With thanks to Sue Robinson of Wenches in Trenches for finding Mary. I am still trying to find a complete biography but in the meantime,
Mary Janet Gibson was born in around 1884 to John and Ann
Gibson.
In September 1911, Mary married Herbert A. Climpson in
Durham. Herbert reached the rank of
Captain and Mary reached the rank of Brigadier.
Together they ran the Salvation Army Citadel in Brierfield, near Nelson
in East Lancashire.
During WW1, Mary worked in various Salvation Army centres,
which offered very similar facilities to the YMCA Huts. During the Second World War, Mary and her
husband were based in the British National Salvation Army Headquarters which
was in Arras. When the Germans advanced
in May 1940, they were told to leave and travelled by road. The joined a military convoy which was bombed
by German planes and Mary was killed by shrapnel. Her body was initially buried in a field was transferred after the end of the Second
World War to where it lies today in the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery in France.
The Salvation Army was set up in the East End of London in
1867 by a Methodist Minister called William Booth and his wife Catherine. It was initially known as the East London
Christian Mission. Representatives were
sent to help the soldiers during the Boer War and in 1902 the Naval and
Military League came into being - the forerunner to the Red Shield Centres
which came into being in the Second World War.
Red Shield Centres http://news.salvationarmy.org.uk/tags/red-shield
