickham memorial, Charlotte Hillman, also died here during this attack on the hospital.
Marjorie was buried at St. Michael’s East Wickham on 13th September.
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Subsequent research tells us that Marjorie’s husband – Benjamin – remarried in Coventry in 1942 to Nancy Tope and in 1944 they had a daughter Robina MARJORIE, so Marjorie’s name and memory, it seems, did live on…
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If anyone is able to add any extra information, provide more family details, or suggest any corrections, please let us know – also, if anyone has any more photos of this individual listed on our memorials, please get in touch. Thank you.
Commemorated
This story has been researched by volunteers. We have taken every effort to ensure its accuracy. If you are related to Marjorie May Halford, or if you have any further information, please do get in touch.