CARDIFF SCHOOLS
& THE AGE OF
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
THE LOG BOOKS:
A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY (Word Version)
Keith Strange
First
and foremost I must thank the headteachers who allowed me access to their
school records (though I would, ever so politely, draw their attention to my
postscript).
The
staffs of the Local Studies Department of Cardiff County Library and of the
Glamorgan Record Office deserve my particular gratitude for their expertise,
patience and support.
I
would also like to place on record my thanks to Dan Chidgey, archivist for the
Catholic Archdiocese, for tracking down the Heathfield House, St. David’s and
St. Illtyd’s records, and to Sister Mary Bernardine of the Sisters of
Providence of the Institute of Charity and Brother Damien of the De La Salle
Brothers for allowing me to work on this material. The debt I owe Dennis Morgan
will become apparent as the reader turns the pages.
Finally,
my thanks are also due to the staff of Keymaster
Locksmiths, Penylan Road, Cardiff who managed in several cases to open Log
Books which had been locked for years and to cut the keys which opened even
more.
To
one and all, sincere thanks.
Masquerading
as a senior lecturer in the Cardiff School of Education I have been privileged
to be allowed access to the Log Books and, where they still exist, the
Admissions Registers and Punishment Books of 95 City of Cardiff schools and 23
Glamorgan ones. I have also drawn on the Education Committee Minutes of both
authorities, especially Cardiff, and various other primary sources, but the
great bulk of the material presented here has been culled from the Log Books.
Since
the advent of State education in 1870 all publicly funded schools had been
required to keep a Log, normally stoutly-bound and with its own lock and key,
in which ‘The Principal Teacher must make at least
once a week an entry which will specify ordinary progress, and other facts
concerning the School or its Teachers - such as the dates of withdrawls,
commencements of duty, cautions, illness etc. - which may be require to be
referred to at a future time, or may otherwise deserve to be recorded’.[1]
The keeping of these logs varied enormously from head to head and
from school to school. So whilst some logs contained some detail others devoted
page after page, year after year (and in some cases decade after decade) to
minimalistic entries along the lines of ‘Miss So and So was absent today’ or
‘Mr. So and So resumed duties today’ and common to all was a preoccupation with
pupil attendances which, in an age when salaries and capitation were at stake,
is understandable even though it didn’t subsequently lend itself to exciting
reading. Nor did the practice of recording the title of each and every Circular
sent out by the Education Office which was another common phenomenon. Heads
have told me that it was a demand of the Authority but I have read enough Logs
to know that by no means all schools did this even though a great many did.[2]
I
have waded through literally hundreds of years of ‘Miss So and So was absent
today’ and ‘Received Circular…’ and, believe me, the experience is hardly an
edifying one; but in this wading I have also
come across much which is of interest and this book is a product of such
encounters. If, individually, many
logs were laconic and mundane, collectively
– as I hope what follows will show - they can provide a unique and fascinating
insight into schooling and the wider world.
The reader will
need to appreciate that the school system in place in Cardiff and elsewhere
during the war years was quite different to our present one. Basically there
were two types of state schools, Elementary and High. The great majority of
children only attended elementary schools, which consisted of mixed infant
departments and single sex upper schools, in which they remained until their
fourteenth birthday. A minority of pupils, having passed an
entrance
examination, went to single sex High Schools at the age of eleven where they
studied for five years for their Central Welsh Board School Certificate
Examinations and only a very few went on to the sixth form and sat Higher
Certificate Exams.[3] Thus in
January 1943 there was somewhere in the region of 125 elementary schools in the
City of Cardiff with a total of 30,070 pupils and ten High Schools with just
3,816 pupils.[4]
Within the
elementary sector there were some variations, with mixed sex junior and senior
departments in some schools for example and, in June 1939, Glamorgan County
opened a brand new non-selective Senior Mixed School, what would later become
known as a Secondary Modern, in
Whitchurch. [At this time the schools at Whitchurch together with those at
Llanederyn, Llysfaen, Radyr, St. Fagan’s and Tongwynlais did not come under the
aegis of Cardiff but as they are all now a part, or recognised as suburbs of
the City I have included material from them.]
In an attempt to
enable the reader to identify individual schools and at the same time reduce
the verbiage, I have shortened the names of some of them, used their present
day titles in other instances or even renamed them completely – this latter
course of action being inevitable when confronted by the logs of no fewer than
six schools named St. Mary’s. Thus
Roath Park is reduced to Roath, to distinguish between Llandaff Church in Wales
and Llandaff Council, Highfields, the one becomes Llandaff City and the other
Highfields, and St. Mary’s Church in Wales Mixed, Clarence Road, is
rechristened ‘Clarence Mixed’. Should this strategy cause any offence, I
apologise profusely.
Finally,
I have drawn on the work of a predecessor of mine at
UWIC, Dennis Morgan, in an attempt to provide a Cardiff perspective and
incorporated a sparse commentary about the war so as to help place events in
the City into the wider, global perspective.
Albany Road Boys’ *
Albany Road Girls’ *
Albany Road Infants’ *
Allensbank Boys’
Allensbank Girls’
Allensbank Infants’
Baden Powell Infants’
Birchgrove Infants’
Birchgrove Mixed
Canton C W Girls’ *
Canton C W Infants’ *
Cathays High for Boys
Court Road Boys’ [5]
Court Road Girls’
Court Road Infants’
Crofts Street C W Infants’ [6]
Crwys Road Infants’ *
Crwys Road Mixed *
Dulwich House Hospital School *
Eleanor Street Mixed & Infants’ [7]
Ely Infants’ [8]
Gladstone Boys’
Gladstone Girls’ [9]
Gladstone Infants’
Grangetown Boys’
Grangetown Girls’
Grangetown Continuation School
Grangetown C W Infants’ [10]
Grangetown C W Mixed
Greenhill Open Air School
Hawthorn Infants’
Hawthorn Mixed
Heathfield House RC High [11]
Herbert Thompson Boys’
Herbert Thompson Girls’
Herbert Thompson Infants’
Hywel Dda Infants’
Hywel Dda Junior Mixed
Jackson Hall Oral School for the Deaf *
Kitchener Road Mixed & Infants’ *
Lansdowne Road Boys’
Lansdowne Road Girls’ *
Lansdowne Road Infants’
Llandaff City C W Mixed
Llandaff, Highfields, Mixed & Infants’ *
Llanishen C W Mixed & Infants’ *
Maindy Infants’ *
Maindy Junior Mixed [12]
Marlborough Road Infants’
Metal
Street C W Boys’ *
Metal
Street C W Girls’ *
Metal
Street C W Infants’ *
Moorland
Road Boys’
Moorland
Road Girls’
Moorland
Road Infants’
Ninian Park Infants’
Radnor
Road Boys’ *
Radnor
Road Girls’ *
Radnor
Road Infants’ *
Roath Park Boys’
Roath Park Girls’
Roath Park Infants’
St. Alban’s RC Infants’
St. Alban’s RC Mixed
St. Cuthbert’s RC Mixed & Infants’
St. David’s RC Infants’ *
St. Francis’ RC Infants’
St. Francis’ RC Mixed
St. Joseph’s RC Infants’
St. Mary’s C W Junior Mixed, Bute Terrace *
St. Mary’s C W Senior Mixed, Bute Terrace *
St. Mary’s C W Infants’, Clarence Road *
St. Mary’s C W Mixed, Clarence Road *
St. Mary’s RC Infants’, Canton
St. Mary’s RC Juniors’, Canton
St. Monica’s C W Infants’
St. Monica’s C W Mixed
St. Patrick’s RC Infants’ *
St. Patrick’s RC Mixed *
St. Peter’s RC Girls’
Severn Road Manual Centre *
Severn Road Girls’
Stacey Road Boys’ *
Stacey Road Infants’ *
Tredegarville C W Boys’
Viriamu Jones Boys’ *
Wartime Nurseries [13]
Windsor-Clive Boys’ *
Llanederyn C W Mixed & Infants’ *
Llysfaen Mixed & Infants’
Radyr
Mixed & Infants’
St. Fagan’s C W Mixed & Infants’ *
Tongwynlais Junior Mixed & Infants’ *
Whitchurch Boys’ *
Whitchurch Girls’ *
Whitchurch Senior Mixed *
Aberdare Town Girls’ & Junior Mixed, Cynon Valley *
Abernant Mixed & Infants’, Cynon Valley *
Aman Infants’, Cynon Valley *
Blaenycwm
Mixed, Rhondda *
Cwmbach Junior Mixed, Cynon Valley *
Pentre Girls’, Rhondda *
Pentre Mixed, Rhondda *
Ynyslwyd Central Mixed, Cynon Valley *
Cardiff High for Boys *
Cardiff High for Girls *
Ely Mixed
Grangetown Infants’
St. Illtyd’s College [15]
[* Denotes material held at the Glamorgan Record Office]
Common abbreviations used in the
footnotes:
CCL Cardiff
County Library
1938
In March, Adolf Hitler’s troops take
control of Austria against the wishes of the Austrian Government and the terms
of the Treaty of Versailles. In the late summer Hitler demands the Sudetenland
in Czechoslovakia…[16]
1st September
At Hawthorn Infants’ two seven year old
boys are not promoted to the Mixed School. One has `retarded mental development
due to severe operations and mastoid absesses’ and the other `slow mental
development and a weak constitution’. At Lansdowne Boys’ sixteen pupils are not
promoted. One is described as ‘defective’, two as ‘mentally retarded’ and six
as ‘backward’.
5th September
The Head of Birchgrove Mixed `Admitted
Lionel Clarke, a very delicate boy suffering with heart trouble. He always has
blue lips and, when cold, very blue. He is brought to school in a chair. He is
eight and a half years old and has never been to school before. It is the worst
heart case I have ever experienced’.
6th September
At Severn Road the Headmistress records
`Educational films will be shown Tuesday afternoon 1st week,
Wednesday 2nd week, Thursday 3rd week every month, to
girls half session and to boys the other half, beginning today, to the great
delight and benefit of the scholars’.
15th September
`Miss Thornley MA, gave a Temperance
Lecture to Forms 3 & 4…Prizes for the best essays in each form will be
given and Certificates for the next best six in order of merit’ records the
Head of Birchgrove Mixed.
22nd September
Thomas Adler, from Czechoslovakia, is
admitted to Roath Boys’.[17]
At St. Patrick’s Mixed `Four children
(two boys & two girls) visited HMS
Viscount and were entertained to tea
by the ship’s company’. Four girls from Grangetown also take part in the visit
as well as three boys and three girls from Eleanor Street.
26th September
Mr. Moses Samuel, a teacher at Herbert
Thompson Boys’, ‘is absent with leave – Jewish Holiday’.
28th September
Cardiff’s Head Teachers are
summoned by the Director of Education to attend a meeting at 12 noon about Air
Raid Precautions at the Technical College, Cathays Park. The Head of
Viriamu Jones Boys’ records `Result – All Headteachers have to devize their own
schemes of getting the children to their homes after air-raid warnings. A staff
meeting will be held this afternoon to discuss ways and means’.
At Tredegarville they hold their first
air raid practice in the afternoon.
29th September
The Head of Stacey Boys’
notes a Circular about ‘Air Raid Precautions’. Pupils are to be ‘grouped for
dispersal‘ if the alert is sounded and so schools should practice ‘falling in
the proper groups’. The Headmistress of Radnor Girls’ elaborates: `girls are to
be in the playground in `Street Groups’ in one and a half minutes. Arrangement
made with mothers of girls in Fairwater to be housed with friends nearby in an
emergency’.
At Birchgrove `The scholars of the
Upper School were made Wardens of the Lower School, each being responsible in
most cases for one pupil. Those who lived near each other were paired. At ten
to twelve the main bell was pulled four times and the school evacuated in one
and a quarter minutes. Only two Wardens failed to do duty. The practice was
carried out in case War was declared and Air Raids started. I consider the
experiment a very successful one. The eighty-four pupils outside the ten
minutes limit were paired with smaller children outside the same limit’.[18]
Moorland Girls’ holds its first
evacuation drill as they do at Herbert Thompson where ‘It was successfully
carried out and all the children were clear of the school premises in under one
and a half minutes’.[19]
Infant schools are closed so that gas masks can be distributed to all local people. At Birchgrove, Roath and St. Patrick’s this takes two days, at Albany, Allensbank, Court Road, Maindy, Radnor and Stacey it takes three and at Baden Powell, Clarence Road, Hywel Dda, Lansdowne and Splott it takes four.
In an attempt to resolve the situation an
International Conference is held in Munich in Germany at the end of September.
Despite the strong opposition of the Czech Government, Britain and France agree
to Hitler’s demands for the Sudetenland in return for a promise of peace. Prime
Minister Chamberlain returns and tells the British people he has secured `Peace
for Our Time’.[20]
In Cardiff, the Lord Mayor orders that the flags of all the nations which took part at Munich should be flown from the City Hall so, briefly, the Swastika flies over the city. A huge outcry eventually sees it being lowered.[21]
30th September
The Head of Roath Girls’
admits that the timetable has been disrupted this week by ARP practices.
Miss Margaret Morrish, a
teacher at Court Girls’ ‘terminated her duties, in view of her approaching
marriage’.
4th October
The Head of Stacey Infants’ reports
`School re-opened after being closed for air raid precautions, only 100 out of
204 children present’. At Maindy Infants’ only fifty-six children turn up and
at the Infants’ in Lansdowne Road 134 children out of 237 attend. At Llanishen,
however, `The infants room is still occupied by ARP’.
The Head of St. Paul’s sends the
following to all parents:
‘Dear Sir / Madam,
Air Raid Precautions
Whilst the immediate danger of War has
been averted, the events of the past week make it essential for the general
public to be ready at short notice to meet any emergency.
I send herewith a copy of the plans
which were made last week for the evacuation of the children from this school
in the event of Air Raids.
If, in the future, war appears
imminent, whilst details of the plan may be modified, the general principles
will remain the same.
Thanking you for your co-operation,
Yours faithfully,
F.H. Parkin,
Headmaster’.
[Enclosed is a detailed scheme whereby
the children of both Mixed and Infants’ are divided into six groups, each to
assemble at a specified place and be escorted to different ‘dispersal points’
such as St. Paul’s Church, the Parish Hall and the corner of Ferry Road.]
‘Important
1. Parents are
urgently requested to refrain from rushing to the School. Children should be
met at the dismissal points given above.
2. Impress upon
your child the route to be taken from the point of dismissal to the home. In
this way children will be sure of meeting their parents.
3. See that your
child brings his/her gas mask to school at every session.
4. Impress upon
your child:-
(a) The necessity
for taking great care of the gas-mask.
(b) The need for
control and order in carrying out the plan of evacuation.
5. In the event
of an air raid occuring on the way to, or when leaving school the child should
be instructed to run home with all speed.
6. In the process
of evacuation, coats, hats, or any personal belongings must remain in the
school’.
10th October
At Herbert Thompson Boys’ ‘It was reported to me this morning that William Cunningham, of 63 Red House Road, was yesterday admitted to the Sanitorium suffering from infantile paralysis…His brothers are excluded from school pending instructions from the Medical Officer of Health’.
14th October
Moorland Girls’ is closed in the afternoon for an `Attendance Holiday’. [Since 1907 half-day holidays for good attendance have been awarded to Cardiff’s schools. To qualify Boys’ and Girls’ or Mixed schools have to have a monthly attendance averaging 95% or over whilst Infant schools have to make 90% or over.[22]]
18th October
The Headmistress of St. Peter’s is `Notified of two cases of poliomyelitis in the school’.
28th October
At Hawthorn Infants’ `Jean Gardner, a pupil in Class 2, died today from Tubercular Meningitis’.
2nd November
Cardiff’s schools receive a Circular about Air Raid Precautions. The Head of Viriamu Jones sets out its contents in some detail:
`Extract from Joint Advisory Committee
proceedings - `Services of Schools Staffs – In the opinion of this Committee,
the first duty of the teachers is to be with the children, and that any offer
of voluntary service should be available only when the children are in safety.
Service is voluntary on all staffs, but it is suggested that the voluntary
service offered by staffs should be based on each and every school as a unit of
the Air Raid Precautions organisation...’
`In connection with the above, the Chief Constable has been given permission to approach members of the teaching staffs under the Authority with a view to securing their enrolment as volunteers in the various schemes of ARP work’.
3rd November
Stacey Boys’ notes a
Circular about ‘The Use and Care of Gas Masks’.
4th November
Another Circular concerns the
`Admittance of Infants under four years of age’. No child under four is to be
admitted without permission from the Director of Education.[23]
7th November
`Representatives of the Chief Constable
interviewed teachers regarding ARP classes’ records the Head of Radnor Girls’.
The next day a policeman does the same at St. David’s Infants’.
10th November
The Junior pupils at Howell’s hold a
`Peace Party’ and `six Basque girls came’.[24]
11th November
Armistice Day. At Grangetown Girls’
`School was assembled in the corridor for the Two Minutes Silence. The children
heard the Broadcast Cerermony and took part in the singing’. In his address to
the children of Hywel Dda Mixed, the Headteacher stresses the need for Peace
‘together with the League of Nations’.
15th November
Two police officers visit St. Paul’s.
‘With the exception of Mr. R.B. Wright and Mr. W.L. Jenkins who had previously
taken a course of ARP and Miss C. Benwell who is at present taking a ‘First
Aid’ course all members of the staff including myself have agreed to take the
prescribed course for teachers in schools’.
16th November
Miss Brogden visits Whitchurch Girls’
‘and saw three classes being drilled. She suggested that they should perform
their exercises with lightness, attention to posture and wear rubber shoes
always when in the yard – teachers included’.
22nd November
News is received at Hywel Dda Mixed
that John Scandrett, a pupil in Standard 1a, has died of diptheria.[25]
28th November
Temperatures are low at Ninian Infants’
because there’s no coal. In the afternoon `the time table was suspended for a
time and the children allowed to exercise vigorously in the Hall’.
