James Cronan, Records Specialist, November 2023
This presentation celebrates a completed cataloguing project relating to civil defence awards in the Second World War. Learn how the brave actions of Britons during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz were recognised and how cataloguing has improved the description and accessibility of these records.
James is the Maritime Records Specialist at The National Archives. He specialises in the records of the Merchant Navy, Customs and Excise and Coastguard.
Transcript
To coincide with Catalogue Week at The National Archives, I would like to tell you about a cataloguing project which we have recently completed.
We have catalogued by name, place, action and award the details in the series T 336, Second World War Civil Defence Awards Files.
When it comes to loss of life, gallant action, and devotion to duty in the Second World War, people immediately think of the armed forces, then probably the Merchant Navy, but rarely to civilians at home. In the aftermath of the Battle of Britain, and at the outset of the Blitz, enormous devastation was caused by air raids. During the course of the war, 60,595 civilians died as a result of enemy action in the UK.
More than 70,000 homes, workplaces and public buildings were destroyed and another 1.7 million were damaged, including Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London.
A large number of volunteers were trained in civil defence duties. These included:
- ARP Wardens
- rescue party members
- auxiliary police
- fire-fighters
- medical service
- ambulance drivers
Through gallantry and devotion to duty, these individuals, many of them women, helped to save lives during the Blitz.
In order to recognise their contribution promptly and worthily, two new awards, the George Cross and the George Medal, were instituted in September 1940 by George VI.
A Treasury Committee on Civil Defence Honours was set up, chaired by Lord Chatfield, a retired Admiral of the Fleet. Ernle Chatfield had seen service in the First World War. He was Minister for Co-ordination of Defence between February 1939 and April 1940.
The Committee sat between April 1940 and December 1946, by which time it was considering peacetime gallantry awards recommendations.
Submissions came to the Committee from the Interdepartmental Committee on Civil Defence gallantry awards. That committee consisted of Home Office and Ministry of Home Security representatives; it was responsible for considering all recommendations from local sources and subsequently submitting them with its own recommendations to Lord Chatfield’s Committee at the Treasury.
The Committee then sent the recommendations to Buckingham Palace, so the King was the final arbiter in deciding gallantry awards.
To consider the submissions the Committee required descriptions of the actions warranting recognition, backed up by witness testimony to validate the claims. The Committee would then send its recommendations to the Sovereign, George VI, for approval, and the awards were subsequently announced in the London, Edinburgh or Belfast Gazette.
T 336 consists of 166 files, which are organised chronologically. Before this project the catalogue descriptions just provide the dates that the awards were announced in the relevant gazette. The current description for T 336/30 simply has ‘Wartime awards in Civil Defence: gazetted 23.05.1941’. These descriptions were kept at file level, but we have added items to each file for the individuals who were recommended for an award, listed by:
- Committee case number
- and then with by name
- age
- and occupation of the nominee
- the award that they were granted
- and a summary of the action leading to the award, which includes location, place and county.
These awards were primarily aimed at those involved in civil defence, such as Air Raid Precautions officers, rescue party workers, fire fighters and casualty and medical service workers. But they also recognised vital work carried out by the gas workers, electricians, train drivers and dockyard workers to keep Britain going in what Winston Churchill described as ‘The Darkest Hour’.
This is the entry for Alfred Stanley Sandford Barlow, An ARP Rescue Party Leader from Maldon & Coombe. He was awarded the British Empire Medal for his rescue work at Maldon Way and Manor Drive, New Maldon, on 9 September and 12 October 1940.
File 161 contains submissions recommending civilian OBEs (Orders of the British Empire, national honours) to 21 British war correspondents.
File 152 consists of recommendations for awards for British officials in the Channel Islands, which were occupied by Germany.
There are papers concerning awards to local guides and leaders for services in connection with the Burma Campaign.
There are also submissions for civilian internees in the Far East, including Hong Kong, Shanghai and Java.
The files also contain the recommendations for civilian awards for SOE agents such as Eileen Nearne, Yvonne Cormeau, Pearl Witherington and Odette Sansom. These brave women were dropped into enemy-occupied France to act as wireless operators and to provide a line of communication between British intelligence and the French resistance. What they did would hardly be regarded as civil, but they were put forward for civl and not military awards. They were often involved in acts of sabotage and put their lives on the line to pass across vital information about enemy plans and movements, and to secure continuing supplies of arms and equipment.
On 15 April 1942, the island of Malta was awarded the George Cross, to recognise the heroism and devotion of its people during the Great Siege, which lasted from June 1940 to November 1942. File T 336/2 includes a telegram from Mabel Strickland, editor of the Times of Malta and daughter of Sir Gerald Strickland, former Prime Minister of Malta, recommending the award as early as 26 September 1940.
- The largest number of awards went to firefighters, which included not only county and city fire brigades, but also auxiliary fire fighters and fire watchers
- The next largest number went to police and war reserve police
- Then to the ARP Rescue Service
- The ARP Warden’s Service
- The ARP Casualty Service
- Railway workers
- Doctors and nurses
- And over 100 telephone exchange operators, showing how vital communication was during the Blitz.
- Around half of those candidates received a King’s commendation
- The next most popular award was the British Empire Medal
- 671 people considered by the Committee were awarded the George Medal
- A surprising number of people received no award at all, as the Committee considered they were doing exactly the job they were supposed to be doing
- 334 civilians were awarded the MBE
- And 62 the OBE
- But only 26 civilians in these files were awarded the George Cross, which shows how highly it was prized. It was rightly called ‘the people’s VC’
- And 18 civilians were awarded a CBE.
While London was heavily targeted, you can see from the results that German bombers and missiles targeted major industrial cities and ports. Transport and communications were also affected and gas and electricity powerstations and sub-stations were frequently targeted.
This represented a concerted attempt to knock Britain out of the war by cutting supply lines to food, raw materials and energy in order to weaken British resolve and capability and, in effect, starve the United Kingdom out of the war.
Including the place, county and date will widen the interest beyond those searching for an ancestor or for particular job roles and activities, and will allow local historians to discover further details about particular bombing incidents. The results can then be used in conjunction with Bomb Census survey records and the Bomb Sight project to establish a picture of the damage sustained during bombing raids.
- The project was carried out by 3 volunteers all on site
- Project started in April 2019 but work began properly in June 2021 because of Covid and lockdown
- A Blog to advertise project released on 25 November 2021
- By June 2022 all spreadsheet entries had been completed
- A Blog to celebrate the end of the project was released on 26 September 2023
- All catalogue descriptions went live on Discovery last month
- This means that 5,500 names have been added to the catalogue.
This was a small-scale project but we have over 100 volunteers working at The National Archives engaged in a number of activities including enhancing catalogue descriptions of our collection. Without their time and dedication projects like this would simply not be possible. Thank you for listening and thank you to all of our volunteers.