I found this photo in a copy of the Nursing Times in January 1916. It shows a nurse holding triplets! I wondered what the story was behind this photo. It must have been very unusual for a woman to be delivered of triplets that all survived the birth. I wondered if they survived into adulthood and who their parents were – did their father survive the War?
The birth was announced in their local paper – the Staffordshire Sentinel – on 17th January 1916. I discovered that their mother was Catherine May Kinght (nee Rigby). She married Frank Knight(aged 23) in October 1915 at the young age of 18 ; judging by the date of their sons’ births, it was a hastily arranged wedding! And must have been something of a shock to the parents!
I discovered that their father Frank was a Second Class Air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps. Frank had been single and an electrician before the War. By 1921 he was living with his in laws, wife and sons and was out of work. It seems likely that things were really hard for the family, especially Catherine. To be the mother of triplets at the age of 18 and with a marriage that may well have only taken place because she became pregnant must have been tough enough – but she was living with her three 5 year olds, parents and an unemployed husband. Sure enough, by the 1939 register it would appear that the couple had split up – Catherine living in an address in Kidsgrove and Frank was employed as an “electrician instructor” in Ampthill. Indeed, Catherine died in 1951 in Staffordshire and Frank died in 1971 in Cheshire. Remarkably all three boys survived into adulthood, at a time when there was no NHS and high infant and mother mortality and during three long years of War. What a remarkable testament to a mother's resilience.
I did try to trace the rather nervous looking Nurse Timmins but didn’t really have enough information although I have found a Sarah Timmins who trained and worked in Stoke on Trent at the time and place where the boys were born. Perhaps it is she, peering at the camera rather shyly!
Sources:
British Newspaper Archive
Ancestry.co.uk
