WW1 stories – the mysterious Uncle Theo

Someone said during Twitter's #AncestryHour recently that writing a blog post often took her a long time as information gaps suddenly opened up in front of her, sending her digging around looking for answers. This post was definitely one of those!

With Armistice Day almost upon upon us, I thought I'd pull up what I could about the Percival WW1 ancestors. I had two potential leads – my husband's grandfather, Hector Percival, and Hector's brother Theodore. I decided to start with Theodore, not least because he's always been a bit of a mystery – and we all know what fun a mystery is!

Uncle Theo

We believe the photograph on the left of the man wearing Navy uniform is "Uncle Theo". It's dated 1918. The little boy behind him is my husband's father, Dennis, aged 4.

Despite what seems like this hard evidence of Theo's navy career, his name doesn't appear in any of the Navy's records I've looked at so far. Not all WW1 records survived. Many were lost during the bombings in WW2, so this may be why his are missing.

Of course it could mean that this isn't Theo but we do know that he did have naval connections – firstly because of what I've recently uncovered about his line of work and secondly because of the location of his death.

Theo was born in Clacton-on-Sea, in Essex in 1892, the younger son of Shadrack and Mary Ann Percival.

On the 1911 census, he's listed as an apprentice engineer. You may be able to make out the "visitor" on the census return – Dorothy Mary Tate. This is the woman Theodore would marry four years later.

But for some reason, they couple tied the knot in Northampton. Not only that, but neither of Theo's parents were witnesses on the marriage certificate, suggesting they didn't attend the wedding.

courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk

I'm not aware of any connection that either Theo or Dorothy had to Northampton, so perhaps Theo was working there. He's living in Forfar Street, at the same address as his witnesses, and his occupation is recorded as "mechanical engineering draftsman". Dorothy's address is in Middlesex, so no obvious link there.

 Did the war influence their decision to marry?

In autumn of that year, 1915, The Derby Scheme, was introduced, which assessed whether the fighting force's needs could be met by volunteers alone. Any men not volunteering would have to attest to being in an "essential" occupation. The anticipated plan caused a surge in recruitment as men preferred to avoid the ignominy of being "fetched" to serve their country.

As Theo and Dorothy married by licence, perhaps Theo had decided to join up at this time, and it was for logistical and expediency reasons they chose the location. Perhaps it was too difficult for Theo's parents to travel to Northampton.

Marriage certificate anomaly 

A bizarre anomaly appears on the couple's marriage certificate. Shadrack's occupation is recorded as "architect" when in fact he was a postman. A transcription error? Or some other reason? I've always wondered whether Theo was trying to imply his origins were a little further up the social scale than they really were, not least because Northampton was the location of a more affluent branch of Percivals. As far as I know there's no direct link on the tree but perhaps Theo had aspirations!

© crown copyright courtesy of Findmypast

And so back to Theo's naval connections and a big jump ahead. It's his occupation recorded on the 1939 Register on Findmypast, which shows an interesting link with the Navy.

Theo, Dorothy and their 2 children, Enid born in 1917 and John born in 1919, are living in Bexhill, Essex at this time. Theo's work concurs with his engineering background and he's recorded as being a Supervisor on the design of the Director of Fire control of naval ordnance. 

From online conversations with other family historians via Facebook's Ancestry & Genealogy Discussion Group, I've learned that this was a Whitehall Department. Two passenger records from 1933 show that Theo travelled to Argentina, accompanied by two engineering colleagues, suggesting that his trip was work related. I wonder what he went to South America to do? Another avenue of research to follow!

Theo's death

One more leap ahead to Theodore's death which took place in 1966 and another naval connection is confirmed by his death certificate. He died of heart attack in the Seamen's Hospital in Greenwich, a service set up many years before specifically to benefit naval servicemen.

While Theo's WW1 service remains a mystery, at least I seem to have stumbled upon his contribution during WW2. But it's a huge gap between that 1918 photograph of him in uniform and 1939. There's still a lot more yet to uncover about the mystery of Uncle Theo!

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Useful websites for WW1 research:

http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/first-world-war/

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/

The dark side

The wonderful BBC TV comedy Dad's Army may have left us with an impression that WW2's Home Guard was a group of bungling amateurs and a bit of a joke, but during my research for the latest Esme Quentin novel, The Malice of Angels, I discovered there was a much darker and deadlier side to our Local Defence Volunteers as they were originally called.


My grandfather, Ernest 'George' Shelley served in the Home Guard and I have his "Certificate of Proficiency" and the associated badge.

The form certifies that Granddad was proficient in using a rifle and a grenade – no doubt from his previous military experience during WW1, as was the case with many members of the Home Guard.  It also notes his ability to use a B.A.R., the Browning Automatic Rifle issued to the Home Guard at the time.

The Dad's Army image did have some element of truth to it, however. There were weapons shortages and volunteers were forced to practice drill using whatever they had to hand, including brooms and golf clubs!

The secret army

But as well as this visible force, there was another covert group of individuals, ready to become a thorn in the side of the enemy should the worst happen and Britain be invaded by Germany. These were the auxiliaries, trained in the sort of guerrilla and sabotage tactics being undertaken by secret agents in occupied Europe.

A bunker's secret entrance
© Copyright James T M Towill 

Hiding places, along with ammunition stores, were created all over the country, unknown to even the local population. If invasion happened, these trained men would retreat to their hide-outs, ready to disrupt the activities of the enemy at every opportunity.