7th December
Mr. Dan Jones gives his third talk of
the term at Birchgrove Mixed. Having lectured on `The Extent of the Universe’
and `The Planets’ he now turns his attention to `Reasons to prove the Earth is
round’.
20th December
‘Miss Hattingh left today
as she is sailing for South Africa on the 22nd for a year’s
exchange’ records the Head of Roath Infants’.
At Allensbank
Infants’ `Owing to the intensely cold weather, and the inadequate method of
heating the school, the attendance has dropped to 51%. A strong letter of
complaint, giving temperatures in various rooms, was sent to the Director’.
21st December
‘Glenys Hughes went to the Infirmary to
present the School Purse containing £2. 7. 0. to the Lady Mayoress’ records the
Head of Hawthorn Mixed. The pupils of Hywel Dda Mixed donate £2. 2. 6. [Opened
in 1883, since 1903 schools have been encouraged to raise money for what
became, in 1923, Cardiff Royal Infirmary.[26]]
22nd December
At St. Joseph’s Infants’ the Christmas
party has been postponed until after the holidays because so many of the pupils
are away ill. Those children who were in school, however, ‘enjoyed the
‘breaking up’ day with a concert, sweets and a crib provided by the staff’. The
children of St. Paul’s Mixed are ‘presented with a bag of fruit and sweets’,
those at Tongwynlais with `oranges and sweets’.
1939
9th January
Two evacuees, one from
Skegness and the other from Surrey are admitted to Roath Boys’.[27]
The Headmistress of Lansdowne
Infants’ records that ‘Attendance is fair. Two cases of diptheria and one of
scarlet fever reported’. At Court Infants’ the Head
reports on an epidemic of whooping cough.
At Tongwynlais,
where there had been 130 children in September 1938, the number on the books is
now 119 and the Head explains that `Owing to the demolition of several cottages
in this area as a result of a slum clearance order a few families were removed
to Whitchurch where Council Houses were erected for them. We have lost at least
twenty children in this way during the last two years’.
13th January
`Owing to an outbreak of Measles, the
average attendance for this week has fallen to 59.25%. This information has
been sent to the Director of Education and the Medical Officer of Health’
records the Head of Hawthorn Infants’. [The Head is hoping that the School
Medical Officer will issue an `exemption certificate’ which will enable this
particular week’s attendance to be discounted when the annual attendance
calculations are made for capitation purposes.]
20th January
The Headmistress of Ninian Infants’
receives a letter from the Director asking for the details of an accident to
Shirley Gage. Some six weeks before, Shirley had pulled a bench over on her
hand and cut it badly and now `the parents had written to him making a claim
for Doctor’s expenses’.[28]
25th. January
At Roath Boys’ ‘Having drawn the
attention of the Schools’ Medical Officer to the fact that the two cases of
diptheria were of boys in the same class, a Medical Officer called here this
afternoon to discuss the matter’.
Because it is snowing heavily only 54%
of the children at St. Mary’s Infants’ in Canton turn up for school in the
morning. At Ninian Infants’ attendance is 58%, at Hywel Dda Infants’ it is 68%.
St. Joseph’s Infants’ receives a copy
of their Inspection Report from HMI. Inspected last November ‘The number on
books is ninety-seven. Thirty-three are under five, and some of these are
between three and four. The number in the latter group increases considerably during
the school year, and during the summer term of this year a separate class of
three year old pupils was formed…’
27th January
The percussion band from Maindy Mixed
`this afternoon gave a demonstration before the students of the School Music
Refresher Course at the University College’.
31st January
`Miss L. Schmutz resigns today after forty years service in this school’ records the Head of Splott Infants’.
3rd February
At St. Alban’s Mixed the ‘Head Teacher is attending a course in Air Raid Precautions on Mondays and Wednesday evenings at the Law Courts’.
7th February
Two classes from Radnor Girls’ visit
the Temple of Peace in Cathays Park and the Head notes `These girls were the
first group of Cardiff Schoolgirls to visit and used the arranged service for
which they had learnt three special hymns which we hope to use at Assembly
occasionally. A most instructive and impressive visit’.
13th February
A visit to the Western Mail by a class from Radnor Girls’ `is postponed owing to
the political Irish situation’.
14th February
Hawthorn Infants’ receives ‘a letter
from the Director concerning the Exhibition of International Children’s Art at
the Howard Gardens School’.
21st February
The Head of Tredegarville Boys’, where
there are 134 pupils, sends in a ‘Requisition for 105 pairs of ‘Gym’ Shoes for
Necessitous Scholars’.[29]
Three girls from Radyr leave ‘for the
Winter Residential School at Rhoose this afternoon’. So too do two girls from
Tongwynlais.
3rd March
At Lansdowne Infants’ ‘Attendance has
been continually low since the middle of January. Lack of heating in school
during January and February caused a high percentage of influenza and colds.
Two cases of pneumonia reported… About forty children are suffering from
measles’.
6th March
A party of twenty boys from Hawthorn
Mixed visit ‘the Dowlais Works of Messrs Guest, Keen and Nettlefords Ltd’. Two
days later a group of ten girls ‘visited the Laundry in Llandaff North’.
16th March
Despite his promises at Munich, Hitler
orders the German Army to seize the whole of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France
do nothing other than complain and Hitler now sets his sights on Poland…[30]
27th March
Cardiff’s schools receive a Circular
regarding teachers who are members of the Territorial Forces. They are to be
granted a fortnight’s leave, with pay, in addition to the normal Easter holiday
so as to enable them to train.[31]
4th April
Cardiff Education’s Secondary Schools Committee recommends `that arrangements be made for Moritz Wagschal and Siegfried Wagschal, Jewish refugee children, to be admitted to Canton High School for Boys…and that …in view of the special circumstances of these cases, the Committee decided to excuse payment of the school fees’.[32]
7th April
Eight pupils accompanied by two of the
Sisters from Heathfield House set off ‘on the Schoolgirls’ Pilgrimage to
Lourdes’.
17th April
The Head of Radnor Infants’ records `Muriel Richards aged eight was admitted today. She is a refugee from Prague’.
19th April
The inaugural meeting of Cardiff Rural District Council’s Government Evacuation Scheme Committee is held at Park House, 20 Park Place, Cardiff. Chaired by Mr. F.C. Hale, Chairman of the Council, the Committee hears that, across Britain, `the survey which has been carried out shows that there has been a remarkable response from the householders of the country to the appeals for voluntary assistance in the reception of those to be evacuated from the crowded areas of the large cities’.
The Committee considers and adopts a
report submitted by Mr. A.J. Colley, its Chief Survey Officer, in which he
states `that the total number of persons for whom accommodation could be
provided at private residences is 9,684, and for the Special Schemes 2,616…I
propose at this stage, in view of the fact that no decision has been reached
regarding the erection of dormitories at the various Golf Clubs in our area,
and pending acceptance of the proposals for fitting up various special
buildings for accommodating school-children and others, to deal with the
allocation of the 6,000…by disregarding the number of persons which it is
estimated could be accommodated by the adoption of the Special Schemes, except
that of the Rhoose Social Camp, which, of course, could be brought into use
immediately an emergency arises.
By excluding the Special Scheme
figures, and those of relatives, you get a total of 6,690, which includes 3,153
in respect of Whitchurch, a district for which representations have been
made…to classify as a Neutral Zone…
The actual allocation of the number of persons to each parish is not an easy matter…as the facilities for continuing the education of the children who are evacuated to our area has to be taken into account…It is believed that difficulties may be overcome by adopting the dual use of certain schools, under which the accommodation would be used by the local scholars and teachers in the mornings and by the Birmingham scholars and teachers in the afternoons…’[33]
2nd May
The Head of St. Alban’s Infants’
records `Head Teacher and Staff completed the full Anti-Gas Course for all ARP
Services’.
9th May
The School Dentist examines the teeth
of 209 children at St. David’s Infants’.
16th May
Gladstone Boys’ admits twelve year old
Fritz Wittman, a refugee from Austria.[34]
During the afternoon Mr. Lines, an
Eleanor Street teacher, canes ‘two girls in Standard 4…for continued
disobedience’. As one ‘continued to sulk, she was put with Standard 1 for a
time. At playtime she ran home and, as a result [her parents] came on to the
school premises, used obscene language and had to be restrained from attacking
Mr. Lines. Eventually Mr. Lines was struck in the face by [the mother] who,
with her husband, then departed with threats of future attacks’.
17th May
The girls of Howell’s hold an `ARP
practice’.[35]
19th May
At St. Patrick’s Mixed the `seniors
visit the French Flotilla of Destroyers’ at Cardiff docks.
Birmingham’s Chief Education Officer
writes to the Director of Education for Glamorgan confirming that, in the event
of war, `it is proposed to evacuate the Mentally Defective Children – numbering
about 800 – to the camps at Ogmore, Rhoose and Gileston, and…it is not intended
to send any other persons to your County in the event of evacuation’.[36]
22nd May
100 pupils from Maindy Mixed `visited
the Plaza Cinema at the invitation of
the Empire Tea Expansion Bureau to view the film `Life in India and Ceylon’’. 200 pupils from Birchgrove Mixed also
attend `on the instruction of the Director of Education’.
Miss Winifred Hunt, a Hawthorn Infants’
teacher, is `granted leave of absence to visit Nursery Schools in France
(visits arranged by the Nursery Schools Association)’.
24th May
Across the city schools celebrate Empire Day. At Viriamu
Jones the Head records the items in the service: `both National Anthems, the
singing of the Flag of Britain, an address on the duties and responsibilities
of British Citizenship, and the recitation of Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional
Hymn `Lest We Forget’. Schools
dismiss at 10.30 and the registers are not marked’. [The
Empire Day ceremony has remained exactly the same since it was first introduced
in 1909.[37]]
26th May
`Castell Coch Infant
Department closed today and all furniture and apparatus were transferred to
this school for amalgamation with this department’ records the Head of Tongwynlais.
5th June
Glamorgan’s Education Committee formally opens its new non-selective Senior Mixed School at Whitchurch. 419 pupils will start attending tomorrow.
6th June
‘To-day a number of children over eleven, accompanied by two teachers, made an all day educational excursion to a rehearsal of the Aldershot Tattoo’ records the Head of Eleanor Street.
8th June
As a result of a Nutrition Survey at St. Fagan’s `three more pupils were added to the `Free Milk’ Scheme’.
16th June
Cardiff’s Catholic Elementary schools close `as the children are taken to Barry Island for their annual treat’.[38]
19th June
At Baden Powell the Head notes a
Circular regarding the ‘Provision of Meals. Names of children suffering from
malnutrition to be submitted for medical examination’. [‘Necessitous Meals’ had
been introduced in Cardiff in 1908.[39]]
21st June
HMI inspect St. Mary’s Junior Mixed in
Bute Terrace and begin their report by stating that `Due chiefly to slum
clearance schemes in the neighbourhood, the number in attendance has decreased
from about 240 to 150 during the last three years…Judging from the appearance
and physical condition of many pupils who attend the school, there is wide
scope here for early training in sound habits of cleanliness and hygiene…’
Highfields receives a `Circular regarding Air Raid Precautions in schools and a request for numbers requiring the provision of shelters’. At Gladstone Girls’ a staff meeting is held at 4.20 ‘to discuss ARP arrangements’. Another Circular entitled ‘Enlistment for Voluntary National Services’ is noted at Lansdowne Boys’.
Because `Rain fell heavily from 2 to 2.30 pm, many of the boys due to go to the Manual Centre were kept back – these were without overcoats, and were badly shod’ records the Head of Court Boys.
26th June
Mr. Fenton, a Birchgrove Mixed teacher,
is excluded from school because there is a case of scarlet fever in his house.
At Ely Mixed a boy discovered ‘sending
dirty notes to a girl’ is caned: ‘one on each hand and a few on the buttocks’.[40]
27th June
As a result of a Nutrition Survey at
Tongwynlais `thirteen new cases were put on milk’.
28th June
All City of Cardiff schools are closed
for the Annual School Sports at Sophia Gardens.[41]
3rd July
Mr. William Beynon, a teacher at
Grangetown Boys’, is `absent for two weeks training in the Auxiliary Air
Force’.
All Glamorgan schools have a day off to
celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the County Council.[42]
7th July
At Moorland Road `Forty three girls in
charge of three teachers left for a fortnight’s camp at Brockweir’. 120 boys
from Herbert Thompson spend the day in London. ‘They visited the House of
Commons, Westminster Abbey, the Tower, travelled by Underground, walked from
Trafalgar Square to Westminster through Whitehall and had a motor-coach tour to
other places of interest’.
10th July
Miss Rogan, a teacher at Severn Girls’,
is absent with leave `at the presentation of ARP medals’.
12th July
Mr. Dan Jones gives another lecture at
Birchgrove Mixed - `A Trip to Mars’.
17th July
At Baden Powell a Circular arrives
‘giving particulars of arrangements for feeding Necessitous School Children
during the summer holidays’. As a result ‘twenty-two Dinner tickets marked with
date, name and school and twenty-two Milk tickets are to be given to each child
on the meals register’.
19th July
The Head of Whitchurch Mixed notes
`Twenty-nine boys proceeded on the 2.10 pm train to the School Camp at Ogmore.
Nineteen girls went on the same train to the camp at Rhoose'. The next day he
sends home `a thirteen year old girl as her head was verminous’.
20th July
Miss Hilda Ahrens, a South African
teacher on exchange at Gladstone Girls’, has the day off as she ‘has been
granted permission to attend the Garden Party given by Their Majesties at
Buckingham Palace’.
24th July
At Metal Street Infants’ the Head of
the Boys’ School `came down and caned Colin O____, aged six, for using bad
language, screaming and kicking’.
25th July
At St. Mary’s Infants’ in Canton
‘Individual Reports are made out for the three upper classes as the parents
like to know the progress of their small folk’.
28th July
At a meeting of Cardiff Education’s Secondary Schools Sub-Committee `The Director reported the receipt of a communication from the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, regretting that they cannot undertake to be responsible for payment of the school fees in respect of Jewish refugee children.
The Sub-Committee gave further consideration to this
question and recommend that, before a decision be made with regard to the
admission of these refugee children to the High Schools, their guardians be
asked to give an undertaking to be responsible for payment of the full school
fees and to provide the necessary text books, etc.’[43]
19th August
Cardiff is chosen as one of
six British cities to be ‘attacked’ by the French Air Force in an exercise
designed to test both the RAF and the Civil Defence Forces.[44]
23rd August
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee is told `that supplies of canned meat and canned milk have been forwarded to all detraining stations…’ The Council `is still awaiting the decision of the Minister…as to whether Whitchurch may be excluded from the receiving area, in view of the fact that the parish is contiguous to and generally indistinguishable from the City of Cardiff, which is understood to be a neutral zone…’
29th August
Following the usual month
long summer holiday, Cardiff’s schools re-open.
Appended to the Log of Viriamu Jones is Circular 39:
`Air Raid Precautions.
I wish to inform you of the details of the scheme of Air Raid Precautions to be carried out by all the schools of the City in the event of War…
Closure of Schools
In the event of hostilities breaking out all day schools shall be closed for a period of not more than two weeks with the exception of Infant and Special Schools which shall remain closed indefinitely.
Air Raid Warning
Children living within a distance from their schools which can be traversed in five minutes will be evacuated to their homes immediately upon warning of hostile air raids.
Method of Evacuation
The dispersal of children to their homes, etc., during a hostile attack will be a problem to be solved by the staff of each school, the work to be shared by the staff and senior pupils.
Structural Precautions in Schools
Adequate protective measures will be required for those children who cannot be evacuated to their homes, and where this is impossible, consideration will be given to the closing of the school.
Services of School Staffs
The first duty of the teachers is to be with the children, and that any offer of voluntary service (eg., Air Raid Wardens, etc.), should be available only when the children are in safety.
It is suggested that the male teaching staffs should undertake a course of training in Air Raid Precautions and that the female teaching staffs should be prepared to enrol as members of the St. John’s Ambulance and British Red Cross Societies. It is not suggested that teachers should endeavour to train themselves in the technical methods of protection, etc., but should acquire some elementary knowledge of first aid treatment of wounds and gas cases in order to give immediate first-aid to any casualties among school children’.
Gas Mask Training for Children
The Committee decided that gas mask training for children should be undertaken by the school staffs.
Periodic Drills in Dispersal
The Committee decided that each school should arrange a system of dispersal and that, periodically, drills in dispersal should be rehearsed.
Training in First-Aid for Children
The Committee recommend that training in first-aid should be incorporated in the hygiene lessons and emphasised.
Shelters
Steps have been taken to provide shelters in all schools where children are retained on the premises during raids and for the fitting of dark blinds to all windows.
In connection with First Aid Posts etc., I wish to inform you that the Infants’ schools mentioned below have been allocated for these purposes as follows:-
First-Aid Party & Ambulance Depots
Windsor-Clive School
Maindy Infants’ School.
Lansdowne Road School.
Grangetown Council School.
Clarence Road School.
Oral School for the Deaf, Howard Gardens.
Adamsdown Council School.
Moorland Road Council School.
Reserve First-Aid Posts
Marlborough Road Infants’ School.
St. John’s National Infants’ School.
Eleanor Street Infants’ School.
St. Mary’s Mission, North Church
Street.
Telephones will be installed in the
above schools.
It should be noted that the whole of
Crwys Road School and Maindy Senior School will be used entirely for military
purposes and that in consequence, arrangements will be made for the transfer of
all the senior children affected to neighbouring schools.
Teachers in Infant and Special
Schools
Teachers in Infant and Special Schools
not called out in connection with the various forms of National Service will be
transferred to other schools to fill vacancies caused by the calling up of
members of the staffs of those schools…
Yours faithfully,
W.J. Williams,
Director of Education’.
