Introduction (p. 48)

‘Evacuation’ is often remembered solely in terms of the great wartime exodus of London children to safer country areas in anticipation of the bombing. As the bibliography shows, many authors have written on that subject, frequently from personal experience, and it has been examined at length in television and radio programmes and in exhibitions like the one organised by the Imperial War Museum in 1996. But evacuation affected many other sectors of society as well. Expectant mothers, the frail elderly, the disabled and the chronically sick were also relocated if possible, and institutions of all kinds also moved out of London, at least temporarily. Objects, too, were evacuated for safe keeping - paintings, museum treasures, historical records and books. Extensive documentation survives about all these aspects of evacuation.

Fearing that war would bring immediate bombing and gas attacks, the government had made plans for the priority evacuation of mothers, children and the handicapped from vulnerable areas. In the case of London, which was regarded as the main target, these plans were made with the help of LCC officials. A million and a quarter people were to be moved out of the capital including the pupils and staff of entire schools, and into reception areas across the south, East Anglia and the Midlands. In practice, about 600,000 actually left in August/September 1939 and many of these had returned by the Christmas as the uneventful phoney war lulled parents into a sense of false security. There were later flurries of evacuation following the fall of France, at the onset of the Blitz in the autumn of 1940, and again with the coming of the flying bombs in 1944, but it was this initial exodus that posed the greatest logistical challenge and which has lodged so vividly in popular memory. Evacuation was never compulsory, but it served as a safety valve throughout the war, allowing those who needed it to get away from the stress of London for a time. Official sources relating to evacuation from London are in the Public Record Office and London Metropolitan Archives, though other repositories have useful additional material. The administrative history of the evacuation scheme is exhaustively covered in Richard Titmuss’ Problems of Social Policy (1950), and, especially with reference to maternity provision, in Studies in the Social Services (1954) by Sheila Ferguson and Hilde Fitzgerald. Both form part of the History of the Second World War UK Civil Series.

National Records (p. 48-49)

The main sources in the PRO are to be found in the records of several departments. Policy decisions on evacuation are reflected in the records of the Cabinet Office, especially the War Cabinet Minutes in CAB 65, Memoranda in CAB 68, and the Committee of Civil Defence papers in CAB 73. Notes for the UK Civil Series histories are at CAB 102, and often produce information not used in the published version. CAB 102/669 and 677, for example, have extra material on the evacuation of Londoners in 1944. Home Office records including Registered files in HO 45, and Circulars in HO 158, may have useful material generally; so do HO 186 for ARIP matters, HO 199 for the Intelligence branch, HO 202 for Daily reports, HO 204 for Regional circulars and the Regional Commissioners’ files in HO 207, all of which come from the Ministry of Home Security. Ministry of Information records, notably the Social Survey reports in RG 23, the Registered files in RG 40 and correspondence in INF 1 are worth checking, too. Assistance Board papers, AST 11, can also be useful for the issue of allowances to evacuees under government schemes. But the ministries most closely involved with implementing evacuation schemes were those of Health and Education. Evacuation plans were the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, which established a special division to deal with it. The work fell into three main phases: dispersal in 1939, fresh evacuation in 1944 because of the flying bombs, and the organised return of remaining evacuees in 1945 with the winding-up of the scheme. The most useful PRO classes are HLG 7, covering Special Wartime Functions - HLG 7/335, for instance, contains reports and complaints about LCC-organised evacuation parties 1941- 2; HLG 7/336 relates to evacuees returning to London in 1944- 5, Circulars in MH 10, Emergency Medical Service papers in MH 76, and the '100,000 series files’ in HLG 68 and MH 79, any of which can yield occasional London finds. The Miscellaneous category in HLG 102 also has files on the evacuation scheme.

Young evacuees needed schooling, so the Ministry of Education was also heavily involved with the evacuation arrangements. Record classes ED 10 and ED 11 have General files on elementary and secondary education. ED 10/309, for example, includes material on the financial position of elementary schools affected by evacuation. ED 134, Miscellaneous files, ED 137 concerning School Health Services and ED 138, a draft of the unpublished history of education in the war, are all potentially useful for London data.

Mass-Observation reports, some prepared on behalf of the government, include comments on evacuation and reactions to it. The Mass-Observation Archive’s 'Evacuation’ topic collection is a very valuable source for all aspects of the subject, including the evacuation and billeting of East Enders to other parts of London as the result of severe bomb damage. TC5/2/G, 'Preliminary impressions on evacuation from the East End 9.9.40’, reports a conversation at a coffee stall. Observers ascribed an age and social class to each speaker, so this exchange is between two men in their thirties, one from social class C - 'Artisans and skilled workers’ - the other from D - 'Unskilled’: 'M35C "I’ve been bombed out, so we went to Richmond, but they’ve bloody well bombed there three times in the last 2 days. Had a wopper last night". M3OD "What you go there for, then?" M35C "They sent us there. They send you any bloody place. This isn’t dispersal, it’s just shifting people round from one place to the next".’ Box 1, file E in the same collection also contains a description by a young woman teacher of evacuating her pupils from Walthamstow to St Albans.

