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Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: dawnwas on Thursday 28 July 05 08:22 BST (UK)
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Interested in finding out if there is a register for the Beven Boys during WW2?
My Dad was a coalminer when WW2 broke out.He was not allowed to join the forces , but had to stay on in the mines to keep the fuel going for the war.Little has been said about these unsung heroes.Their conditions were hard,many of them not seeing daylight for months at a time.
Would like any info that might be available.
He was at the Cannock Chase no. 8 pits in Staffordshire UK.
ARTHRELL
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Hello Arthrell
I just dropped by occupation to pop a post in and saw you post about the Bevin boys.Heard about them when i was young.Strangely enough My Grandfather was born in Cannock chase.And my G.Grandfather worked off and on as a clerk in the mines in later life.Never bothered to find out which one though.As i have done a lot of research in Stafford i know there are museums of various kinds. I think i know which one can help but i will have to have a scout round,because I've forgotten the name and where it was.will pop back later.
Celia
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Hi again
It was the museum in Cannock itself they have a mining museum.I have just tried the website to see if it mentions your Beven boys.Unfortunately i got a German sex site that wont go away.I have sent off a couple emails to inform them and to find out if it's my computer or not.Try the site yourself,i cant give you the address can i .So the email address is
museum {--at--} cannockchasedc.gov.uk They are very helpfull.
good luck
Celia
Moderator Comment: e-mail edited, to avoid spamming and other abuses.
Please replace {--at--} with @
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Dear Celia...thankyou for bringing a smile to my face this evening ;D
I will try the site in a second.
My Dads family were from Cannock Chase and in approx 1902 they emmigrated on masse as coalminers and mine workers,to Canada,Novascotia.Several other famililies also went from Cannock Chase and chase terrace.Somewhere i have a fantastic book,written by a gentleman who was a lad at cannock chase in the 1920's.It details the area as it was and even mentions my Dad and his family living there.My Grandad and grandma returned to the UK for a holiday from canada,but WW1 broke out and they never returned.
Well I am off now...hope the German sex site has gone away!Dawn ;)
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Me again...I have sent an email asking for info on the Bevan boys and on Cannnock chase miners.Thanks again Celia.Dawn
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Hi there
I worked in the coal mines for a while in my younger days and in the south yorkshire pits a bevin boy was always regarded as something less than a miner, even 20 or so tears after the war.
Now because coal was a nessesity for the war effort, mr bevin brought about an act whereby a concientious objector was able to contribute to the country by working in one of the industries deemed nessesary to the country.
many of these boys were genuine objectors but the stigma of being a bevin boy held for many many years.
Denn
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Denn . I had not realised that conscientious objectors were drafted into the Bevin Boys scheme.There is not a lot of information about them at all.
My Dad was not an objector.He was already working down the pits as a teenager so when the war broke out he was one of those chosen to stay down.
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To the best of my knowledge if he was already working down the pit he wouldn't have been a bevan boy, I definately remember the miners in south yorkshire at least making a point of letting us know who were the bevan boys.
Mind you that may only be a local interpretation but I will try to chase up some more info'
Denn
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here ya are
Bevan Boys - Down the Mines
By RAF Cosford Roadshow
People in story: Ronald Griffan
Location of story: South Wales & Midlands
In 1944 I received my call up papers much to the dismay of my boss Dick Small. He got onto the authorities to try and get me exempt from call up, pleading I was employed on important war work. He also told them I was in a play which funds were for war charities. To my surprise I was given an exemption until the play had finished its run.
In 1943 the government had panicked because the country had become very short of coal. Young miners had either been called up or gone to work in munitions factories for better pay. Emergency meetings were called in the House and Ernest Bevin then Minister of Labour put a proposal that a ballot to be drawn conscripting those boys with a certain letter after their name be called up for the mines. They became known as Bevin Boys of which I was about to become one. In May 1944 I travelled to Newport Monmouthshire. A packed train dropped me at Blackwood station where I met up with other Bevin Boys and taken to a special hostel for training. We were housed in old army huts the long dormitories our sleeping accommodation for the next four weeks. Lads and men had been recruited from all over the country. Most good humoured and jolly, so I felt I was in for a happy time. With meagre rations at home, it was a treat to have a cooked breakfast and a nice evening meal at the hostel. During the mornings we had lectures from people from the pit management and in the afternoons we did manual work such as stripping bark from pit props. To break us in we visited other pits in the area of Newport and Oakdale.
Each day down the mine got worse I found it hard to adapt to the conditions. The stale air caused a burning sensation in my lungs and the heat and heavy work drained all my strength away. One morning I was working away heaving coal onto the conveyer. When something told to move my position. Lunging forward feeling something was about to happen I almost fell over a split second later there was a tremendous crash followed by clouds of grey dust and a great pile of rubble. Almost a goner I could have been underneath it. I secretly wrote to other collieries in the midlands hoping they would accept me on a transfer I received only one reply from the Earl of Dudley’s Baggeridge Colliery near Wolverhampton. They would accept me provided I got permission from my local National Service Officer. I wrote to him and was granted an interview at his office at Port Talbot. One afternoon returning to my digs I saw a small buff envelope propped up against the salt cruet on opening a card filled in by bold writing fell into my hand. It informed me my transfer to the midland mine had been granted and that my new duties at Baggeridge to commence the following Monday.
I was there till the war ended but had to carry on in the mine waiting for a demob number to be issued to us Bevin Boys. The government having forced us “boys” into the mines in 1943 turned a deaf ear when it came to releasing us as they were still very short of coal. One minister was heard to say “O Bevin Boys” they are not worth bothering about. However I was finally given my release number but not until October 1948 three years after the war.