At Viriamu Jones where there is a staff
of ten, seven, including the Headmaster, have completed ARP courses, another is
a Special Constable and Mr. C.W. Hunt `is absent, being an Officer in the
Territorial Force’. Mr. T. Spear of St. Patrick’s
Mixed is away for the same reason as is Mr. David Henry of Court Boys’,
Mr. Beynon of Grangetown Boys’, Mr. D.J. Thomas of Herbert Thompson Boys’ and
no fewer than five teachers from Howard Gardens Boys’.[45]
`Fifty-seven girls were admitted from
Severn Infants’ four days early because of congestion in the Infants’ due to Nursery
School building’ records the Head of the Girls’ School there.
30th August
At St. Monica’s Mixed ‘The children
were ordered to bring their Gas Masks this afternoon. They were first given
instruction in fitting them on quickly and then had three trials at the quick
evacuation of the school. The results were entirely satisfactory. Another trial
may be held on Friday for the benefit of the new Standard 1 pupils’. Gas Drills
are also held at the Boys’ School in Metal Street and at Tredegarville.
Miss Hilda Ahrens, the South African
teacher on exchange at Gladstone Girls’, is reported to be ‘ill in Germany’.[46]
1st September
At St. Paul’s Mixed ‘Recent events in
Europe indicate the possibility of this country being at War with Germany very
shortly. The Germans have invaded Poland whom we have promised to support in
the event of aggression…I instructed the Staff to be present on Monday morning
even if war broke out during the weekend’.
The German invasion of
Poland had begun at dawn. In Britain the Blackout begins as the British
Government sends Hitler an ultimatum: Withdraw from Poland or we will declare
war.[47]
At Crwys Road the schools are `closed
until further notice – owing to being requisitioned by the Military
Authorities’.[48] The Head of
Crwys Mixed records `Summoned to Director’s Office at 11 am. Received
instructions to vacate the school at once and to make myself personally
responsible for all official stock, eg Log Books etc’.
Maindy Infants’ ‘closed at mid-day for
an indefinite period – school required for first aid purposes’. The Head of
Maindy Mixed records `On instructions received from the Director of Education,
this school is closed for an indefinite period, being occupied by the Military
Authority at 12 noon’.
Five girls are not promoted to a higher
class at St. Peter’s, four of whom are described as `constantly absent and
dull’. At Court Boys’ five pupils are held back, three of whom are `below
normal’.
Lansdowne Infants’ admits seven year
old Peter Flook, an evacuee from London who is ‘unable to read at all
fluently’.
The Mixed and Infants’ schools at St.
Cuthbert’s are amalgamated.
3rd September
Sunday. War with Germany is declared
and all schools are to be closed as the Government is worried that massive
bombing will begin immediately.[49]
4th September
Whilst the schools are
closed the Head of Canton Girls’ explains that `Necessitous children have been
issued with a week’s supply of meal tickets. Necessitous milk is to be issued
each morning by the caretaker’.
At Tredegarville ‘The Log Book and
Class Registers were placed in the safe in St. James’ Church for safety’.
Marlborough Infants’ is
taken over as a Reserve First Aid Post but it’s not used as no bombers arrive.
At a conference of Head
Teachers held at the Technical College the Director of Education informs the
Heads of the Upper schools that when they re-open on the 11th
‘Scholars were not to attend Baths, Manual Centres or Domestic Subject Centres
unless they could reach their homes in five minutes in the event of an air raid
warning’.[50]
The Director informs a meeting of Cardiff Education’s `War Emergency Sub-Committee’ that as well as the Crwys Road and Maindy Schools the Military Authorities have comandeered from the Contractors `the Lady Margaret High School, now in course of erection’.
‘The Committee recommend that dark blinds be supplied to all schools in session as it is necessary frequently to use artificial light during school meetings at certain periods of the year’.
‘The Committee agreed to the recommendation of the Director that, in the first instance, permission be granted to 20% of the establishment of teaching staffs who may wish to volunteer for enlistment in HM Forces, this ratio to apply also to the Administrative Staff for the present’.[51]
6th September
‘The Head Teachers of the
schools in St. John’s Parish met Canon J.A. Lewis at Tredegarville to consider
the arrangements to be made to accommodate the scholars of St. John’s Boys’ and
Girls’ Schools at the Tredegarville Schools. It was decided that the three schools
be amalgamated and re-organised to form Senior and Junior Departments, Mr. W.
Thomas [Head of Tredegarville Boys’] to be the Head Organiser, Miss Gwen Evans
to have charge of the Senior Department and Mr. George Hughes to have charge of
the Junior Department. Tredegarville Infants’ were to be accommodated in the
Roath Road Wesleyan Schoolroom, and St. John’s Infants’ in Charles Street
Congregational Schoolroom’.[52]
9th September
At a meeting of Cardiff Education’s Joint Advisory Committee `It was decided that head teachers be requested to advise the parents of children living more than five minutes distance from school that until shelters are provided they should either-
(1) transfer their children to schools nearer their homes; or
(2) arrange for their children to be dispersed to the homes of friends living near the school’.
‘It was further decided that in the case of infant children, who may return to school on Monday, 18th September, arrangements similar to those above be made pending the provision of air raid shelters, etc., except that the time distance from home for dispersal purposes shall be reduced from five minutes to four minutes’.
‘The Committee decided that in view of prevailing circumstances it would be advisable to refuse for the time being the admission to school of children under five years of age’.[53]
10th September
The first major units of British troops arrive in France.[54]
11th September
`Mr. C.J. Lawrence, the teacher in
charge of Standard 3, is on Active Service’ records the Head of Whitchurch
Boys’. At Grangetown Boys’ Mr. Stephen Wickham `has volunteered for full time
military service and been accepted’. Similarly, Mr. Colin Harvey, a Court Boys’
teacher `has joined the RAF and has left for military service’.
Cardiff’s Upper Schools
re-open. The children of Crwys Road Mixed fit in to the classes of the Girls’
and Boys’ Schools at Albany where `all the boys paraded with their gas masks’.[55]
Among the eight pupils not promoted to a higher class in Marlborough Girls’ is ‘Roselle Stern – German Refugee’.
The pupils and teachers of Maindy Mixed
meet at the school `for the purpose of posting scholars to other schools in the
District as follows:-
44 to Allensbank Boys’
40 to Allensbank Girls’
23 to Viriamu Jones Boys’
21 to Viriamu Jones Girls’
5 to St. Monica’s and Gladstone Schools
133 Total
All unused stock has been divided
between the schools concerned and placed in charge of the teachers who were
transferred with the children’. Two go to Allensbank Boys’, three to the Girls’
School there and one each to Viriamu Jones Boys’ and Girls’.
`Miss Norah Ready commenced duties as a
Temporary Supply Teacher in place of Mr. T. Spear, who is serving with the 77th
Welsh Anti-Aircraft Regiment’ records the Head of St. Patrick’s Mixed.
At St. Mary’s Infants’ & Junior Mixed `Miss K.L. Williams is granted leave of absence with salary, upon joining the Royal Air Force’. Next door at the Seniors they admit Donald Medlock, an evacuee from Middlesex.[56]
Four children who have been privately
evacuated are admitted at St. Fagan’s. Tongwynlais admits ten evacuees.
At St. Peter’s `Mr. Thomas, City
Engineer, came to arrange for air raid shelters to be erected in the
playground’.[57]
The Head of Gladstone Boys’ ‘Admitted a number of children from London. [His Admissions Register records the names of seventeen evacuees, including three sets of brothers] Several children were transferred to schools nearer their home’. The next day he reports that the usual timetable has been interfered with by rehearsals to evacuate the building in case of bombing.
The Art Room in Whitchurch Mixed is
being used to store Glamorgan County Hall records.
At Heathfield House ‘the Hall has been
made a temporary refuge room in case of a raid. It has been made gas-proof and
all glass has been covered’.
News arrives at Severn Road Girls’ that fifteen pupils have passed the examination for the High Schools although `two girls did not accept scholarship places’. [Such refusals are not uncommon as the cost of books and other equipment makes secondary education prohibitive for many families.[58]]
12th September
`The children seem to be settling down
very well in the new atmosphere. They are being taught how to fix the gas masks
without any excitement’ records the Head of Whitchurch Boys’. Arrangements are
made for two instructors from the Handicraft Centre at Ninian Park School to
attend Grangetown Boys’ on three mornings and an afternoon.
At a meeting of Cardiff’s Education Committee `The City Engineer reported on the question of providing air raid shelters in schools, or where these were not practicable other means of protection such as re-inforcing classrooms. A scheme had been drawn up on the principle that protective accommodation should be only provided for those children who could not reach their homes from school within five minutes. It was estimated that the cost would be approximately £70,000.
On a motion of Alderman Sir H. Miles, seconded by Alderman Pethybridge, it was resolved:- That the City Engineer be instructed to provide air raid shelters or other means of protection…and that approval to the expenditure on this scheme be limited to a sum not to exceed £30,000 for the present.’
The Director reports on fifteen teachers who, being in the Territorial Army, have been called up. No fewer than six had been teaching at Howard Gardens High School for Boys. A further twelve teachers `had been granted permission to enlist in H.M. Forces’. Among these are the four teachers from Herbert Thompson Boys’ and Misses Kathleen Williams, St. Mary’s, Bute Terrace, and Edith Jones, Baden Powell Infants’.[59]
13th September
Mr. Harold Pepperell, a
teacher in Herbert
Thompson Boys’, ‘was today called up for service with the 20th Anti
Aircraft Regiment of the Royal Artillery’.
14th September
A Circular is sent out to all Cardiff
schools: `Civil Pay to Employees during Service with Military Authorities or
Auxiliary Services – Teachers granted leave, paid their full salary less the
sum received by them in virtue of service’.[60]
Miss Myerson, a Marlborough
Girls’ teacher, is granted two days’ leave of absence for ‘the Jewish
Festival’.
16th September
At another meeting of Cardiff
Education’s Joint Advisory Committee `It is suggested that the Head Teachers of
girls’ and mixed schools be asked to undertake the making of cases for gas
masks for the whole of the scholars in their schools, as part of the needlework
instruction’.
‘A letter was received from the Cardiff Association of the NUT enclosing the following resolution passed by that body at a special emergency meeting held on the 15th September, viz.:-
`The Cardiff Teachers’ Association notes with dismay the inconsistency shewn between the various measures taken to protect the schoolchildren and staffs of the City, and those taken to protect the remainder of the civilian population.
The Association urges that – as a first step – all infants’ departments remain closed until adequate precautions are made’.
The Committee recommend that the above resolution be adopted, and referred to the Education Committee for their consideration’. Despite this a week later the Education Committee `Resolved that the NUT Resolution be not adopted and that infants’ schools remain open…’[61]
18th September
The Infants’ Schools
re-open though,
as the Head of Llanishen points out, `Children are to attend at the option of
Parents’.
At Clarence Infants’ one of their three classrooms is being used as a First Aid and Ambulance depot. The children of Crwys Infants’ together with their two teachers resume work at Albany Infants’.
The Headmistress of Maindy Infants’
notes `School re-opened in one wing of Allensbank Infants’ School. Nineteen
children have been transferred to other schools on grounds of distance’. The
Headmistress of Allensbank Infants’ notes that the Maindy children have been given
three classrooms and a separate cloakroom and entrance.
The Head of Gladstone
Infants’ reports that ARP practices improve greatly as the week passes.
At Marlborough Infants’ the Head goes into detail about how the school has organised its evacuation plans should the bombing start:
‘(1) A.R.P. Drill was
organised as follows.
Teacher Red Patrol - Miss Jenkins - takes the children to Marlborough Rd. and Blenheim Rd. crossing, and across the road from whence they run home.
(1b) Auxillary Red Patrol -
Miss Orchard.
(2) Blue Patrol - Miss Chorley conducts the children to Blenheim and Sandringham Road corner, conducts across the road, and they run home.
(3) Green Patrol - Miss
James accompanies the children to the junction of Sandringham and Agincourt
Road, across the road, and they run home.
(4) Yellow Patrol. Children remain in school, half in the Head Teacher’s room and half in the staffroom. (Temporary arrangement until Air Raid Shelters are complete)’.
The Head of Roath Infants’ explains ‘This week is to be an experimental one. All children living within four minutes of the school are to be tested in groups with a teacher as to how long it takes them to get home so that in case of air-raids no time will be lost’.
At St. Monica’s Infants’ they note that several children have been admitted from the St. John’s, Crwys Road and Maindy Schools.
Four more evacuees are admitted to Gladstone Boys’, three from London and one from Birmingham. Among them are Dennis and Ronnie Debnam from Islington who are staying at 20 Minny Street.[62]
21st September
In an effort to ensure the quick
dispersal of children at Court Road the ‘old exits from the playground were
re-opened today’.[63]
Because the playing fields at Blackweir
have been ‘taken over by the Military’ the Headmistress of Heathfield House
accepts an offer to use a playing field at Rumney owned by the CWS Biscuit
Factory.[64]
22nd September
At Cathays High for Boys’ ‘sand-bagging
work commenced [and] ARP work began’. The Head of Radnor Girls’ notes that `ARP
practice is taken weekly’.
The Headmistress of St. Cuthbert’s
records `Instead of going to Cookery and Laundry, the Domestic Science teacher,
Miss Evans, came to the school and gave the girls cutting out lessons. Sewing
was done in the afternoon’.
25th September
Because Windsor-Clive Infants’ has become a First-Aid & Ambulance Depot the Boys’ School gives up one of the huts in the playground to house some of the infants. This means the staffroom in the Boys’ is turned into a classroom.
Another evacuee is admitted at Roath Boys’. Since the end of August the school has taken in eight evacuees, five from London, two brothers from Birmingham and a boy from Surrey.[66]
26th September
A Parents’ Meeting is held at Allensbank Infants’ so that the two Headteachers can explain `their plan of evacuation in case of an air-raid’.
27th September
At Baden Powell Infants’ they record
another Circular, ‘As a result of the present war conditions the Joint Advisory
Committee has decided:
(a) Suitable
arrangements are to be made for the storing of gas masks.
(b) Attendance of
children at school shall be optional pending the provision of structural
air-raid precautions in the school.
(c) Time Tables
may have a certain flexibility with regard to play-time and playground games’.
The first air-raid and gas mask drill is held at De La Salle but `this first practice was too jolly to be a success’.[67]
Messrs J.O. Thomas and V.C.W. Phelps, two more teachers from Herbert Thompson Boys’, are called up for military service with the Royal Artillery.
28th September
The pupils of Crwys Mixed, now at Albany Road, are examined for malnutrition. So too are those at Albany Girls’.
At a meeting of Cardiff’s Secondary
Schools (Evacuated Secondary School Pupils etc.) Sub Committee `The Director
reported that applications had been received on behalf of forty children
(twenty-four boys and sixteen girls)…for admission, by transfer, to the Cardiff
High Schools…[and] that applications had been received for the admission…of
five Jewish Refugee children who have come to reside at Cardiff with their
parents (or guardians). The Sub-Committee recommend that…arrangements be made
for their admission, on the understanding that the full school fees of £10 per
annum will be paid in respect of each child admitted’.[68]
29th September
The Head of St. Monica’s Infants’
explains ‘There have been many admissions to this school during the last two
weeks from the closed schools in the area’. On the same day the Head of Maindy
Infants’ admits `Thirty-nine children have been transferred to other schools
nearer their homes during the past two weeks’.
At Whitchurch Boys’ `Police Detectives
have been making enquiries here today in connection with a cruel outrage and
murder of a little Infants’ girl, Joyce Cox, yesterday afternoon’.
2nd October
Miss Edith Jones, a teacher at Baden
Powell, is ‘called up to serve in the WAAF for the period of the war’.[69]
3rd October
The Head of Gladstone Boys’
reports on a dress-rehearsal evacuation by all three schools at the site:
’Police watched the arrangements, and fully approved of them’.
Following the medical
examination of the Crwys Mixed pupils ‘a number of parents are invited to meet
the School Medical Officer’. At Albany Boys’ too the doctors `interviewed the
mothers of fourteen boys who showed signs of malnutrition’.
At Grangetown Girls’ `The Instructress
at the Swimming Baths visited the school and gave a lesson (Land Drill) to Form
2’. [From now until the middle of November she visits weekly.]
4th October
Following a cleanliness inspection at
Tongwynlais a pupil is ‘excluded for being verminous’.
9th October
Mr. Tom Jones HMI calls in at
Marlborough Girls’ ‘to ascertain the number of evacuees and refugees attending
this school’. [Unfortunately the Head does not give the details]
At St. Monica’s Infants’ ‘Afternoon
playtime is being given up and the school will close at 3.45 instead. This will
get the children home earlier and give the caretaker longer daylight for
cleaning the school’.
10th October
Radnor Girls’ holds its `Junior and
Senior Assemblies for Harvest Service. Owing to national circumstances (War)
teachers brought products – flowers, vegetables and fruit, instead of the
children. These were given to the sick and poor and in all cases received
gratefully. Children’s collection for the Infirmary = £3’.
12th October
The Secretary of the ‘British Ship
Adoption Society’ writes from their temporary address at Trident House, Dock
Street, Newport to all schools participating in the adoption scheme:
‘In previous years, when there was
peace, we usually commenced to think of Christmas gifts for our friends afloat
about October, because we wished those at sea to receive them during the
festive season. Now that war has come, it is more necessary than ever that we
should think ahead…[so] please be early.