Local Authority Records (p. 49-50)

The crucial role of the LCC in organising the evacuation of children is well covered by We Think You Ought to Go, edited by Richard Samways and based on the LCC’s records. It outlines the main sources of relevant material, found in the records of the Council itself and its various committees, especially in those of the Education Officer’s department, the Clerk’s and Children’s departments, and the departments of Public Health and Welfare, giving many examples and illustrations of the records themselves. The coverage is huge, but a few examples will give an idea of the sort of information available.

Evacuation caused the LCC’s Education Department an enormous amount of work and anxiety in the autumn of 1939. LCC/MIN 4984 gives the Education Officer’s October report: 'Receiving authorities, confronted by social problems with which they were totally unfamiliar, have turned to the evacuating authority for advice and assistance...’ (p. 5). 'My staff are having to cope with a postbag of 500 letters a day. These letters contain complaints by Londoners of unsuitable accommodation in the country; complaints by people in the country of the condition or behaviour of Londoners... allegations that certain parts of the reception area were unsafe owing to proximity to military formations, aerodromes, anti-aircraft guns (and, in one case, a circus of wild animals)...’ (p. 6).

LCC/EO/WARJ1/194 concerns Operation Rivulet, the scheme that evacuated a fresh wave of children in 1944 when the flying bomb raids started; LCC/EO/WARI2 deals with special categories of evacuees - /46 is Jewish schoolchildren, /50 bombed-out TB contacts, others deal with blind children, and diabetics. LCC/EO/WAR/3 concerns schools remaining in London /8 has weekly estimates of children in London December 1940-March 1942. School diaries and magazines can be useful sources, some examples are given in the Education section later in this guide. Also in LMA but not covered by We Think You Ought to Go are the Middlesex CC’s records dealing with evacuation, mainly to be found in their Education Officer’s and Welfare departments’ holdings, like MCC/EO/WAR, the Education Officer’s files including evacuation returns, and MCC/WE/PA/2/23, Evacuation arrangements, 1938- 9. MCC/WE/PA/2/32 relates to the evacuees’ return to London and /34 to the Wembley evacuation scheme.

London evacuees made a considerable impact on the reception areas and the subject was widely discussed at the time. The arrival of large numbers of mothers and children from inner city areas brought inevitable problems of adjustment for both sides. Manners, behaviour, habits and expectations differed. Some evacuees found country life very dull, some host communities thought the new arrivals a bad influence locally. Yet in most places matters settled down. The most discontented elements rapidly drifted back to London, but many school communities settled in quite happily for the duration. County Record Offices for the reception areas usually have administrative records about their local authority’s involvement in the evacuation process, including billeting and welfare work. Education records may contain material on school-sharing with evacuee groups, and local newspapers are a good source of comment and description 'HUNTINGDONSHIRE INVADED BY THOUSANDS OF LONDONERS’ headlined the Huntingdonshire Post in September 1939; 'WIDE OPEN DOORS FOR SOUTHERN EVACUEES: 1600 WARMLY WELCOMED BY CITIZENS OF LEEDS’, wrote the Yorkshire Post in July 1944, both with photographs, reports and human interest stories.

Personal Memories (p. 54)

Evacuation made a tremendous impact on personal lives, so it is not surprising that so many people have written about their own experience of it. The bibliography contains many published examples; archives and libraries of all kinds contain unpublished diaries and memoirs. The IWM Department of Documents has a good collection of this sort of material. Mrs M. Dineen deposited a four volume manuscript diary concerning her time as an LCC helper with a group of Streatham schoolchildren evacuated to Eastbourne, and later to South Wales, 87/40/1; Miss H. Helliar was a teacher in Stoke Newington who took groups of children to Luton, and to Wiltshire, in ‘92/49/1. The collection also has many accounts by child evacuees, like that of Mrs J.A. Otley, in ‘92/9/1, whose school was evacuated to Buckinghamshire from north west London, and Mr T. Nunn, on evacuation to Glamorgan from Acton, in 91/5/1. Most were written later, but the collection also has a twelve year old Lilian Hansen’s account of being evacuated, written in verse, in Misc. 151(2331).

Some former evacuees have recorded their memories on tape instead of writing them down. The oral history collections at the British Library National Sound Archive, Museum of London and IWM Sound Archive contain many examples, like Edward Butt, who talks about his memories of evacuation with his school from Plaistow to Chipping Norton, Oxon, on IWMI 5225/8, and Jean Stogdon, on NSA C642/42/1- 3 Cl, who was evacuated from North London to North Wales. The Museum of London’s collection of interviews for the television programme The Making of Modern London also contains evacuation interviews.