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Evacuation from Sheffield before the Blitz!


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Hello

Does anyone have any idea on the scale of evacuation from Sheffield prior to December 1940?

Thanks

Ron

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Guest REDNECK

Hello

Does anyone have any idea on the scale of evacuation from Sheffield prior to December 1940?

Thanks

Ron

Check at the Library for " Raiders Over Sheffield " by Walton and Lamb for the official figures on Page 97. I was evacuated twice before the Blitz but not on an official scheme. I was evacuated towards the end of 1939 , brought home again when nothing happened and then evacuated again in the early Summer of 1940.

Good Luck.

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Slighty off subject but you may find this interesting ......... Page 2 of the list of Sheffield schools and their evacuation details but sadly no date.

Thanks to the Traditional Heritage Museum, on Ecclesall Road

I hope you can make it out

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Thanks alot for the replies

So do you think that in December 1940 maybe 20,000 evacuees were away from Sheffield?

Regards

Ron

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Another one of my dads wartime stories from before the Blitz

Dad would have been about 10 or 11 at the time, in fact he always claimed Hitler had ruined his secondary education and this was why he had no formal school qualifications. At this time dad lived with his elder brother (2 years older) on Leavygreave Road and went to, i think from memory, St. Georges school. He was evacuated with one of his best school friends, Stan Butler, whose dad ran the Butlers cafes and produced the well known Butlers meat pies. They were to be evacuated to somewhere out at Ranmoor for a trial period. Before they went Stan's dad packed him up with a load of pies and my dad went down Leavygreave road to stock up on bottles of Hendersons relish so that when they were evacuated, despite the introduction of food rationing, they ate well. The evacuation seemed to last only a few weeks or months as during the Blitz he was at home in Sheffield in the thick of it. On a previous post of mine to this site on the Blitz it is clear he was back from this trial evacuation by the August of 1940.

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11th September 1939 The school opened today instead of on Sept 5th as originally planned owing to the war. As a number of children from Wybourn School in Sheffield were evacuated to Stathern last week, they were admitted to this school today. Stathern Primary School Water Lane Stathern Nr Melton Mowbray Leics http://www.stathern.leics.sch.uk/history.htm

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11th September 1939 The school opened today instead of on Sept 5th as originally planned owing to the war. As a number of children from Wybourn School in Sheffield were evacuated to Stathern last week, they were admitted to this school today. Stathern Primary School Water Lane Stathern Nr Melton Mowbray Leics http://www.stathern.....uk/history.htm

the LINK FAIRY strikes with a link to this topic

Evacuation

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Thanks alot for the replies

So do you think that in December 1940 maybe 20,000 evacuees were away from Sheffield?

Regards

Ron

According to the Raiders over Sheffield book, which was compiled from official records;

"Throughout the war the people of Sheffield had obstinately refused to be evacuated. The Government scheme for the removal of children was ,in respect of numbers, a failure; less than a third of the eligible children left the city, and there was a constant drift back, so that at the time of the raid, only seven hundred of the city's thirty thousand children entitled to evacuation were living in Government billets elsewhere.

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On 01/08/2007 at 19:44, dr stanley said:

Slighty off subject but you may find this interesting ......... Page 2 of the list of Sheffield schools and their evacuation details but sadly no date.

Thanks to the Traditional Heritage Museum, on Ecclesall Road

 

 

post-273-1185993709_thumb.jpg

 

I hope you can make it out

My father recognised the names and places on this list under Langsett Road and he was evacuated from Burton Street School just before the war broke out as per the article in the Star date 31st August. Along with his brother he was evacuated to rural Nottinghamshire to a place called Ratcliffe on Trent. I would love to know if there are any lists of pupils who were evacuated and where they ended up. His 3 younger sisters were fortunate enough to visit the place to where they were evacuated at a similar time. I may get a chance too take him back there in the near future.

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On 13/08/2007 at 10:58, Ron said:

Thanks alot for the replies

 

So do you think that in December 1940 maybe 20,000 evacuees were away from Sheffield?

 

 

Regards

 

 

Ron

My father was evacuated around 1st September 1939 and was away for around 15 months

 

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On 29/07/2007 at 17:45, Ron said:

Hello

 

Does anyone have any idea on the scale of evacuation from Sheffield prior to December 1940?

 

Thanks

 

Ron

Here is an evacuation the other way. My wife's family were Londoners whilst her father was in the RAF her mother was evacuated to Scotland where her eldest sister was born. Then to Lytham St Annes where her next sister was born. Then the family was moved to Burngreave Sheffield where my wife was born! She has vague memories of being billeted with another family in her early life. When her father came out of the RAF the family stayed In Sheffield.

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Does anyone know of any evacuees who went to Collingham (near Newark, Notts)?   I have seen, from this blog, the Star front page and the list that show it was Pye Bank School who came to us via Newark and I have brief note from the Newark Newspaper.  We have a couple of teachers names (Mr Carter & Miss Tipler) and know of the 3 Osborne sisters, whose descendants have asked us for information from our end.  Do you know of anyone who has memories/stories or knowledge of being evacuated to Collingham (Notts)

Cheers

Jeremy (Collingham and District Local History Society)

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Maybe the following newspaper extracts will be of interest.  Originally the Home Office planned for Sheffield children to be evacuated to the Kesteven District, south of Newark, however within a month the plan had changed. Sheffield parents were loath to part with their children, and when it came to the actual evacuation to Collingham only a quarter of the planned children turned up.

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My wife's family were evacuated from London to Sheffield! As result she was the first of her siblings to be born in Sheffield.

 

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A PhD thesis was submitted by Audrey Elcock in 1999, titled "Government Evacuation Schemes and their Effect on School Children in Sheffield during the Second World War".

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14455/1/301006.pdf

A sample of the information available in the thesis is below:

After the heavy raids of 12 and 15 December, the ‘Trickle’ scheme was immediately re-publicised through the Information Committee’s news service and evacuation officers were ready for parents to register their children for evacuation at the information bureau situated at the Central Library. However, as in the previous year, the people of Sheffield again proved implacably resistant to evacuation. Walton and Lamb, employees at the Central Library, recorded that officials from the city’s Public Assistance Department attempted to evacuate five thousand homeless people in over-crowded halls to rest centres made available by neighbouring authorities. After two days of concerted effort to persuade the refugees to move, only nine hundred had agreed to go, and within twenty-four hours seven hundred of these had returned. Even when, on 18 December, the Emergency Committee for Civil Defence decreed that all mothers with children of school age, as well as expectant mothers, the blind and the aged, should be brought within the official evacuation scheme, public reaction was extremely poor. It seemed that Sheffield people who had been bombed out of their homes preferred to find billets in the suburbs.  Records show that only two hundred evacuees responded immediately and were transferred to rest centres outside the city, and travel vouchers and billeting certificates were issued to an additional ninety adults with children to go to private billets in other areas.

The exodus continued very slowly until Christmas, after which the government decision to extend travel and billeting allowances to private evacuees in priority categories from any of the danger areas may have influenced the sudden increase to 3,776 by 31 December and to 6,121 over the following ten days. After steadily climbing to 8,631 two months later demand then fell off, until by 23 May a total of 9,246 (comprising 2056 mothers, 4692children, 2498 others) was shown to have left and statistics were apparently abandoned.  The graph below demonstrates this pattern of movement but there are, unfortunately, no details available of numbers who returned home during this period.

graph.png.3d5da0f72e8c6a0d55b845a425085a92.png

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