We are certain that none would wish our
gallant Merchant Service, and – in particular, the personal friends made in
‘our ship’ – to feel forgotten this Christmas. It is not necessary that your
gifts should be bought. Your friends afloat will be even more pleased with
anything you can make or do for them…
You may even care to think of other
ships, not adopted, but which still are doing their part, in dangerous
circumstances, to ensure the flow of those things we most appreciate at
Christmas time…’[70]
Llandaff City Mixed has ‘A few
suggestions for Christmas presents to ships’. The girls are urged to make ‘long
woolly scarves’, socks, handkerchiefs, bookmarkers, ties and hand-made
Christmas cards. The boys are asked to make ashtrays, pipe-racks, book-ends,
bookmarkers and jigsaw puzzles. ‘Cards, Monopoly, Draughts and Games of all
kinds would be particularly welcome’. On the other hand the children are
advised not to send ‘cakes, sweets and such ‘extra comforts’ of that sort,
including cigarettes’ as these are deemed to be perishable. In a special note
at the end of the leaflet the children are reminded that they must not mention
the name of ‘their ship’ in any letter because ‘by writing in this ‘mysterious’
way, and using codes instead of names, you are helping to defeat the U boats
and those who would imperil our seafarers. I know you all will be strictly ‘on
your guard’’.[71]
13th October
Work at Gladstone Boys’ is
‘interfered with this week by the workmen sent here to ‘black out’ the
windows’.
At De La Salle `More gas
mask drill and air raid rehearsals. All the boys are now serious, and the
practice is a success’.[72]
15th October
`Miss Marshall gave her first talk to
girls of 13 and 14 years on `Growing Up’’ records the Head at Severn Road.
17th October
Two more London evacuees are admitted
to Roath Boys’ bringing the total for the month to six.[73]
20th October
The Headmistress of Albany Girls’ notes
`Miss E.J. Johnson terminated duties as a supply teacher today. She returns to
her own post at Gabalfa Special School which is to be re-opened on Monday 23rd’.
For the same reason Miss Myfanwy Ashton leaves Gladstone Girls’.
25th October
At St. Patrick’s Infants’ `air raid
shelters are being erected in the playground’.
The Head of Gladstone
Infants’ admits that ARP practices take place every day ‘when the weather
permits’.
Albany Girls’ notes a
Circular `stating that the operation of the sections of the Education Act
relating to the raising of the school leaving age, which took effect from 1st
September 1939, have been suspended’.
26th October
The Head of Crwys Mixed `Handed the
staff notices received from the Director regarding their transfer from this
School as from November 1st’. Three men will join the staff of
Albany Boys’ and three women will join Albany Girls’. Another man is to go to
Herbert Thompson Boys’ and a woman to Ely Mixed. Next day he complains `No
official notification has yet been received regarding the proposed amalgamation
although this is presumably the last session before the amalgamation is
intended to take place’.
27th October
The Head of Tongwynlais notes a
Circular `instructing me to utilise available ground for purposes of gardening,
in connection with the movement to produce more foodstuffs owing to the
National Emergency. In consequence…fourteen plots have been allocated to boys’.
1st November
Crwys and Albany Infants’
are officially amalgamated. Seventy-four Crwys Road pupils, forty boys and
forty-four girls, together with their Headmistress, Miss Gwendoline Hancock,
and Miss Jessie Adams become a part of Albany Infants’. Two other teachers are
transferred to Baden Powell Infants’. Ninety-six Crwys Road girls and three of
their teachers are amalgamated with Albany Girls’. Maindy and Allensbank
Infants’ are also officially amalgamated. The Headmistress of Maindy, together
with two of her teachers joins the staff of Allensbank adding forty-five
children to the Register. Another Maindy Infants’ teacher is transferred to
Birchgrove Infants’.[74]
The Head of Crwys Mixed
still hasn’t received any official notification or instructions…
At St. Mary’s Senior Mixed in Bute Terrace they admit Betty Walding from London. Gladstone Boys’ admits Cyril and Kenneth Pigott from London.
Glamorgan schools change their hours,
cutting the lunch break by an hour so as to be able to close at 3.30. `The
change has been made necessary on account of the lighting restrictions’.[75]
At Radyr the Head notes that the morning session now starts at 8.45.
2nd November
`Owing to war conditions and the fact
that the children cannot play in comfort with their gas masks on their backs,
it has been found advisable to do without play, continuing straight on through
the timetable. School is therefore dismissed at quarter to twelve and quarter
to four’ records the Head of Stacey Infants’.
Mr. H.R. Davies, the P.E. Master,
leaves Cathays High for Boys’ for the Forces. He is replaced, on ‘a month’s
trial’ by Mr. J.B. Roberts of Allensbank Boys’.[76]
3rd November
Workmen begin building air raid
shelters in the playgrounds of Metal Street, St. Alban’s and St. Patrick’s
Mixed.[77]
6th November
Following a Nutrition Survey at Court
Boys `Seventeen of the scholars who were considered to be under-nourished were
medically examined by Dr. Murphy’.
10th November
At a meeting of Cardiff’s Education
Committee the Director reports that approval has been given by the Board of
Education `for the first instalment of the Committee’s scheme for the provision
of air raid shelters for schools’.
13th November
Mr. Colin Harvey returns to Court Boys’
`having been released by the RAF for the time being’.
17th November
A ‘Nutrition Survey’ at Gladstone Infants’ results in six more children being ‘added to our...list for Free Milk’.
Cardiff Education’s Elementary
Sub-Committee is ‘unable to accede to a request from Miss L.S. Rate, an
Assistant Teacher at the Roath Park Girls’ School, to be allowed to continue in
service after marriage, for the duration of the war. The Director was requested
to inform Miss Rate that upon marriage, favourable consideration would be given
to an application from her for supply work’.[78]
20th November
New school hours are
introduced in Cardiff‘s schools because of the Blackout. In the Upper Schools
‘the morning session shall begin at 9 am and close at noon. The afternoon
session shall begin at 1.30 pm and close at 3.45 pm’. The Infant Schools are to
open for the afternoon at 1.30 and close at 3.30.[79]
Andrew Cant, the only boy
to have been evacuated from De La Salle on the outbreak of war returns to the
school.[80]
24th November
`The City Engineer reported verbally
with regard to the progress made in the provision of air raid shelters in those
schools in the vicinity of the docks and major industrial areas’.
`Howell’s School, Llandaff – The City Treasurer and Controller reported the receipt of a letter from the Clerk to the Governors regarding expenditure of approximately £700 on Air Raid Precautions at the school, and it was Resolved – That a contribution of 40% of the cost be paid by this Committee’.[81]
27th November
‘A stammering class started here this morning in an empty class-room. Miss Parry HMI came in to see the class and Miss Morris, the teacher’ records the Head of Roath Infants’. The next day ‘Speech Training Classes’ are re-opened at Herbert Thompson Boys’.[82]
1st December
The Head of Hawthorn Mixed records that
for the past three mornings he has left school at 10 am ‘to attend the Aliens’
Tribunal at the Law Courts’.
8th December
‘An emergency exit on the top floor has
now been completed’ notes the Head at Kitchener.
11th December
`The sum of one guinea was forwarded to
the Cardiff Schoolchildren’s Royal Infirmary Fund’ records the Head of St.
Alban’s Infants’.
At Radyr ‘From today the afternoon
session will begin at 1.15 pm and end at 3.30 to enable all children to
reach home in the daylight’.
13th December
Nurse Parker visits Canton Girls’ `and
inspected the heads of those who had already been reported’.
18th December
Radnor Girls’ receives a letter from
`Rhoose School Camp expressing great appreciation of seven woollen knitted
blankets (squares) sent with a little clothing to the evacuees from the girls
of this school. Two blankets, two pillow cases and a pair of mittens are being
forwarded to H.M. Submarine Trident this afternoon’.
20th December
The pupils of Hywel Dda Mixed donate
£3. 6. 0. to the Infirmary Fund. The total amount raised by the schools of
Cardiff this year is £326. 7. 8.[83]
21st December
Gladstone Boys’ Annual School Concert has to be abandoned ‘owing to the difficulties created by the war’.
At St. Alban’s Mixed ‘The Baseball Cup (St. Peter’s) which was won by the school during the past summer was presented to the Captain (T. McGrath) this afternoon. The Presentation took place at 3.30 pm. Owing to the ‘Black Out’ restrictions the usual [evening] ceremony had to be abandoned’.
The Head of Whitchurch Boys’ records
`the children were handed their reports. On the whole, considering `war nerves’
and staff disorganisation consequent upon Mr. C.J. Lawrence rejoining the
forces on the outbreak of war, quite good work has been done’. The school
closes at midday `to enable the boys to attend the Christmas Party arranged by
the Melingriffith Tinplate Works’ workmen’. The Head of Hawthorn Infants’
explains that this is because `Owing to Black Out Regulations, the Annual
Christmas Party given to children of employees of the Melin Griffiths Tin Works
Company was held during the early afternoon…’
Miss Doreen Hill resigns from Herbert
Thompson Girls’ as she is about to get married.
1940
2nd January
Cardiff’s Education (Air Raid
Precautions) Sub-Committee recommends that tenders submitted for the
construction of 199 school shelters be accepted at a total cost of £17,754.
[This works out at an average price of a little over £89.]
`The City Engineer reported that the
approximate cost of the above shelters and the ones in course of erection
amounted to £25,649. In addition to this expenditure the cost of sandbagging
certain schools and the provision of one or two shelters in Junior Instruction
Centres and Special Schools must be added, but it is estimated that the total
cost for all schools will be at least £2,000 less than the total of £30,000
sanctioned by the City Council’.[84]
8th January
The Headmaster of Grangetown notes that
the `senior boys (11+) will resume attendance at the Ninian Park Manual
Centre’. Nineteen girls from forms 1 & 2 at Eleanor Street attend at
Bromsgrove Street Domestic Science Centre.
‘Terminal Examinations were not held
last term owing to the disturbance created by the building of a concrete
shelter in the Girls’ playground and the construction of a new door in the
classroom accommodating Standards 1 & 2’ records the Head of St. Paul’s
Mixed.
Mr. Lawrence, discharged from the Army, returns to Whitchurch Boys’.
The rationing of bacon, butter, ham
and sugar is introduced.[85]
9th January
‘Mr. Tom Jones, HMI, visited the school
to inspect the new air raid shelters’ records the Head of Tredegarville. At St.
Peter’s `Three brick air-raid shelters, accommodating fifty each, are being
built in the Girls’ School playground and two in Heathfield House playground
for our use also’.
11th January
Mr. J. Arnold Roberts is
absent from Herbert
Thompson Boys’ in the morning: ‘He is attending the Cardiff Police Court as a
witness. He is a Special Constable’.
Mr. Gwyn Daniel, the Welsh
teacher at Grangetown Boys’, `was absent in the morning…to attend the Military
Service Appeal Tribunal’.
[Of the sixteen evacuees
admitted to Roath Boys in 1939, only six remain and two of those will return to
Birmingham before the week is out. At Gladstone Boys’, however, eleven of their
twenty-four evacuees are still there.[86]]
12th January
‘Owing to the yard being occupied by men and materials connected with the building of ‘Air Raid Shelters’ play has had to be cancelled all this week’ records the Head of Gladstone Boys’.
At Whitchurch Mixed `The County Hall
records have been transferred from the Art to the Craft Room so that the larger
room may be used for educational purposes’.
15th January
Lansdowne Boys’ receives a Medical Certificate from one of the teachers who is suffering from ‘Facial Impetigo’. He will be away for a fortnight.
17th January
Mr. Edwards, a teacher at St. Cuthbert’s, `left today to join the Royal Engineers Corps. Anne O’Shea, uncertificated, has been appointed on supply in his place’.
In the afternoon there’s a meeting at the City Hall convened by the Lord Mayor about the War Savings Campaign.[87]
19th January
`The extreme cold has caused the water
supply to freeze’ writes the Head of
Whitchurch Mixed, `Water for the toilets is being carried from the brook
by the caretaker. Water for midday meals is obtained from the nearest house’.
At Ninian Infants’ attendance is only
54.81%. The Head of Hywel Dda Mixed observes that the fall of snow has seen
attendance suffer because ‘many children attending school are badly shod’.
At a meeting of Cardiff’s General
Education Committee the Director reports on problems identified by the Town
Clerk with the erection of shelters at Albany Road and St. Peter’s. The City
Engineer `has found it impracticable to site shelters elsewhere than upon the
adjoining Public highways…[and] the Corporation have no power to erect Shelters
upon the highway unless they are Public shelters…I therefore recommend…the
erection of these shelters as Public Shelters on the understanding that they
will be available for the pupils of the schools concerned during ordinary
school hours’.[88]
24th January
Only nine of the nineteen children at
Llanederyn turn up for school because of the snow.
26th January
A Circular is sent out `Excluding
Children with Warts from Swimming Baths’.[89]
29th January
Attendance is down to 45% at Hywel Dda
Infants’ and it’s a similar tale across the City.[90]
Nevertheless, when the Headmaster of St. Paul’s ‘telephoned the Education
Office and informed them that the lavatories were frozen, that the attendance
in the Mixed Department was 64% and in the Infants’ 44% and asked for
instructions’ he is ‘Instructed to carry on’.
2nd February
Miss Mary Carter terminates her
temporary duties at Gladstone Girls’ because her own school, Greenhill, is
about to re-open.
5th February
Greenhill Open Air School, having been closed since the outbreak of the war, re-opens with fifty-three children.[91]
The Head of Clarence Infants’ records that the afternoon session `again begins at 2 pm and closes at 4 pm’. At St. Peter’s Girls’ the new afternoon hours are 2–4.30.
8th February
The Head of Gladstone Infants’ reports that the Air Raid Shelters are now finished ‘a hundred odd pupils to be protected in case of Raid’. [There were over 280 children at the school before the war so the majority are expected to run home if and when the sirens start. It’s the same across the city…[92]]
9th February
The King and Queen visit Cardiff and review Civil Defence forces. Many of the City’s teachers who are part-time policemen, or ARP or Red Cross workers are given time off but, because this would involve the loss of seven staff from Albany Boys’, the four Air Raid Wardens draw lots so as to allow three to go to the parade.[93] The pupils of Cardiff’s High Schools witness the inspection in front of the City Hall and all schools are closed in the afternoon to celebrate the Royal Visit.[94]
15th February
The Canton Schools are closed `as no
fires were lit, owing to a shortage of firewood’.[95]
21st February
`On arriving in school this morning I
found that the building had been entered during the night. All the teachers’
desks had been forced and the piano. A small amount of money was stolen. The
police reported an arrest at 11.30 am’ records the Head of Metal Street Boys’.
A Nutrition Survey of 285 girls at
Severn Road reveals that twenty-seven are undernourished.
27th February
Eighty-seven St. Peter’s girls whose
parents have given their permission are immunised against diptheria.
The Head of Severn Girls’ completes the
`Annual `Milk in Schools’ form, showing 330 on books, 38 free milk, 182 paying
(nine evacuees)’.
1st March
At Marlborough Girls’ ‘St. David’s Day
was celebrated by a varied programme consisting of songs, dances and plays in
the Hall. Miss Roberts, a former Head Mistress, addressed the girls on the present
war, and how we can all help to win it by our own individual efforts – to be
courageous, brave, cheerful, self-sacrificing and economical’.
4th March
Cardiff’s first Nursery School
`provided in conjunction with Severn Road Infants’ School’ opens with
accommodation for 120 children.[96]
5th March
Mr. Hinton, a Metal Street Boys’
teacher, `left today to serve in the Royal Air Force’.
8th March
At Grangetown Boys’ `The whole school
was assembled in the playground in the morning for a presentation to Sydney
Nurse who was in the Battle of the River Plate’. [Appended to the log is a
newspaper cutting explaining that he was an ex-pupil of the school who was
serving on HMS Exeter when the
frigate attacked the Graf Spee in
December 1939. The boys presented him with an inscribed wrist watch]
`Mr. Mends has informed me that he has
to report for duty in the Royal Air Force tomorrow’ reports the Head of Metal
Street Boys’.
11th March
Grace Chamberlain, a Gladstone Girls’
pupil, is presented with a cheque for £5 by the Deputy Lord Mayor for winning
first prize in the Western Mail’s St.
David’s Day essay competition with her entry `A Grim Reminder of War’.
Meat rationing is
introduced.[97]
12th March
At Roath Infants’ ‘During the building of the air raid shelters playtime is dispensed with and school is being dismissed 10 minutes earlier in the morning and afternoon’.
The Head of the Boys’ at Metal Street
receives a `post-card from Mr. Mends informing me that the Air Force has
permitted him to return to Civil Life’. He returns to the school the next day.
14th March
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee is told of the `poor response’ to the official leaflets which have been distributed, in English and Welsh, appealing to householders to take in evacuated school-children already in the district or likely to be sent there. Subsequently, the Chairman and Clerk `had interviewed officers of the Welsh Board of Health thereon and suggested that, with the view of bringing the matter prominently before the public, the Board consider the question of a local broadcast appeal and newspaper propaganda urging cooperation by householders in providing accommodation for the evacuee school-children’.[98]
15th March
Cardiff’s schools receive notification that ‘The allowances for School Requisitions as from 1st April 1940 are as follows:-
Boys & Girls in Mixed
Schools 5/6 per head
per year
Infants 3/9
per head per year
Seniors 10/- per head per year.[99]
The Headmistress of Herbert Thompson Infants’ notes that this is an increase of 9d. per head on last year’s capitation.
19th March
Glamorgan’s Secondary Education
Sub-Committee discusses
the charges to be made on Evacuating Authorities:
`With regard to pupils who migrate as
school parties [the sub committee recommends] the following charges be made to
the Evacuating Authorities:-
(1) an
apportionment to be ascertained of additional expenditure on fuel, light and
cleaning;
(2) 1/- per head
per annum in respect of upkeep of buildings and grounds;
(3) proportionate
additional cost of books and stationery;
(4) additional
expenditure on salaries and travelling expenses of Medical Staff’.[100]
21st March
The last of the evacuees admitted to
Roath Boys in 1939 returns home to Skegness.[101]
Mr. Elcock of the Altmark visits Whitchurch Boys’ in the morning: `great joy amongst
the boys. He is a Whitchurch product’.
