Firewoman with the Auxiliary Fire Service. Killed during an air-raid at Cubitt Town School which was being used as an emergency depot. She was aged 19.
Andrew Behan has researched Pengelly: Firewoman Violet Irene Pengelly was born on 4 January 1921 in Poplar, the third eldest daughter and fourth of the eight children of Benjamin Pengelly and Lily R. Pengelly, née Hollidge. Her father was a Travelling Crane Driver, Marine Casting. The 1939 England & Wales Register shows her living with her parents and some of her siblings at 8 Gaverick Street, Millwall and her occupation was recorded as a Clerk, Marine Casting. The register also shows her Auxiliary Fire Service number as D1/4909. She was a telephonist for the AFS and died of injuries resulting from enemy action, aged 19 years, on 18 September 1940, when a parachute mine fell on AFS Fire Station 35U, located at St Luke's Church of England Primary School, Saunders Ness Road, London, E14 3EB.
She was buried with Firewoman Joan Fanny Mary Bliss Bartlett on 10 October 1940 at the City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery, Southern Grove, London, E3 4PX. Her name is recorded on both the National Firefighters Memorial, Carter Lane Gardens, St Paul's Churchyard, London, EC4M 8BX and on a plaque at St Luke's School that lists not only both firewomen but also the other 24 Civil Defence personnel who were killed by this one bomb. She is also recorded in the Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour held in St George's Chapel, Westminster Abbey.
See Bartlett's page for a possible photo of them both.
