A soldier’s wife in Sunderland drew £12 arrears of Army pay, and she and her mother began to drink it away. She drew her pay on Friday, was carried home drunk on Saturday, gave birth to twins on Sunday morning, and died on Sunday night. The twins died a week or two after, and a week or two after that the soldier came home from the trenches to find his family in the grave.
Two women went drinking in Chester on a Sunday night, a soldier’s mother and a soldier’s wife. They had five whiskies each, and fell drunk in the street. One slept all night on a sofa, and the other lay on the floor, shouting and swearing. Her husband propped her up with a mat, and for hours she lay shrieking. In the morning she was dead. The publican was fined £5.
_Facts in “Chester Chronicle,” February 17, 1917_
The wife of a Yorkshire soldier was drowned while drunk at Sheffield. She started drinking with another soldier’s wife disappeared with a drunken man, and her death was a mystery.
_Facts in “Sheffield Independent,” April 26, 1916_
At an inquest on the bodies of a soldier’s twin children, both dead from chronic wasting, it was stated that the mother had 34_s._ a week, and both she and her husband drank. The mother had had four children in fifteen months, and all were dead.
_Records of Battersea Coroner, October 1915_
In one street in London where there were one day four convictions for drunkenness, a woman carried a sick baby into a public house. As she stood at the bar the little baby died, but the mother went on drinking, with the dead child in her arms.
_Records of Charity Organisation Society_
The wife of a highly-esteemed sergeant-major fighting in France was found lying drunk. Her four children, shockingly neglected, were put in a home, but she took them out, went on drinking, and received soldiers at her house. In a few weeks her husband heard in the trenches that his wife had died from drinking.
_Records of West Surrey Coroner, March 1917_
A soldier left three children at home. He had been earning £1 a week, but his wife received 32_s._ 6_d._ a week. She drank it away, neglected the children, and died in an asylum while her husband was in France.
The little child of a soldier in France died in Guy’s Hospital from burns. The mother said she could not buy a fireguard. While she was absent the baby was burned, and the mother, returning in a drunken state carrying a can of beer, said, “A good job!”