Eric Elcock had been the
third engineer on the SS Trevanion
when it had been sunk by the German pocket battleship Graf Spee on 22nd October 1939. Taken prisoner, he was
later transferred with others to the German supply vessel Altmark. In February 1940 `The Altmark
was lying in neutral Norwegian waters when the prisoners became aware of the
presence of a British destroyer. They made a deafening clamour and, as the Altmark was boarded by British sailors,
Eric Elcock said `I have never seen a more thankful lot of men than those of us
who went on board the destroyer that night’’.[102]
28th March
The Clerk of Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee reports that `of the 9,563 householders circularised, 247 have intimated they will take 382 school-children and that 226 have replied stating they have no accommodation’.
1st April
`Fifteen children under five years of
age were re-admitted today. They left when war broke out’ notes the Head of Metal
Street Infants’.
4th April
Mr. Ball, a teacher at Cathays High for
Boys’, leaves for the Forces.
8th April
Mr. Sirrell, a ‘Temporary
Supply Teacher’ at Stacey Boys’ is called up to join the Army.
9th April
German troops occupy Denmark and begin the invasion of
neutral Norway. British and French troops sent to help the Norwegians repel the
Germans are soon forced to retreat by a far superior enemy. Within two months
the surviving Allied troops have to be evacuated and the German conquest is
complete.[103]
10th April
Four pupils do not sit the High Schools
Entrance Examinations at Radnor Girls’. One is ill, another doesn’t want to
take the exam and `one refugee and one evacuee have returned home’.
16th April
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee is told that, as a result of a campaign by the Women’s Voluntary Services, a further 370 billets have been offered which could accommodate 908 evacuated school-children. The Committee resolves `that the canvas by the Women’s Voluntary Services be intensified and extended so as to include all households in the district…and, in the event of the response being insufficient to accommodate the 1,800 school-children to be received from London and Birmingham, consideration be given to the preparation of a list of compulsory billets’.
17th April
Miss Sheelagh McLean, a teacher at
Metal Street Infants’ `was sent for, her brother having been killed in action’.
19th April
Rain interferes with an Air
Raid Practice at Gladstone Infants’.
22nd April
Because `two classrooms
have been commandeered to accommodate Standards 3 & 4 of Rhydypenau School
until September or until further notice’ records the Head of Allensbank
Infants’, two of her classes have to share a room and `a new timetable has had
to be drawn up’.
23rd April
Cardiff’s schools receive a Circular
dealing with the ‘Admission of children under 5 years of age:-
Children over 4 years of age can be
admitted subject to the following conditions:
(a) Children
residing within 5 minutes distance.
(b) Children
residing more than 5 minutes distance, if accommodation is available in the
existing air raid shelters.
(c) Number of
children in Class 3 (Babies) must not exceed 40.
Admissions will depend upon individual
applications made by the parents in writing’.[104]
24th April
Metal Street Infants’ receives a
Circular about salaries and Miss Milkins, the Headmistress, notes the figures
which will apply in her school:
Miss Milkins £348
Miss McLean £208. 10. 0.
Miss Hubbarde £192
Miss Jewell £176. 5. 0.
25th April
Another Circular is entitled ‘Food: How the Teachers can help the
Nation’.[105]
29th April
Mr. Mends leaves Metal Street again for
the RAF.
30th April
`The Domestic Science Centre is closed
during the afternoon session: a demonstration on War Time Cookery and the best
use of Rationed Foods was given to housewives by R. Bettley of 28 Cathedral Road’ records the Head of Whitchurch
Mixed.
At Whitchurch Boys’ `The Cardiff
Wastepaper Co., West Dock, Cardiff, took eight sacks of old used books this
morning…Mr. Lawrence left at 3.45 to attend a Masonic Function. Leave granted
by the Director of Education’.
1st May
At Hawthorn Mixed ‘In the evening a
Concert was given in the Hall on behalf of a Comforts Fund for Old Pupils and
the parents of present scholars now serving with HM Forces. About 220 were
present, including Miss M. Parry BA, HMI. The Concert realised £8. 19. 6. Miss
Parry spoke eulogistically of the items and especially praised the dramatic
work of the children’.
3rd May
The Headmistress of Radnor Girls’
supervises Betty Buckle `when she took the examination set by the Southampton
Education Committee for entrance to Secondary Schools’.
Mr. Mends returns to Metal Street: `He
has been released by the Air Force for one month’.
6th May
Albany Infants’ notes a Circular:
‘Action on the Kitchen Front’.
Glamorgan schools have a day’s holiday
for `Labour Day’.[106]
8th May
Mr. Colin Harvey leaves Court Boys’ for the RAF.
10th May
Schools close for the
Whitsun holiday.
German troops invade
Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium.
Prime Minister Chamberlain resigns
following strong criticism in the House of Commons of his government’s running
of the war. Winston Churchill becomes the new Prime Minister.[107]
14th May
The Head of Roath Infants’
explains that ‘School re-opened this morning under orders from the Government
whereby the Whitsun Holiday was given up by all on account of the entry of the
Germans into Dutch and Belgian Territory on the 10th’. Across
Britain all schools in ‘Reception and Neutral areas’ re-open.[108]
At Birchgrove Mixed only 266 pupils out of 333 attend, at Hawthorn
Mixed 237 out of 260.
Mr. Shaw, another Cathays High for
Boys’ teacher, has joined the Army.
15th May
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee notes a Circular from the Ministry of Health `intimating that the Government has decided that the rate of payment to householders for billeting unaccompanied school-children…will be as follows:-
Between 10 and 14 years of age 10/6 a week
Between 14 and 16 years of age 12/6 a week
Over 16 years of age 15/- a week’.
German troops invade France.[109]
16th May
Mr. M. Powell, one of the
teachers at Roath Boys’ is absent in the afternoon on ‘Observer Corps Duty’.
His regular absences will continue for years…
17th May
Mr. V.H. Jones, a teacher
at Albany Boys’, is absent `to attend as a witness at the Military Service
Exemption Tribunal’.
19th May
Somewhere in the region of 500 evacuated school-children
from London and the Medway towns arrive for billeting in Cardiff Rural
District.[110]
Sunday. Whitchurch Mixed ‘was used for the
reception and distribution of 204 children evacuated from Chatham, Rochester
and Gillingham: the children were accompanied by twenty-nine teachers and
helpers…The party was provided with refreshments by local women’s organisations
and conveyed to billets by the Women’s Voluntary Service’.
20th May
‘Forty Mixed and ten Infant children
from Eglinton Council School, LCC, together with seven of the staff arrived
here this morning’ records the Head of Radyr.
Six girls who had been evacuated from
Chatham to Sittingbourne in Kent are re-evacuated to St. Fagan’s along with a
teacher.
21st May
Miss Stewart, the Domestic Science
teacher at Court Girls’, begins a series of lectures on ‘War-Time Cookery’ for
local housewives. This means ‘the girls of Forms 1 & 2 will only receive a
half-day’s tuition until further notice’.
An HMI visits Whitchurch Mixed and it
is decided `that Chatham Junior Technical Girls should be accommodated at this
school to work as a separate unit; Gillingham County School pupils to go to Whitchurch
Secondary School; the location of pupils from Rochester Junior Tech. for Boys
was deferred. The elementary school children were admitted here’.
More than 100 Dutch and
Belgian refugees, aged from under one to eighty, arrive in Cardiff eight days
after escaping in fishing boats from Ostend.[111]
23rd May
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee is told `that 187 compulsory billets have been selected in the Eglwysnewydd Ward of the parish of Whitchurch, bringing the number of compulsory billets…up to a total of 877…’
Cardiff’s Catholic schools are closed
for the day for the Feast of Corpus Christi.[112]
The Headmistress of Severn Road attends
a lecture at the City Hall on `War Cookery’ addressed by `R. Boothby, Food
Minister’.
24th May
Schools hold their Empire Day services
as usual following which the children have the rest of the day off. At the Oral
School for the Deaf in the Jackson Hall, Westgate Street, they also hold `a
collection for tobacco for the Serving Forces’.
Hawthorn Mixed ‘Today…sent off 77
Postal Orders of 2/6 each to old pupils of the school and parents of present
scholars now with the Forces. In addition £1. 15. 2. was sent to the Overseas
League Tobacco Fund for the Services. This was collected from the scholars’.
`The pupils and teachers of Rochester
Junior Tech. for Boys were removed from Whitchurch to Caerphilly at 2 pm today’
notes the Head of Whitchurch Mixed.
26th May – 4th
June
226,000 British and 112,000 French troops are evacuated from
Dunkirk leaving behind almost all of their equipment. German forces have
overwhelmed Western Europe and smashed Allied forces…[113]
A camp for evacuated troops is established at Heath Park.[114]
3rd June
Miss George is absent from Whitchurch
Girls’ in the morning `due to hysteria’.
Three students from Trinity College
Carmarthen begin teaching practice at Tredegarville where Mr. George Hughes is
called up for the Army.
4th June
Mr. Profit, a teacher at Albany Boys’,
is given leave of absence to attend the Law Courts in his role as a Special Inspector
of Police who `has charged a motorist…with the offence of exceeding the speed
limit in the blackout’.
Churchill speaks in the
House of Commons: `We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We
shall fight on the beaches, the landing grounds, in the fields, in the streets
and on the hills. We shall never surrender…’[115]
5th June
At Radnor Girls’ 126 pupils are
immunised against diptheria.
6th June
`Mr. A.G. Prys-Jones, HMI, and Sir P.
Wheldon, Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Department, Board of Education,
visited the school this morning, regarding the transfer of sixty students of
Chatham Day Technical School for Girls, who are, at present, either at
Porthcawl or Bargoed, to this school in the immediate future’ reports the Head
of Whitchurch Mixed.
8th June
Fourteen pupils from Chatham together
with a teacher and an infant move from Bargoed to Whitchurch for re-billeting.
The last British troops are
evacuated from Norway.[116]
10th June
At St. David’s Infants’ `A Penny Bank,
in conjunction with the Cardiff Trustee Savings’ Bank, was opened in this
school this morning, to assist in the National Savings Movement’.
Cardiff City Council passes the
following resolution by thirty three votes to seven with one abstention: `That
in view of the supreme national effort now demanded, calling for equality of
service and sacrifice, this Council resolves that no employee who has
registered as a Consciencious Objector…shall continue in the employ of the
Council on being granted exemption from military service by any tribunal’.[117]
12th June
As a result of a Nutrition Survey at
St. Alban’s Infants’ another ‘child is to receive free milk and dinners and six
children free milk only’.
Recorded in the Punishment Book of St.
Paul’s Mixed is the penalty meted out to one boy for ‘Lying and truanting – One
stroke on each hand, several on the rectum’.
13th June
At Radnor Girls’ `During the week a
very special effort has been made to increase the War Savings takings and with
great success. £48. 5. 0. taken and forty-two new members’.
14th June
The Head of Allensbank Infants’ records
that `the children of this Department have saved £18 this week through the
National Savings Association’.
At Whitchurch Mixed `Forty-seven pupils
of the Chatham Junior Technical School for Girls were transferred from
Porthcawl to Whitchurch at 4 pm today…the party was accompanied by six
teachers, nineteen children attending elementary schools and two secondary
children’.
Paris falls to the Germans.[118]
17th June
851 evacuee school-children from London accompanied by sixty-one teachers and helpers arrive at Cardiff Central Station to be billeted in Cardiff Rural District. This brings the number of evacuees in the Council’s district to 1,311. Of these, 1,207 are children, seventy-nine are teachers and a further twenty-five are `helpers’.[119]
Whitchurch Mixed is closed in the
afternoon `to prepare for the reception of 850 children proposed to be
evacuated from London’. In the event 583 children, thirty teachers and
twenty-seven helpers arrive and `the party of Edmonton Junior Tech. for Girls
and that of Eggerton Road were provided with tea, medically inspected and
conveyed to Treorchy and Lisvane respectively for billeting. The remainder were
billeted in Whitchurch after tea and inspection. The Edmonton County School
pupils were absorbed in the Whitchurch Secondary School’.
The Head of Stacey Boys’ notes a
Circular ‘asking that, in view of the paper shortage, all examinations in
Senior as well as Junior classes be in future conducted orally, with the exception
of such subjects as Arithmetic and English’.
During the evening thirty-nine children
and two teachers evacuated from Rainham in Essex are billeted in Tongwynlais.
French military resistance
to the Germans ends. Britain now stands alone…[120]
18th June
At Whitchurch Mixed `At a meeting of
the leaders of parties held at this school this morning, the evacuees billeted
in Whitchurch, who would require educational facilities were reported as
follows:-
School Infants Juniors Seniors Central School
B G B G B G
Lower Latymer 8 14 7 25 2 - -
Edmonton County
(Relatives) - 3 2 - - - -
Laysterne 34 17 21 13 21 1 1
Canterbury Rd. 46 30 20 31 5 - -
Rowland Hill 40 31 30 138 10 - -
Totals 128 95 80 207 38 1 1
128 175 245 2
‘A party of forty-five children from
Tottenham (Downhills Council School) together with three members of staff
arrived here this morning’ records the Head of Radyr.
Llysfaen Mixed & Infants, which had
just forty-seven pupils in 1937, sees thirty-three evacuees from London and a
teacher arrive at the school.[121]
19th June
At Whitchurch Mixed `Captain T.J.
Evans, the Primary Inspector, visited the school this morning when a meeting of
the visiting leaders of evacuated parties and local head teachers was held. He
instructed that the visiting infants should be absorbed in the Whitchurch
Infants’ and Rhiwbina Schools, the Junior Boys in the Whitchurch Junior Boys’
School and Rhiwbina School, the Junior Girls in the Whitchurch Junior Girls’
and Rhiwbina Schools, the Senior Boys and Girls should be amalgamated to form a
school under Mr. Woodley, the Headmaster of the Rowland Hill Senior Boys’
School. This group was to work on the `Double Shift’ basis with our School, the
local school from 9 am to noon, and the visitors from 2 to 5 pm. The Chatham
Junior Technical School for Girls, now 101 pupils, were to work full time at
this school for the time being’.
Twelve evacuees are admitted to
Llanederyn and the following day another three arrive.
20th June
Sixty-nine evacuees are admitted to
Whitchurch Boys’ but `as there is no seating accommodation the children spent
most of the time out of doors (weather most favourable) under the supervision
of their three teachers’.
The Head of Marlborough
Infants’ reports that the ‘Phoney War’ has ended. ‘On the night of the 19th
Cardiff experienced its first Air Raid. In spite of children being up at night
attendance was very good’. At Metal Street Boys’, however, where they report that the
warning had lasted for an hour and twenty minutes, `a large number of boys were
late this morning’.
In fact the first German air
attack came in the early hours of the morning of the 20th when a
sole aeroplane attacked the Docks and dropped sixteen bombs. ‘Most of them
dropped harmlessly but the SS Stresso, moored in the East Dock, was
damaged after being hit in the stern. No lives were lost and the ship was later
refloated’.[122]
With the fall of France German
aeroplanes are now within two hours striking distance of South Wales.[123]
When an attack appeared
likely, the ‘Yellow Alert’ was given by the air raid siren. When German
aeroplanes were overhead this became a ‘Red Alert’.[124]
21st June
A pupil is excluded from the School for
the Deaf because he has scabies.
24th June
The Head of St. Peter’s Girls’ explains
that the attendance is low because the `Children have been up for three
nights’. At Radnor Road the `senior girls are busy covering the windows in
class rooms and corridors with diagonal strips for ARP’.
At Llysfaen the evacuees are officially
merged into the three classes.
25th June
At Kitchener `The attendance this
morning was poor as a result of last night’s air raid warning and the ensuing
loss of sleep in the district’. It’s the same at Hywel Dda Infants’ and at
Greenhill where `the time-table was altered, and the children went to rest at
10.45 until 11.30. Lessons were taken from 11.30 until 12.30 and afternoon rest
from 1.15 to 2.30. Many children failed to wake up then, and were allowed to
sleep on’.[125]
At Canton Girls’ the following notice
is distributed to parents:
`Should an air raid occur during school hours, with or without warning, adequate arrangements have been made for the care of the children. The teachers will be with them and the children know exactly what to do. You will help us greatly by staying away from the school until the `All Clear’ signal has been given and we appeal to all parents to do this’.
26th June
The Headmaster of Albany records `Many
boys are absent this morning due to sleeping late after two air raid alarms during
the night’. Only 20% of the children of St. Alban’s Mixed turn up in the
morning.
Whitchurch Mixed acts as `the Reception
Centre for thirteen pupils of Chatham Junior Technical School for Girls and
three attached relatives, elementary school children, who were evacuated from
Sheerness today. The children were provided with tea, medically inspected and
conveyed to billets by members of the Women’s Voluntary Service’.
At Llysfaen `Two small evacuees have
returned to London’.
27th June
The Head of Clarence Mixed reports
`This district was practically terrified in the early hours by the whizzing of
a bomb. Several houses were shaken’.
`At 4.30 pm, twenty children, whose
parents were present, were medically inspected at this school to ascertain if
they were suitable for evacuation to Canada. They were children attending
Whitchurch Infants’, Junior Girls’, Junior Boys’ and Senior Schools, the
Secondary School and Rhiwbina Junior Mixed and Infants’ School’.[126]
At a meeting of Cardiff’s Education
Committee: `Children’s Overseas Reception Scheme - In reporting the progress of
the scheme for evacuating children overseas, the Director stated that up to the
present applications in respect of over 800 children had been received during
the past week and that about 550 of these had been medically examined by the
School Medical Officer. Applications in respect of 400 of these children had
been despatched to the Children’s Overseas Reception Board.’[127]
1st July
In many schools attendance is cut by
50% or more.[128] As the
Head of Metal Street Boys’ explains `Last night was the seventh successive
night visit by enemy raiders’. Before the morning lessons at Hywel Dda Mixed
`Community singing was taken in the Hall after Scripture and Prayers. The songs
were much enjoyed and served as an antidote to the night air raids’.
At Radyr the evacuees from Tottenham ‘took up the temporary occupation of the Methodist Chapel, Heol Isaf’.
