Nest Thomas, m.b., b.ch., b.sc.
Surgeon
Dr Nest Thomas
Nest Thomas was born in May 1907 the only child of Louis Meredith Thomas and his wife Agnes, née Lewis. Her father was from Llansadwrn, and her mother from Pontypridd. The family lived at 5, Gadlys Terrace, (also known as Brynhyfryd), overlooking the parish church of St. John in Aberdare.
Louis Thomas1 was English master at Aberdare Boys County School for 39 years, 1907–46. He was active at Tabernacle Church in Duke Street, and a strong supporter of the League of Nations. He acquired an M.A. in 1931.
Nest was born Edith Glenys Nest Thomas in Swansea; she was however better known as Nest.
She was notable for academic excellence. At the Girls’ County School she took her CWB School Certificate at age 14, two years earlier than was usual for other girls, and such was the high quality of her result that she qualified for Matriculation Equivalence, enabling her to meet the requirements for entrance to the University of Wales. Then in 1923, again two years early, she gained her Higher School Certificate, (roughly equivalent to GCE Advanced level).
She won the much sought after Caroline Williams Scholarship for entry to University College, Cardiff in 1923. From Cardiff she gained a B.Sc. in the Faculty of Science in 1927, and a second B.Sc. in 1928 from the Faculty of Medicine.
Commencing her training in medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women2 in 1928, the degrees of M.B., B.Ch. followed in 1930.
She was appointed House Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, London, on February 7th, 1931. However on April 5th 1931 she became unwell and went off duty, and by April 9th she had died at the hospital where she worked, and in the presence of her parents. The cause of death was meningitis, a disease which at that time was almost invariably fatal.3
Her funeral took place at Aberdare Cemetery April 14th 1931. There was widespread sorrow expressed in the town for the loss of Nest, a woman who was on the threshold of what was likely to have been a notable career in medicine.
Footnotes
L.M. Thomas in 1923
1. Louis Meredith Thomas was born at Llansadwrn, Carmarthenshire in 1882. He received his secondary education at Llandovery County School, 1896–99, after which he attended UCW Aberystwyth, 1899–1903 where he graduated with a B.A. degree in history.
He taught for three years before arriving in 1907 at the County School in Aberdare. For two of those preceding years he was at Llanrwst County School. Initially he taught a variety of arts subjects, but eventually became senior English master at the school until his retirement in 1946.
In 1931 he was awarded an M.A. by UCW Aberystwyth for a dissertation on the Familiar Letters of James Howell, a Carmarthen-born Welsh writer and historian who lived c.1594 – c.1666.
L.M. Thomas married Agnes Lewis of Pontypridd at Swansea in 1907, and died at Aberdare in December 1956. His wife, Agnes, died nine years later in 1965.
2. In 1877 an agreement was reached with the Royal Free Hospital that allowed students at the London School of Medicine for Women to complete their clinical studies at the Royal Free.
3 The first sulphonamide drugs which were of some success in treating the disease were not introduced until 1937.
CR, April 2026