Fortunately for Britain, they were never needed and such places were dismantled after the war. 

One such example has been recreated on the Coleshill estate in Oxfordshire, owned by the National Trust.

You can take a peep inside the bunker shortly before it opened to the public in 2012, courtesy of a BBC camera crew, by clicking HERE 

The video also includes an interview with Bob Millard, who served as an auxiliary during the war when he was a teenager.

THE MALICE OF ANGELS

Plot inspiration

I can't imagine my grandfather was a member of this clandestine group – at least, I've found no evidence so far! – but I still found the story about the auxiliaries fascinating. 

I discovered that there'd been a hiding place very near to where I used to live and a secret ammunition store only a few hundred yards away. 

Research into the activities of this secret group stirred in my writer's brain and found its way into the plot of The Malice of Angels. 

If you're keen to find out in what way such secrets from the past impact on Esme's story, then click on the title to learn more.

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An excellent book which tells the story of Britain's Secret Resistance, is THE LAST DITCH, by David Lampe

Another, telling the true stories of the West Country at war, is SOUTH WEST SECRET AGENTS , by Laura Quigley

A brush with death

With 2015 being 70 years since the end of the Second World War, this month sees a particularly poignant anniversary - that of the last Nazi bomb attack responsible for civilian deaths. On 27th March 1945 a V2 rocket (the world's first guided ballistic missile) hit London's East End, killing 135 people, the second worst V2 strike on London, in terms of lives lost. One final V2 would fall later that day in Orpington, Kent killing one person.

London, of course, had already suffered the horrifying effects of mass incendiary bombs at the start of the infamous 'Blitz' (a word derived from the German for 'lightning war') and many other British cities would be targeted, including Coventry, a city not so far from Wednesfield, near Wolverhampton where my mother lived with her family during the war.

The devastation in Coventry in 1940

Although bombing raids on Wolverhampton were nowhere as frequent as in Coventry and Birmingham, the risk was considered great enough to install anti-aircraft guns on the edge of the city after the horrific and infamous attack on Coventry in November 1940, and provision had already been made for air-raid shelters.

My mum used to talk about the warning sirens and the drills at school, diving under their desks and the carrying of gas masks. Under the family's house in Wednesfield was a cellar – a small, damp and dingy space at the bottom of a flight of brick steps which ran underneath the stairs – which served as their own air-raid shelter. But on the day disaster struck, no one was using it.

Why Mum and the family were not in the cellar at the time isn't clear. As Wolverhampton appeared

My mum (right) and her sister

not to be a target in the same way as neighbouring cities, perhaps the adults had become jaded about disrupting their sleep to sit in a cold hole in the ground for no apparent benefit.

But whatever the reason, at some point in the evening, with Mum fast asleep in bed and the adults still downstairs, the house took a hit from a rogue incendiary bomb.

My grandmother, Wyn, rushed upstairs into my mum's bedroom which was at the back of the house above the living room. The bomb had come through the roof and landed at the bottom of Mum's bed, setting the floor alight. Having pulled Mum out of bed, Gran dragged the heavy feather mattress on to the burning floor-boards to smother the flames before scooping Mum up and carrying her downstairs.



Mum's wartime ID card

The fire would eventually burn its way through to the ground floor and land on the piano below but not before Gran was able to bustle Mum into the kitchen at the end of a corridor to the rear of the house. She dumped her on a chair and wrapped her in the old mac used for visiting the outside privy in the rain.

By now Mum could hear shouting as help arrived and very quickly the fire was extinguished before it could take hold, aided, no doubt, by Gran's quick thinking with the feather bed. Another house in the street had been similarly attacked and the assumption was that a German bomber had jettisoned what was left of its load as it headed for home.

As children, my sister and I loved to hear this story, particularly when visiting my Gran's house, as the heart-shaped repair in the plaster where the bomb had come through the ceiling was still clearly visible.

Mum said that the overwhelming memory of that night was shivering at the unwelcome chill of the cold mac Gran had draped around her to keep her warm, as she sat in the kitchen in her nightdress. But I'm sure, rather than the mac, it was the shock of the incident which caused her to shiver!

 

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An excellent and detailed account can be found of Coventry's blitz (including other aspects of the city's history) on the Historic Coventry website.

Images of the London Blitz,  "Germany's Campaign of Terror over London", can be viewed on the All Day.com website.

 

 

 

Secret thoughts of women in war

This week saw the anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, when thousands of families across the country huddled around their radios to hear Neville Chamberlain's speech announcing that Britain was now at war with Germany.

For those who had been following the situation for some time, it was the outcome they'd feared. For others who were ignorant of the politics and events abroad, it came as a complete shock.

In her excellent book, 'Millions Like Us', Virginia Nicholson charts the lives, experiences and private thoughts of women who lived through the war years and whose lives changed for ever, as a result.

Using personal journals, archive material and individual accounts, the author gives the reader an incite into the lives of  women from across a wide section of society, beginning from just before war broke out until 1949, four years after it ended. Read it and truly understand what it meant to be a woman at that time.

On the day war was declared, one young woman listened with a heavy heart to Chamberlain's broadcast, certain that it would herald the end of her promising singing career. Her name? Vera Welch. Better known as 'The Forces Sweetheart', Vera Lynn.