‘Miss Morwena Davies and
Miss Olwen Davies from the Training College of Domestic Arts are doing a week
of School Practice’ reports the Head of Herbert Thompson Girls’.
Cardiff Education’s Joint Advisory
Committee recommends `that, in view of the fact that Cardiff has now become a
vulnerable area, the Education Committee be asked to make representations to
the Ministry of Health on the question of the evacuation of school children
from the City’.[129]
2nd July
At Metal Street `At 9 am this morning I
was told by Miss Coles, Headmistress of the Girls’ School, that children were
being stopped on their way to school by the police and told to take cover. At
the same time Air Raid Wardens were sounding whistles in the streets. I at once
dispersed the children to their homes and to the air raid shelter. At 9.20 am
the police informed me that it was `All Clear’ and the children returned to
school in time for assembly at 9.30’. Next door at the Infants’, however, only
thirty five children appear.
3rd July
‘There were three day time Air Raid warnings today’ reports the Head of Marlborough Infants’. Because of the night raids there’s a cut in school hours to 11-12, and 2-4 pm in Cardiff’s Infants’ schools, 11-12 and 2-4.30 pm in the Upper schools.[130]
Radnor Girls’ ARP practices became real
when a German aeroplane is spotted overhead at 10.35 am: `Girls in playground
and all under shelter in one and a half minutes. Very satisfactory’.
When the siren sounded at lunchtime at
Clarence Road `About forty or fifty adults, and three children took advantage
of the shelters’.[131]
Two more evacuees are admitted to
Llanederyn bringing the number to twenty-three received since 19th
June. When the air raid siren sounded at 12.15 pm the `Children ran to shelter
in surrounding farms’.
4th July
There’s an air raid warning between
8.50 and 10 am.[132]
Several children arrive late at
Whitchurch Mixed `explaining that Air Raid Wardens had detained them’. The next
day the Head records `The numerous air-raid alarms during the nights this week
have affected the attendance. The children show signs of disturbed sleep’.
5th July
At St. Paul’s Mixed ‘An air raid
warning during the night has reduced the attendance today. The average
attendance for the week is 168 (211 on books): 79.6%’.
Because of what it describes as `the altered conditions and of the feeling of unrest which has been caused in the minds of parents of the children now billeted in the district’ Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee has sent a letter to the Ministry of Health requesting that no more evacuees be received.
8th July
The Director of Education visits Tredegarville and ‘stated that the windows would be covered as a protection against flying glass’.
The Head of Gladstone Boys’ writes a letter drawing the attention of the Director to the poor construction of the air raid shelters at the school.
At Whitchurch Mixed the Head reports
that from now on the evacuated children’s school and his own will alternate the
Double Shift system on a weekly basis. This means the Whitchurch pupils will
attend in the mornings for one week and then afternoons the next and vice
versa.
9th July
At Eleanor Street
‘A daylight air-raid took place today. Boys at P.T. in the school yard saw
bombs drop from an aeroplane into the Docks area. The whole school was put
under cover. There was no warning’.
At Clarence Senior Mixed `Immediately
the children had been sent down for playtime this afternoon, bombs began to
drop in the Docks, not so far away. The scholars ran to the shelters, and all
were under cover very quickly, attended by the teachers. No scholar was sent
home. There were a few on the nervous side. They were encouraged to sing, and
so were unable to hear the anti-aircraft guns. The bombs gave a shock to every
one…The scholars were in the shelters until 3.50, after which they were allowed
to run about the yard for fresh air’.
The Head of Tredegarville records ‘Air
raid…Damage done to ship at the Docks – six killed and several injured. The
children, as soon as the bomb crashed, sheltered beneath the desks’.
The Headmistress of St. Peter’s
explains that the series of day and night air raids has deprived both children
and staff of sufficient sleep. Consequently the `time table has been adapted to
the present emergencies and no terminal tests have been given’.
Cardiff’s Director of Education sends
out a Circular ‘calling attention to the Board’s desire that teachers should
volunteer for escort duty in connection with the `Children’s Overseas Reception
Scheme’’.[133]
In an attempt to provide seating for
the evacuees the Head of Whitchurch Boys’ borrows six tables, twelve trestles
and ten benches from Bethel Baptist Chapel.
André and Rogét Hubrouk, aged ten and
eleven from Ostend in Belgium, are admitted to Gladstone Boys’.[134]
10th July
The `Battle of Britain’
begins with the first large scale German attack on Britain.[135]
The Head of Marlborough Infants’ records ‘Air Raid Warnings 10.30 and 3.15. Children conducted to the shelters. Children arriving at school described the sight of falling bombs. Very disturbed morning; enemy planes over-head. Duck under signal (Gong). Parents very anxious. Attendance 51%. Planes in the vicinity all the afternoon’. At Baden Powell attendance is only 41% in the morning and 44% in the afternoon `Owing to the presence of enemy aircraft overhead’.
Across the City at Grangetown
Boys’ `At 10.30 this morning a German aeroplane flew over the neighbourhood
pursued by British fighters. Anti-aircraft guns were also in action. The boys,
on arrival, were accommodated in the air raid shelter and on the two stairways
until 11.15. They then assembled in their classrooms. Registers were marked,
milk distributed and the boys dismissed at 11.35 am. They were escorted home by
members of the staff’.
At Moorland Girls’ `As the morning
session was spent in the Air Raid Shelters, and the last batch of girls could
not leave until 12.45, it was deemed advisable to close school for the day,
especially as no `all clear’ had been sounded’.
The Head of St. Monica’s
Mixed reports that despite the two raids in the morning and the lack of any
warning ‘the
children were quite calm’.
The girls sitting the
Central Welsh Board’s English examination at Heathfield House are forced to
take cover twice in the morning. The first warning lasts from 10.20 to 10.40,
the second, when ‘no warning was sounded’ lasts from 11.05 to 12.55. Later an
Inspectress from the CWB ‘called to enquire as to the examination conditions
during raids and it was explained to her that it was necessary to break off, on
account of the position of the Examination Room on the top floor and the amount
of glass surrounding it’.
The Head of Albany Boys’ notes `This afternoon, at 4 o`clock, the boys were again sent to the shelters where they remained until 4.35 when the `All Clear’ was given’.
At Stacey Infants’ `Owing to the
present war conditions there will be no playtime. The time table will continue
and children will leave school early’.
Another Circular is sent out regarding
the `Evacuation of children and asking for volunteers to accompany the children
to the port of embarkation’.[136]
11th July
Only eighty pupils turn up to Clarence
Mixed in the morning `and we remained in the shelters until 12.10. One hundred
and six present this afternoon’.
Jean Canon, aged nine from Brussels, is
admitted to Gladstone Boys’.[137]
12th July
Albany Boys’ sees a drop in attendance because of `Air raids during the night’. At Marlborough Infants’ attendance is down to 69%.
The City Engineer tells a meeting of Cardiff’s General Education Committee
`that the cost of providing seating accommodation in the school shelters would
be approximately £1,200, and it was decided not to take any action thereon, at
the present time’.[138]
15th July
Following two warnings the night before
the Head of Heathfield House records ‘During the Chemistry paper this morning
the air-raid warning sounded at 10.20. The candidates continued in the
Geography Room. The ‘All Clear’ sounded at 11. In the afternoon, towards the
end of the Art paper, the signal went again at 4.35. The candidates went on to
the end at 5.30’.
When the sirens are heard at Whitchurch Boys’ `The children were dispersed to local houses (arrangement having been previously made) in record time…Alderman Chappell called in the afternoon and stated that three rooms were to be prepared as shelters, ie protection from falling glass. Now that temporary seating accommodation has been obtained for the evacuees, some semblance of work can be done. The little strangers seem to be settling down to their new surroundings. They are already making friends with our boys, and seem quite happy’.
The Head of Whitchurch Girls’ records `Although
eighty-six Official Evacuees were enrolled during May and June many have
returned to their respective homes. Many parents came for weekends to see their
girls and experienced the first air raid. They became panicky and speedily took
their offsprings to their own (safer) districts’. Because of the night alarms
the girls are `tired and sleepy and concentration almost impossible’.
The school cellar at St. Fagan’s is
inspected to see whether it can be adapted as an air raid shelter.
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee, informed that the Ministry of Health has refused to suspend the sending of more evacuees, resolves to send a telegram to the Ministry urging it to reconsider `having regard to the daily air raids occurring of as many as three and four in 24 hours, and stating that parents are alarmed, with the result that 137 children have already been taken home again’.
Mr. Lawrence Gibby, a teacher at St. Francis’ Mixed, has left for the Royal Navy.
16th July
Hitler orders `Operation Sea
Lion’: the Invasion of Britain.[139]
17th July
Following a survey carried
out at Gladstone Boys’ earlier in the month ‘60% of the boys were immunised
this afternoon against diptheria’.
18th July
The Head of Marlborough
Infants’ reports ‘Raid Warning 11.40 to 12.15. Thuds heard twice, much gun
fire. Children good and orderly. Afternoon at 4 pm and 5 pm children in
shelters. Window Protection...the material was duly received and cut into
required pieces ready for adhesion. Previously the Staff has assisted in making
what protection they could’. Allensbank Infants’ also receives a `roll of anti-smash net’
to protect its windows.
At Tongwynlais
the Head records two air raid warnings: `In both cases the children were
quickly dispersed. The Radyr girls attending Domestic Science were accommodated
in the Boiler House, below ground. This serves as an Air Raid Shelter’.
The Head of Whitchurch Boys’ notes `the
children as yet, look upon the raids as `charming little episodes’ – a break in
school life monotony. This is just as well, as by the time the severe raids
occur, everything will be working smoothly. We as teachers are doing our utmost
to keep the children’s minds `off’ war talk, and although it is apparent that
the little ones are naturally suffering from war-strain, still we are able to
keep up as happy as possible’.
At St. Alban’s Mixed the Head explains
that because of the interruption caused by the air raids the children have been
examined ‘in the 3 Rs only’.
Radnor Girls’ has a `Collection of
Aluminium for war purposes’.
19th July
At Llanishen the Head records:
`Air Raid Warning 2.49 pm. Pupils dispersed.
Raiders Passed 3.55 pm. Some returned.
2nd Air raid Warning 4.15 pm. Pupils dispersed’.
The Director tells Cardiff’s Education
Committee ‘that at some schools members of the public had rushed into school
shelters on an air raid warning seriously impeding school organisation.
Resolved…that no access to school shelters would be given to the public during
school hours’.
`Children’s Overseas Reception Scheme.-
The Director reported that applications for 1,630 children for evacuation
overseas had been received. It was further stated that although the operation
of the scheme had been postponed, preparations for embarking children already
registered as and when the opportunity arose were being proceeded with’.[140]
The last of the evacuees at Llanederyn
return to London.
20th July
Albany Girls’ receives a
Circular about `School Sessions – From 13th August to 15th
November 1940. Morning Session 10 am – 12 noon. Afternoon Session 2 pm – 4.30
pm. From 18th November 1940 – 31st January 1941, Morning
Session 10 am – 12 noon. Afternoon Sessions 1.30 pm – 3.45 pm’.
An Air Raid occurs between
3 and 4 pm.[141]
22nd July
Over the weekend the storeroom at
Windsor-Clive has been broken into and twenty-six pairs of plimsolls, a dozen
toilet rolls and 10lbs of soap have been stolen.
The Head of Whitchurch Boys’ warns the
evacuees about `rough play in the evenings’.
Mr. Haimes is transferred from Cathays
High for Boys’ to the Technical College ‘to take charge of a class for training
production employees’.
23rd July
At Clarence Infants’ the Head notes
that she has abandoned the terminal exams `owing to the frequency of air-raids
night and day. Little ones tired and nervous and unable to concentrate’.
There is another warning in
the afternoon.[142]
24th July
Roath Boys’ receives ‘a quantity of net for the windows. These were cut up into suitable sizes by Teachers and Senior Pupils’. ‘Workmen started putting muslin on the windows’ at Crofts Street.
There is another 55 minute long warning in the afternoon despite which, at St. Monica’s Mixed at least, ‘the children are in good order and good heart’.[143]
25th July
There is another hour-long alert in the
afternoon.[144]
Because of the bombing the usual
month-long summer holiday is cancelled by the City of Cardiff. Instead there
will be a two week break now and another one at the beginning of October.[145]
The Head of Marlborough
Infants’ reports that ‘Many children have left for the duration of the war,
having gone to a quieter area’.
At St. Alban’s Infants’ the `Return of
Physically Handicapped Children was completed and returned to the South Wales
Organiser, Council for the Care of Cripples’.
Miss Marjorie Jones leaves Allensbank
Infants’ for the WAAF.
29th July
An Inspector from London
County Council visits Llysfaen.
30th July
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation Committee notes a Circular from the Board of Education `impressing on the Authorities of Reception Areas the need for taking all possible steps to ensure that (1) children who have been evacuated should not return to the evacuation areas for their holidays, and (2) such children should, during the school holidays, be taken out of the hands of the householders as much as possible…’ Consequently, `buildings and playgrounds of all schools in such areas attended by evacuated children are to be kept open for recreative activities during the whole or the greater part of the summer holidays’.
The Committee also notes a letter from Mr. Gibbs, Billeting Officer for Lisvane and adjoining parishes, `stating he is seriously alarmed at the stream of returning evacuees from the area under his charge, namely, seventy-eight out of a total of 119 children…’ In all, of the 1,311 evacuated school-children received into the District, 258 have returned home.
13th August
It is `Eagle Day’: The start of the
Luftwaffe’s campaign to destroy the RAF, its airfields and aircraft factories
so as to allow the German Army a safe passage across the English Channel...[146]
The Head of St. Peter’s notes that so far there have been seventy-one air raids over Cardiff.
At St. Alban’s Mixed ‘Peter Walentine, a lad in Form 2, was killed in an air raid during the night’. Peter was thirteen and lived at 184 Portmanmoor Road.[147] The Head of Ninian Infants’ reports that the raid had lasted for three and a half hours.
Mr. Robert Cornish, a Grangetown Boys’ teacher, `has been granted a week’s extension to his holiday as he has been engaged in escorting overseas evacuees to Liverpool for embarkation’.
14th August
Because of `the frequent air alarms during the night’ attendance is low.[148] At Albany Boys’ it is 80%, at St. Mary’s Seniors in Bute Terrace it’s 73% and at Marlborough Girls’ and Metal Street Boys’ only 59% turn up.
15th August
At Gladstone Infants’ ‘Fourteen children arrived in school this morning out of 328 owing to the siren sounding at School Time - these were sent home when the ‘All Clear’ was sounded’. Next door the Head of the Boys’ records ‘Air Raid Warning sounded at 9 am. When I reached school after the ‘All Clear’ I found the children in the shelters and all the Staff present. We remained there until 10.50 am. The children then returned to their classes and there were 207 present’. Radnor Boys’ reports on a second warning later in the morning.
16th August
Mr. Cornish informs the Head of
Grangetown that he has `another escort engagement for the 19th
August’.
Mr. F.G. Davies, a teacher at St.
Alban’s Mixed, ‘left school today to join the Air Force for the duration of the
war’. Mr. David John leaves Herbert Thompson Boys’ for the Royal Navy.
17th August
In the morning the Headmistress of
Court Girls’ ‘took Joan Coombes and Edith Thomas to the City Hall in order to
present the Lord Mayor with a cheque for £2 – money which had been collected by
the girls for the ‘Cardiff Spitfire Fund’’.
19th August
The Head of Clarence Mixed records
`Last Thursday morning, after the first `All Clear’ signal, some of the boys
who were on their way to school, and were nearer the school shelter than the
public shelter, were turned back by a Warden and told to go to a public
shelter. Consequently, we lost their [attendance] marks.
Some of our scholars were away on
Friday afternoon, as one or two Air Raid Wardens had advised that it would be
better for them not to go to school as they were expecting an Air Raid that
afternoon. I am given to understand that even the yellow signal did not turn up
at all that day.
The above remarks have been forwarded
to the Director of Education, hoping that steps could be taken to prevent a
recurrence of such incidents’.
At St. Fagan’s the cellar has been
whitewashed and fitted with an electric light so as to serve as an air raid
shelter.
Whitchurch Mixed re-opens though, as
the Head explains, `The lessons are of a recreational nature, games, singing,
play-reading; handcraft and domestic science, physical training and swimming;
nature walks.
The number of children attending is:-
Glamorgan children 347
Evacuees absorbed 16
Evacuees in separate school 145
Chatham Junior Tech. for Girls 88
During the holidays, walls have been
erected to minimize the blast of exploding bombs. Children are now sheltered
during air raids in rooms having this protection’.
20th August
Eleanor Street is closed because ‘a
delayed-action bomb has been dropped on the foreshore some fifty yards away by
enemy aircraft during the night’.
At Marlborough Infants’ attendance is down and the children and staff are very tired as they’d had little sleep last night owing to an air raid when ‘screaming bombs’ were used. The Head of Albany Boys’ records that the ‘warning was on from 10 pm to 4.30 am’.
There are aeroplanes about
in the day-time too.[149]
Mr. Cook, a Cathays High
for Boys’ teacher, has left for the Army.
21st August
Gladstone Boys’ records an ‘Air raid warning sounded at 10.35 am. Children went home and to the shelters. All Clear sounded at 11.40 am. Children in shelters returned to school. Another warning sounded in five minutes and children returned to shelters until 12.20 pm’.
22nd August
At Eleanor Street
‘The bomb having been exploded by the military authorities, the school opened
this morning with 54% present. Some damage to the roof and windows has been
caused and, following a visit from the Director of Education and Mr. W. Thomas,
Inspector, workmen are now attending to it’.
Reporting on an air raid between 10.30
and 11.12 the Head of St. Fagan’s notes `Part of the school sheltered in school
shelter, remainder sheltered near haystack in field’.
Later at Gladstone Boys’ ‘Gunfire heard at 4 pm. Children taken to shelters. When all was quiet they were sent home. This was at 4.30 pm’.
23rd August
`During last night, there
were continuous air raids lasting from 9.50 pm until 5 o’clock this morning.
Bombs were being dropped and there were loud reports from guns. Children could
have had very little sleep and there were eighty-four absent this morning’
records the Head of St. Peter’s.
At Marlborough Infants’:
‘Planes overhead, gunfire 11.35 am over the playground’. At St. Peter’s
`There was no warning for children to take cover, but as there was a good deal
of gun fire the children down on the ground floor lay down on the floor under
the desks and the bigger girls came down to the cloakroom and under the
stairs’. Next door at Heathfield House when ‘heavy gun-fire was heard…the
pupils came to the places assigned on the ground floor but no-one went to the
shelters’.
26th August
Mr. Mends finally leaves Metal Street
Boys’ for the RAF and the Head records another warning in the afternoon.
27th August
Cardiff’s schools receive a Circular
demanding that they report immediately any ‘damage to school property through
enemy action’.[150]
The Head of Moorland Girls’ explains
that the promotions she has made are based on last term’s work. `Very few
examinations were taken, as attendance was extremely poor and those who did
attend showed very little power of concentration – all due to disturbed nights
caused by air-raids’.
At Hawthorn Mixed ‘On Saturday morning
John Griffiths and Vera Evans accompanied by the Headmaster and Miss Sparks
with two girls from the Infants’ School went to the City Hall. The children
presented the Lord Mayor with seven guineas, collected by the children, for the
Lord Mayor’s Spitfire Fund. The children were afterwards received and
congratulated by the Director of Education’.[151]
29th August
Lansdowne Infants’ admits a seven year
old boy who ‘has had meningitis twice lately. Doctor’s advice to proceed
slowly’.
There’s an air raid between
3.50 and 4.55 pm.[152]
30th August
An air raid lasts from
12.30 to 1 pm.[153]
At St. Mary’s in Bute Terrace `Miss F.E. Richards terminated her engagement as Uncertificated Teacher. She is retiring after forty-seven years service in this school’.
The average attendance for August at
Splott Infants’ is 246. A year earlier it had been 333.[154]
Miss Parry, HMI, visits Greenhill `to
note arrangements made for providing an air-raid shelter for the school’.
One of the teachers at Gladstone Boys’ leaves to take up duties under the Ministry of Labour, one at Windsor-Clive leaves to join the Forces.
2nd September
There are two more air raid warnings. The first, in the morning, lasts an hour. The second, in the afternoon, half an hour.[155] At Hywel Dda Infants’ all the children are taken to the air raid shelters in the morning ‘as the warning was not heard in time to disperse’.
Of the four children not promoted at
Radnor Infants’ two are evacuees whilst one of the two children not promoted at
Canton Infants’ `has missed a great deal of time in school owing to impetigo
and sores’.
The Head of Clarence Infants’ reports
that three of the pupils who should have been transferred upstairs to the Mixed
School have been `removed to a safe area’.
At Lansdowne Boys’ Mr. Alfred P. Green
is not included in the list of staff ‘as he has applied for his ‘Break Down’
pension and is thus not likely to return for school duties. Mr. Green has given
thirty-eight years of loyal and efficient service in this school, and it is
very unfortunate that ill-health has caused his early retirement. He was an
excellent teacher’.
At Whitchurch Mixed `Normal lessons
were resumed today. The Hall of the Wesleyan Church at the junction of Penlline
and Kelston Roads has been acquired for educational purposes during the `off
shifts’, ie from 10.45 to 12.15. Local children use this hall during the
mornings of this week for short services, singing, play-reading and folk
dancing. Those who cannot be accommodated there assemble in the school yard
and, after registration, have games, lessons on the ordnance survey maps,
nature study and outdoor sketching’.
Following in the footsteps of his
brother, Mr. Albert Gibby leaves St. Francis’ Mixed for the Navy. He is replaced
by Elizabeth Colbert, an uncertificated teacher.
3rd September
The Head of Stacey Infants’ records
`Air Raid warning sounded at 10.30. All Clear 11.55. Dismissed school’.
Cardiff’s General Education Committee
receives a letter `from the Cardiff Association of the NUT enclosing
resolutions passed by the Association on the following matters, viz.:- (a)
Lighting, ventilation, sanitation and seating for school shelters; (b)
Provision of Air Raid shelters for all Cardiff school children; (c) Air Raid shelters
for Public Parks and (d) Evacuation of schools deemed to be in a vulnerable
locality’.
`Consciencious Objectors.- Resolved –
That notice to terminate their engagements be served in accordance with the
resolution of the City Council on Clifford W. Othen, Cardiff High School for
Boys, and Dewi L. Jones and D. Ll. Walters, Welsh Staff, who have been
registered as consciencious objectors’.[156]
Mr. Leslie Herbert Leaves Radnor Boys’
`for National Service in the Navy’.
4th September
At Albany Boys’ `During the
night the district around the school was attacked by enemy `planes and many
bombs, high explosive and incendiary, were dropped on property (including the
Wesleyan Church) in the vicinity. People were brought out of their homes nearby
and sheltered for a time in this and Marlborough Road School, about 250 being
brought here, and afterwards taken to the Wesleyan School Hall in City Road or
the Church Hall in Wyverne Road. First aid treatment was given to the injured,
many of whom were afterwards taken to hospital. It is feared there is some loss
of life. Many windows in the school were blown out by the bombs and a ceiling
collapsed in Room 9. Police and Military placed a cordon around the district
and all roads leading to the affected area were closed to the general public.
Only a few boys presented themselves at school. These were kept under shelter
until an Air Raid alarm was cancelled by the All Clear signal when they were
sent home. The presence of unexploded bombs in the immediate vicinity of the school
was the deciding consideration in the dismissal of the few boys who attended
for the afternoon session’.
The Head of Marlborough Infants’
records that last night ‘was the most terrible of those yet experienced. Bombs
fell with swift whistling sounds and alarm. Wellfield Road and Albany Road
suffered severely. Head Teacher was asked by A.R.P. to go to the school early -
the Infants’ School had been used to receive refugees from the devastated area.
The Director was at the school. He advised taking in any children from the
district around, to keep them away from the wrecked area. The Infants were
accommodated in the Girls’ school for the
morning. There were two air raid warnings during the morning. Children in the
shelters’.
At Roath Boys’ `bombs were
dropped in the vicinity of the school. Two boys were seriously injured at their
homes and taken to hospital. A number of houses were evacuated, the families
including a number of our boys. Two delayed-action bombs were dropped about
fifty yards away and, as a consequence, the school was closed for two whole
days. By Friday morning, September 6th the bombs were removed by the
military, and the school re-opened at 10 am. 164 boys present out of 305
(54%)’.
The Head of St. Peter’s
records `Night air raids have been continuous but last night was one of the
worst…Houses were demolished by high explosives and delayed-action bombs in
Angus St., Diana St., Arabella St., Donald St., Alfred St., Moy Rd., Wellfield
and Albany and Claude Roads’.
At Gladstone: ‘‘Air Raid’
warning at 9.35. ‘All Clear’ 9.55. School assembled at 10.10. Second warning at
10.25. ‘All Clear’ at 10.40. School reassembled. ‘Gun-fire’ sent children to
shelters. Scholars re-assembled at 11.20. Attendance very poor in consequence.
Third warning - lasted from 1.15 to 1.45’.[157]
At Llysfaen ‘School
vacated twice this morning due to air raid warnings. Gun firing after ‘all
clear’ so that children had to be kept in the hall as a precaution against
falling shrapnel, pieces of which have been found by children in the yard’.
The Head of Birchgrove Mixed records
that although the `all clear’ signal had gone at 10.05 `we saw a fight going on
above and sheltered for ten minutes more’. It was the same at St. Francis’
Mixed where, because gun-fire continued after the second all-clear, the
children remained in the shelters for another hour and were then dismissed `a
few at a time in case of danger’.
Cardiff’s Education Committee is told
that Winifred Waters, of 78 Arabella Street, Roath, and a pupil at Cathays High
School for Girls was killed in last night’s attack: `It is deeply regretted
that the whole family were killed in this raid’. As well as Winifred, her
mother and father and 21 year old sister died.
As well as the Waters family, seven
year old Percy Holdstock of 3 Angus Street, Roath, a pupil at Roath Park, and
Ivor and Herbert Folland of 2 Angus Street, aged ten and fourteen, the one a
pupil at Roath the other at Howard Gardens, have been seriously injured and six
year old Shirley Stevens of 2 Angus Street, a pupil at Roath Infants, has been
slightly wounded.[158]
During the attack on Roath
‘Angus Street, Moy Road and Claude Place, where an oil bomb set three
properties ablaze, all suffered damage and loss of life. There were forty six
casualties that night, eleven of them fatal’.
`One of the bombs dropped in very close
proximity to a crowded cinema, creating some alarm, but fortunately the
building was not damaged and no casualties were sustained’.[159]
Up until the early Autumn
‘South Wales had been visited by enemy aircraft on more occasions than anywhere
else in Britain and representatives from the Civil Defence organisations came
from London and other cities to see how similar services were coping in
Cardiff. The raids at this stage, involving
a few bombers at a time, were to continue until the end of the year…’[160]
5th September
Because of the unexploded
bombs around Albany Road `During the early morning more people were advised to leave
their houses’ and `the Military Authorities considered it unsafe for the children
to be on school premises’ so the schools are closed
for the day.[161]
There is another warning in the morning.[162]
Mr. Hubert Davis leaves Radnor Boys’ for the Army and Mr. B. Roberts, another teacher at Cathays High for Boys’, also leaves for the Forces.
6th September
Roath Girls’ re-opens but
only eighty-three pupils are present. The Head notes that a Spanish refugee
admitted to the school in February has not been promoted. The Albany Schools
re-open but at the Girls’ attendance is only 50%.
At Gladstone
Boys’ ‘Gun-fire’ sent the scholars to shelters from 11.40 to 12 o’clock.
‘Gun-fire’ was again heard at 3.50. The children remained in the shelters until
4.20’. A German aeroplane is seen over St. Francis’ Mixed and gun-fire
heard at 3.55 pm.
Sister Mary Agnese, the Headmistress of
Heathfield House, records candidly ‘The air-raid warnings are now so frequent
that no more notice will be taken of their occurance unless anything serious
occurs in connection with them’.
Mr. T.J. Thomas, the Geography Teacher at Whitchurch Mixed, leaves for the RAF and Mr. Coles from Whitchurch Boys’ also leaves for the Forces.
7th September
The Luftwaffe changes tactics. Instead of attacking the RAF
the Germans switch to the mass bombing of London and other British cities in
the hope that the British people will panic and surrender. It becomes known as
the `Blitz’…[163]
9th September
One of the teachers at
Gladstone Infants’ attends the funeral of a girl guide killed in the bombing.
The Headmistress of St. Peter’s notes that `Day raids are not quite so frequent
and attendance is better’.
The Grangetown
Continuation, or Evening, School re-opens for the Autumn session offering
classes in Commercial and Technical subjects, Cookery and `Adult Dressmaking’
from 7.15 to 9.15 pm. Thirty nine people enrol during the week. [In September
1938, eighty-eight people had enrolled.[164]]
10th September
At Gladstone Boys’ ‘Gun-fire’ sent scholars to shelters 10.05 am. Scholars returned to rooms at 11 am’.
Cardiff’s schools receive a Circular informing them that ‘dispersed’ children must return to school ‘provided the ‘All Clear’ is sounded up to half an hour before dismissal’.[165]
Mr. David Williams, a teacher at Viriamu Jones, is called up to join the Forces.
11th September
Ernest and John Rudge, who have been living at 34 Bettws y Coed Road since September 1939, spend their last day at Gladstone Boys’ before returning home to London.[166]
12th September
The Head of Metal Street Boys’ records
`During last night numbers of incendiary bombs fell in the streets surrounding
the school. None fell on the school premises’.
At Gladstone Boys’ ‘‘Siren’
sounded at 1.50. ‘All Clear’ at 2.10’.
This is the last day at Roath Boys’ for
Peter Swain who is moving to Birchgrove because his house at 32 Alfred Street
has been ‘destroyed in an air raid’.[167]
Mr. T. Stevens leaves St. Patrick’s Mixed for the Forces as does Mr. A.
Rees, a teacher at Cathays High for Boys’.
13th September
Another Herbert Thompson Boys’ teacher,
Mr. Gethin Thomas, is called up for the Navy.
16th September
`High explosive bombs fell in Orbit
Street last night. As a result the attendance was poor this morning’ records
the Head of Metal Street Boys’. In the morning the Director of Education
accompanied by the Chief Inspector of Schools visits `to see the effects of air
raids on the children’. At St. Peter’s they report that because of an air raid
alarm school didn’t start until 10.30. The Head of Radnor Girls’ notes
laconically `Miss Robinson absent – house bombed, miraculous escape’. Consequently
she’s granted a week’s leave of absence…
As Mr. Parry, the Geography Master at
Cathays High for Boys’, leaves for Military Service so Misses E.J. Baker and V.
Fernandez commence duties as ‘temporary’ teachers at the school.
17th September
There are another two Air Raid warnings, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. Both last for half an hour.[168]
No class is held in the Cookery Centre at Court Girls’ because ‘Miss Stewart and eight girls attended the ‘Kitchen Front Campaign’ which was held at Messrs James Howell and Co.’
Following the Luftwaffe’s failure to
destroy the RAF, Hitler postpones the invasion of Britain `until further
notice’…[169]
18th September
An Air Raid warning in the
morning lasts for an hour and a half.[170]
`Work has been in progress during the
past week in erecting blast walls at certain selected places around the school
buildings for the protection of children during air raids’ records the Head of
Tongwynlais.
Mr. J.D. Williams, who has
taught at Gladstone Boys since 1932, is seconded to work at Cathays High School
though ‘no other teacher has arrived to take his place’. Mr. G.E.
Groves of St. Mary’s Mixed in Bute Terrace is called up for Military Service.
20th September
At a meeting of Cardiff’s General
Education Committee: `School Shelters. – The question of (a) cleansing; (b)
seating; (c) lighting, these shelters was considered. Resolved – (1) That it be
a recommendation that the caretakers be paid for cleaning these, and the ARP
Committee be recommended to pay the amount incurred; (2) that seating be
provided, and that the ARP Committee be recommended to contribute towards the
cost, but in the meantime, that it be a recommendation to the Elementary
Education Committee that the children should take their chairs to the shelters;
(3) that the ARP Committee be recommended to light these shelters at their own
cost’.[171]
23rd September
There are two more warnings
in the morning.[172]
At Albany Boys’ `News was
published this weekend of the sinking by enemy action (torpedo) of a British
ship carrying children from this country to Canada, 600 miles off land and in
very stormy seas. Among them was a pupil of this school – Leighton Ryman…He
with many evacuees lost their lives’.
On 17th September
the U-48 had sunk the Liner City of
Benares and 260 evacuees had been killed.[173]
At Windsor-Clive `Mr. R.W. Loosemore
absent from school according to the Director of Education’s instructions.
Proceeding to Liverpool with overseas evacuees’.
24th September
There is an air raid warning at 11.40
am.[174]
Mr. G.J. Salmon, another St. Mary’s
Mixed teacher, is called up for Military Service.[175]
25th September
There is an air raid
warning in the morning.[176]
In the afternoon Mr. Dan Jones speaks at Birchgrove Mixed on the `Origin of the
Universe’.
26th September
Another woman, Miss M.
Bevan, begins teaching in a temporary capacity at Cathays High
for Boys’.
Another warning lasts from
3.50 to 4.10.[177]
Mr. A.M. Danovitch, who has taught at
Viriamu Jones since April 1934, is called up to join the Armed Forces. `He was
a good, energetic and helpful Assistant and we are sorry to lose him’.
27th September
The Head of Whitchurch Boys’ records:
`Air Raid 9.35 – 9.48 am.
Air Raid 11.45 – 12.15.
Air Raid 2.08 – 2.30 pm.
Feeling that the raids were rather
intense today and that so many `planes had worked through the Bristol Channel,
coupled with the possibility that there were ‘planes lurking behind some
suitable cloud, the children were dismissed ten minutes before time this
afternoon – according to ARP regulations’.
Gordon Lawrence, evacuated from London,
says goodbye at Gladstone Boys’. Of the twenty-four evacuees admitted to the
school in 1939 only four now remain.[178]
According to a log of the air-raids
kept by the Headmistress of Grangetown Girls’ September has seen seventeen
warnings during school hours and her pupils have spent a total of 7 hours and
15 minutes in the shelters.[179]
At a meeting of Cardiff’s Education Committee `The Director reported that since
15th July, 1940, air raid warnings had been sounded during thirty
school sessions causing a total loss in school time of nearly eighteen hours’.[180]
The Director also presents a report on
the Children’s Overseas Reception Board. Of the 1,630 applications, forty-one
Cardiff children, twenty-six elementary pupils and fifteen secondary ones had
been selected for evacuation to Australia (13), New Zealand (1), South Africa
(9) and Canada (18). The evacuation had been organised by grouping the children
in Nominal Rolls, seven of which had been received to date. Eleven children,
those in Rolls 1 and 2, had already been evacuated. The twelve Cardiff children
selected in the third Roll had been on a ship which had been torpedoed and all
had returned to Britain. However, five of the children in the fourth Roll were
on board the City of Benares when it
was torpedoed on Tuesday, September 17th during a severe storm. The
ship was making for Canada and the Cardiff children were among the victims.
`Resolved – That the Director be
instructed to write to the parents of the children lost…expressing the
heartfelt sympathy and sincere condolence of this Committee in their sad
bereavement’.
Name Address Age School
Leighton Ryman 147 Richmond Rd. 9 Albany
Rd.
Lewis Came 25 Earl St. 11 Grangetown
James Came 25 Earl St. 13 Howard Gardens
Margaret Lloyd 85 Wellington St. 14 Canton High
Nesta Lloyd 85 Wellington St. 12 Canton High
`The Director reported that he had
received a revised list of evacuation, neutral, and reception areas in England
and Wales, from the Board of Education, and it was noted that Cardiff remained
classified as a neutral area’.[181]
30th September
Roy Hambleton of 11 Montgomery Street
leaves Roath Boys’ as he is being ‘evacuated to London’.[182]
Mr. Thomas Reynolds leaves Hywel Dda
Mixed for Military Service.
1st October
Cardiff Rural District’s Government Committee, now renamed ‘Evacuation & Welfare’, is told by its Chief Billeting Officer `that forty-nine mothers with eighty-four children had arrived yesterday and are being temporarily cared for by the Public Assistance Committee at the City Lodge, Cardiff, and that billets for them have to by arranged by tomorrow, and, further, called attention to the difficulty that arises by reason of the fact that eight of the mothers have families of five, four, and three children with them’. The Committee resolves `that the principle of requisitioning empty dwelling-houses be agreed to for the accommodation of mothers with large families…’[183]
Cardiff Education’s Elementary
Committee records that the Managers of the Roman Catholic schools had met to
consider a suggestion from the Director that they cancel Church Holidays and
had decided that for the duration of the war the schools would close in the
mornings only to allow pupils and staff to attend Mass.
`It was noted that arrangements had
been made for nine evacuee children from Leytonstone to be admitted to
Greenhill House Open-Air School, and that the border fee of 9/- per child per
week will be paid by the Leytonstone Authority’.[184]
3rd October
At Whitchurch Mixed `An air raid
sounded at 10.44 this morning and the all clear did not sound until 11.42…A
`plane could be heard for some time after the sounding of the `all clear’’.
5th-12th
October
This is ‘Cardiff War
Weapons Week’.
11th October
Cardiff’s General Education Committee
notes a letter from the Welsh Board of Health `informing the Committee that the
Howard Gardens and Canton High Schools had been earmarked for the purposes of
reserve hospitals and asking whether accommodation can be provided on these
premises for the storage of beds, bedding and other medical supplies…’
13th October
Sunday. Whitchurch Mixed ‘was prepared
for 150 mothers and children evacuated from London. Double bunks were installed
in the Geography Room and Rooms 1, 2, 3 & 4. Only sixty-one arrived and
these were billeted by Wednesday 16th October’.
14th October
Cardiff’s schools receive a Circular
with a
copy of a minute passed by the Education Committee on 27th
September, 1940:
`The Director reported that he had
visited schools during and immediately after air raids, and that he found the
morale of both staffs and pupils to be unshaken. Further, the attendance of
children even in districts which had been bombed heavily on previous nights was
almost normal’.
Resolved: `That the Committee place on
record their great appreciation of the way in which both teachers and pupils
are carrying on during these difficult times’.[185]
Other Circulars tell them that heating
and lighting are to be provided in their shelters and ‘A stirrup pump and three
buckets are to be provided to each school. Bells and whistles should not be
used except by an authorised person engaged in ARP work’.[186]
Roath Boys’ peripatetic
Welsh teacher is called up to join the Royal Navy whilst at
Clarence Mixed `Mr. M. Richards has joined the RAF’.
16th October
Cardiff’s schools are told
that the usual mid-term holiday has been cancelled.[187]
At Gladstone Boys’: ‘Air
Raid. Children sent home at 2.15. Resumed work at 3 pm’.
`The sum of £18 was sent to the Lord
Mayor of Cardiff. The money was raised by the girls of this school towards the
purchase of a third `Spitfire’ aeroplane’ records the Head of St. Peter’s.
[Appended to the Log is a newspaper cutting about this fund-raising which
reports that the children of Baden Powell Mixed and Infants’ have also donated
£5. 12. 6. and the `Spitfire Fund’ now stands at £10,648]
Mr. Clifford Stainer, a
teacher at Hywel
Dda Mixed, leaves for Military Service.
18th October
Mr. H. Watkins, a teacher
at Grangetown Boys’, `has to report today for service with the RAF. He may
return to duty next week for a short time’.
19th October
`Sirens sounded at 3.13 pm. Usual
procedure. All Clear 3.22 pm. Sirens sounded 3.27. All Clear 4.02. As the last
period could not be taken the children did not return to school’ notes the Head
of Metal Street Boys’.
21st October
At Gladstone the Headmaster records ‘Air Raid warning at 3.18. All Clear at 3.30. Another warning at 3.35pm. All Clear at 4. Children sent home after the second All Clear’.
There is a meeting at the City Hall in the afternoon at which Lord Kennet stresses the `necessity for an increase in National Savings’.[188]
22nd October
Mr. J.P. Power, a ‘supply
teacher’ at
St. Alban’s Mixed, leaves to join the Forces.
23rd October
Whitchurch Mixed is again `used today
for the reception, inspection and billeting of 261 children, who were in the
charge of twenty three adults, from North Northolt (Ealing Education
Committee). The party was billeted as follows:-
Teachers Infants Juniors Seniors
Lisvane 1 1 6 8
Pentyrch 1 3 14 13
Radyr 1 6 11 10
Whitchurch 9 27 91 76
Mr. Aneurin Williams, another Hywel Dda
Mixed teacher, is called up for Military Service.
24th October
St. Alban’s Infants’ receives `three
galvanised buckets’ for ARP purposes.
There is a 15 minute `Alert’ at 1.25
pm.[189]
Mr. W.A. James resigns as a temporary
supply teacher at St. Patrick’s Mixed `having been called up for active service
in the RAF’.
25th October
De La Salle raises £3. 11. 2. for the
Spitfire Fund whilst at St. Mary’s Infants’ in Canton ‘£8 has been collected
this week for National Savings’.[190]
Roath Boys’ raises £20 and Lansdowne Boys’ £20. 0. 5.[191]
Metal Street Infants’ raises £20. 19. 0. for War Weapons Week and `A Postal
Order for 18/- was sent to the Lord Mayor for the Spitfire Fund’. Allensbank
Infants’ raises £31. 0. 6. and Roath Girls’ £51.15. 0. At Highfields the total
is £77. 8. 6. and at St. Illtyd’s it is £80.[192]
Mr. Saunders, another Cathays High for
Boys’ teacher, has left for the RAF.
28th October
St. Fagan’s re-opens after a
fortnight’s holiday and admits two more official evacuees and an unofficial
one. Radyr admits twenty-three evacuees from Ealing together with a teacher. At
Llanishen the Head records `Eleven children – seven boys, four girls, evacuated
from Woodend Junior & Senior School, Ealing, reported to school as all were
billetted in the Glamorgan County Area. I telephoned the City Hall for
instructions. After three calls I was instructed to treat them as `Border’
cases and refuse admission until the usual acceptance of financial
responsibility by the Glamorgan Education Committee had been received’.
At Llanederyn `Work of
protecting the school against the blast from bombs commenced’.
Another warning lasts from
11.45 to 12.40 pm.[193]
30th October
Forty more evacuees and two teachers
from Ealing arrive at Whitchurch Girls’. One class is taken in the Hall, the
rest, together with thirteen who arrived yesterday are taken to the Wesleyan
Chapel where three rooms are now being used to teach about seventy-five
evacuees.
At Whitchurch Boys’ `Two new Evacuee
Teachers were added to this staff this morning – Messrs John Francis Ransom and
Frederick J. Stevens of Wood End Junior School, Greenford, Ealing’.
Cardiff Education’s Joint Advisory
Committee discusses a petition from Splott calling for all children to be kept
at school during air raids, for deep shelters of the Haldane type to be
provided at all schools and for hot drinks and meals to be provided for
children detained in the shelters. In response the Committee declines to go
against the Board of Education’s instructions regarding the dispersal of
children during air raids, points out that deep shelters are not practical in
Cardiff as they would flood and decides `conditions do not yet justify the
provision of hot drinks and meals for the children’.
The Committee hears that because no
Timber Permits had yet been granted the City Engineer had been unable to
provide heating, lighting and seating in the school air raid shelters and
`Hurricane lamps for lighting had not proved successful in view of the fumes
which caused the air to become foul’.[194]
A concert is held at Canton High School
for Boys `to mark, officially, the installation of the organ which was a
memorial to those members of staff and pupils who had given their lives in the
1914-18 war’.[195]
31st October
The Head of St. Mary’s Mixed in Bute Terrace `did not send the boys to the Marlborough Manual Centre this afternoon. It was raining very heavily and many of them were poorly clad and badly shod’.
There is another meeting of head teachers at the City Hall called by the Director ‘to arrange for First Aid classes in the schools’.[196]
1st November
During an air-raid warning between 12.45 and 1.15 pm the children at Greenhill are `unable to take shelter in the air raid shelters owing to their condition – pools of water made their use impossible’.
4th November
As a result of a Nutrition Survey at
St. Paul’s Mixed ‘thirty-four children are to receive free milk and of this
number eleven have also been recommended for free meals’.
[As a result of a Board of Education
Circular dated 22nd July 1940 the last month has witnessed a change
in policy for nutrition surveys. Previously ‘a child was judged to be suffering
from malnutrition only if definite physical signs such as thinness, poor muscle
tone, bad posture, pallor, anaemia, dark rings under the eyes, debilitated
appearance or stunted growth were in evidence’ and ‘recommendations by the
teachers for the purpose of providing extra nourishment were accepted only if
the children so recommended showed one or more of these signs’. Now it is
accepted ‘that a child should be provided with extra nourishment if there were
any signs of deficiency, however slight,
whether educational or physical, and further that, and generally speaking,
the recommendation by the teacher…should be sufficient indication for the
provision of free milk or meals’. As a direct result the numbers recommended
for extra nourishment have risen from just 7% of those examined to almost 25%.[197]]
Another Cathays High for Boys’ teacher, Mr. Ware, ‘reported to the RAF for service as an Education Officer’.
6th November
The `Shelters were so
flooded with the recent storms that children could not use them in the raid
today’ records the Headmistress of St. Peter’s.
7th November
Cardiff Rural District’s Evacuation & Welfare Committee is given a breakdown of the total number of evacuees billeted to date:
Unaccompanied children 1,035
Accompanied children 340
Mothers 219
Others 92
Total 1,686
At Grangetown Boys’ `Mr. A.E. Hall terminates his duties as Temporary Supply Teacher on being appointed as a Wireless Officer in the Merchant Navy’. Once again another teacher, Mr. Russell, leaves Cathays High for Boys’ for the Army.
11th November
Armistice Day services are held in all
schools. At Llanishen `Staff and children attended the Parish Church to lay a
wreath on the War Memorial’.
Cardiff schools receive a Circular:
`Owing to the continuation of Summer Time during the winter months, School
Sessions are to be as follows:-
Morning 10 am – 12 noon.
Afternoon 2 pm – 4.30 pm.’
Afternoon sessions in Infant schools
will be from 2 to 4 pm.[198]
The Head of Gladstone Boys’ reports on
another air raid warning and complains that the ‘Shelters are in a dreadful state,
wet, dark, cold and seatless’.
News is received at Hywel Dda
Mixed that a pupil, Betty Gundersen, has died of diptheria.[199]
Cardiff’s Education Committee adopts an
Administrative Memorandum from the Board of Education `That as from 1st
April, 1940, a war allowance of 6% of salary shall be paid to teachers whose
renumeration does not exceed £260 per annum…’[200]
12th November
At St. Fagan’s the Head records `Very
boisterous weather. Poor attendance of pupils from outlying area, there being
no bus service now available’.
‘An air raid alarm sounded this
afternoon at 3 pm. Very heavy rain was falling at the time. Children remained
in their classrooms and normal work proceeded’ admits the Head of St. Paul’s
Mixed.
13th November
The Head of Stacey Infants’
records `Raid
warning at 3, all clear 3.15. Children returned to school. Raid warning 3.40
and the all clear 5 o’clock’.
15th November
There is another air raid warning in
the morning which causes many of the boys at Albany to be late.
Seventy London evacuees admitted to
Whitchurch Girls’ are enrolled at the Wesleyan Chapel and a further forty-seven
from Birmingham are being taught at the Ararat Baptist Chapel.[201]
The Head of Radnor Girls’ meets the
parents of the `shelter girls’ and it is agreed that the parents `will meet the
children if they have to stay in the shelters during a warning and darkness
falls’.
20th November
At St. David’s Infants’ as a result of
Dr. Murphy’s examination of 136 children `nineteen have been recommended for
free dinners and milk and another seven for free milk only’.[202]
21st November
The Head of Stacey Infants’
records `Air
raid alarm sounded 2.15. All clear 2.45. Air raid alarm sounded 3.15. All clear
3.45’.
22nd November
The City Engineer reports to Cardiff’s
General Education Committee. 280 shelters have been built for school children
but `approximately 50%…are wet owing to driving rain through the entrances, and
to the porous nature of the bricks. It is recommended that the blast walls in
front of the entrances be lifted eight or nine inches; that coverings be
provided at the entrances as a protection against driving rain; and in
addition, that the walls of the shelters be treated with a special preparation
for protection against damp…Seating accommodation has been provided in
one-third of the shelters and within the next few weeks the whole of the
shelters will be provided with seating’.[203]
Two rooms at Ararat Baptist Church are
taken over for use by Whitchurch Mixed but, nevertheless, the next day `the
assembly of local children during the `off shift’ is discontinued owing to the
insufficiency of accommodation’.
A Circular is sent to all Cardiff
schools asking them to record the time spent by children in air raid shelters
during school hours for the fortnight beginning 25th November.[204]
`School had to
take cover today at 4.05 pm and dispersed at 4.25 pm’ records the Head of Kitchener.
25th November
There’s an air raid between 11.48 am
and 12.50.[205]
Another Hywel Dda Mixed teacher, Mr.
Norman Merriman, leaves for the Forces. Two days later a supply teacher at the
same school, Mr. R.H. Phillips, is also called up.
26th November
A further 606 children and sixty-five teachers from Birmingham arrive for billeting in Cardiff Rural District. Of the children, no fewer than 107 are hospitalized `for various causes’. The billeting arrangements in the Cardiff area are:
Lisvane 18
Rhiwbina 31
Tongwynlais 34
Llanedeyrn 40
Radyr 65
Whitchurch 166
This brings the total number of evacuees received to date to 2,338.[206]
In the afternoon Whitchurch Mixed is
used as a Reception Centre again for 460 children from Birmingham.
There is an Air Raid warning from 3.10 to 4.30 and the Head of Gladstone Boys’ complains that his staff cannot hear the warning siren.[207] At Heathfield House the girls ‘took cover in the basement, junior cloakroom, study staircase and Geography Room. This arrangement has been followed for the last week or two as the shelters cannot be used owing to the wet weather – all but one are about an inch deep in water’.
27th November
There are another two
warnings during school hours.[208]
One comes just before lunchtime and at Stacey Infants’ the Head records `Air
raid warning at 11.50 am. The children who remained in the shelter were taken
home by members of the Staff at 12.15 as there was no apparent activity in the
air. All clear at 12.55’. Exactly the same thing happens at Albany too.[209]
Cardiff Education’s Elementary (Special
Services) Sub-Committee hears that `At the present time 723 necessitous school
children are receiving mid-day meals’.[210]
29th November
At St. Mary’s Infants’ in Canton the
‘Children have had to go to the shelters only once this week but it was for a
period of one hour and forty minutes, from 2.50-4.30, and it was a difficult
task to keep up circulation’.
‘School work goes on reasonably well
but interruptions occur when there are air raid warnings. On the last two
occasions the shelter has not been used as it has been very damp. Instead the
children are kept quiet in school’ records the Head of St. Monica’s Infants’.
Mr. J.O.P. Tanner, another Herbert
Thompson Boys’ teacher, is called up to serve in the RAF.
30th November
Thirty pupils and two teachers from
Moorland Girls’ go to the Camp School at Porthcawl for a fortnight.
2nd December
Two doctors and a nurse immunise `the
majority of the children present’ at St. David’s Infants’ against diptheria.
At Clarence Infants’ `the number on the
books is still low, many little ones being evacuated to safer areas’. At
Tongwynlais, however, `A number of Birmingham children have been evacuated to
this village. Twenty attended school this morning’.
At Cardiff Rural District’s `Evacuee School-children Distress Fund Sub-Committee’ the Clerk states `that this meeting has been called to consider the question of providing clothing for evacuee school-children who are in immediate need, and…more particularly in the case of the Birmingham children…The Clerk instanced cases in which a large number of the Birmingham children had been reclothed by Committees of Ladies in districts in which they were temporarily accommodated in Church Halls, but stated that, in view of the conditions under which the majority of these children had been recently forced to live, owing to indiscriminate aerial bombardment, and the speedy arrangements made by the Birmingham Authorities for their evacuation to the Council's district, very little time was allowed in which to obtain clothing suitable to the winter conditions’.
The Committee is informed that, as yet, no local system of helpers, as organised by the Greater London Authorities, has been established by Birmingham.
3rd December
The Headmistress of Hywel Dda Infants’
records ‘The School Building was hit by Incendiary Bombs last night. Bombs fell
through the roofs of the Staff Room and two of the classrooms 1b and 3b (five
bombs)’.
At St. Peter’s the `Children and staff
spent an hour and ten minutes in the air-raid shelters this afternoon’. For the
first time in over a month the children at Greenhill use their shelters.
An emergency exit has been constructed
for the air raid shelter at St. Fagan’s, an anti-blast wall built outside and
`several courses of sandbags have also been placed on the window ledges in the
Infants’ Room’.
4th December
Sixty-eight of the recently arrived Birmingham children are admitted to the Girls’ and Boys’ Evacuated Schools at Whitchurch Mixed. Down the road at Whitchurch Boys’ the Head reports on an air raid lasting from 3 to 3.20 and he borrows tables and trestles from the YMCA and benches from Tabernacle Chapel in order to admit another thirty-two Birmingham evacuees and a teacher. </