On October 3” 1948 I went down the pit for the last time. After the shift I had to collect my cards and see the manager. He was very friendly and asked me to stay on Yo” bin a good worker” he said and we all thought the world of you” I was puzzled I had never seen him under ground but he must have known everyone and what was going on.
I thanked for the offer but I had my own plans I had been offered a scholarship as a full time student at the Birmingham Drama School, Queens College. He wished me luck and I came away exhilarated although with a tinge of sadness. I had worked with some fine men in the mines with a world of their own creating an atmosphere of comradeship, jollity and sense of well being. The like of which I never have experienced again.
Ronald Griffin.
full story at following site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A3503152
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And another
The new socialist government faced many critical tasks, and central to addressing these tasks was the doctrine of public ownership. Hence, the Labour Government's program was nationalization on a massive scale: hospitals, medical, and dental professions, the Bank of England, gas and electricity, iron and steel, road haulage, railroads, civil aviation, Cable & Wireless and, at the top of the list, Britain's coal mining industry. Coal production was the key to economic and industrial recovery. Therefore, as an alternative to conscription in the armed forces, young men had the choice of serving their country for two years by enlisting as coal miners. I decided to do just that. We were known as "Bevin Boys," named after the Minister of Labor and National Service, Ernest Bevin.
from following site
http://www.libertyhaven.com/countriesandregions/britain/socialist.html
This probably explains my "misunderstanding" There would probably have been a large number of bbs who were conciencious objectors, and I suppose that in many mining communities that they were all classed as such.
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BUT THIS IS WHAT I THINK YOU ARE REALLY LOOKING FOR
The Bevin Boys Association
c/o Warwick H. Taylor MBE
School Cottage
49a Hogshill Street
Beaminster
DT8 3AG
Dorset
England
Hope they can help you
Denn
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Hi dawnwas
My father was a miner at the outbreak of war and was refused release so had to stay there.
Some years ago he wrote a personal history entwined with that of the NBC, for family interest basically. Anyway, he says in there that in Dec 1943 Ernest Bevin came up with this idea of balloting those eligible for call up and one in ten reaching National Insurance age were picked for the mines. The hope was to get 50,000 a year for the mines. In the first full year, 1944-1945, after weeding-out the unsuitables they got only 21,000 ballotees and few of them became coal face workers. It was a hard job and I think you had to be brought up with it to make a go of underground life.
Dad was a miner in Derbyshire, and his father too who had been sent there from the Black Country in the '20s.
Just out of curiosity, the book about Cannock that you mention.....is it just Cannock itself, or the area around? Would you mind very much looking to see (if there is a name index) if it mentions a Wollox(h)all at all? there were some at Cheslyn Hay and I have a feeling there was a miner at Cannock but can't put my finger on the date.
Not to worry if there is no index. Could you perhaps post the title at least because it does sound interesting.
Thanks :)
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I worked in the coal mines for a while in my younger days and in the south yorkshire pits a bevin boy was always regarded as something less than a miner, even 20 or so tears after the war.
Now because coal was a nessesity for the war effort, mr bevin brought about an act whereby a concientious objector was able to contribute to the country by working in one of the industries deemed nessesary to the country.
many of these boys were genuine objectors but the stigma of being a bevin boy held for many many years.
Bevin Boys were not conscientious objectors, and vice versa. The Bevin Boy scheme was, indeed, instituted by Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, in 1943, as a means of ensuring an adequate supply of miners to hew coal essential for both industry and heating homes. It operated by a civil servant each week drawing a paper out of a hat containing 10 pieces numbered 0-9. That week all men due for call-up whose National Service number ended with the chosen digit were compulsorily diverted from the armed forces into mining (subject to exceptions for the medically unfit and essential workers in other industries). Men already in mining were not allowed to leave (except for health or age reasons), but that did not make them Bevin Boys, nor were they ever so called.
Some men recognised as conscientious objectors were given mining as one of a range of conditions of exemption from military service, but that also did not make them Bevin Boys.
The scheme continued for a couple of years after the end of the war, and the designated men continued to be known as Bevin Boys, although Ernest Bevin had moved on to be Foreign Secretary. The scheme had nothing whatsoever to do with Aneurin Bevan, who was a backbench MP in WW2, and there never were any Bevan Boys, despite the confusing title allocated to this thread. There was no-one of any relevance named Beven, and there were never any Beven Boys.
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Dear " Gardener" and indeed others on this thread.I have finally made my way back onto this site after quite a while...appologies for lack of response on my part.
The interesting book I had spoken about was written by Harry Hartill,and is called " children of the twenties". It was printed in 1995 by Chase Terrace High School,and it is a delight!
I do not remember the name Wollox but will have another look.
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Thank you Fitzjohn for your accurate postings of the names and contexts of Aneurin Bevan, and Ernest Bevin. Prior to WW2 and his becoming an MP Esnest Bevin was the General Secretary of the T&GWU.
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My dad was sent down the mines at the end of the war although he had trained in Canada as an RAF bomb-aimer. I believe that the reduction in the losses in Bomber Command led to a surplus of aircrew, so the government decided to put them to work in the mines. Dad told us that they were kept under RAF control so that they could be "ordered" to go to work- I don't know if that was correct, but he was very bitter about it as he had left his reserved occupation on the farm to fly in the RAF. He also said that there was serious industrial unrest in the mines at the time and the miners considered them to be strike breakers.
Fred
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Kent coalfield by any chance?
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I tried to make some discrete family inquiries over Christmas but the subject seems to be shrouded in secrecy! It seems that Dad went AWOL from the mines and was put up by a sympathetic auntie in Leeds, but he can't have been in too much trouble as he was soon back in the open working on the farm. I might try to obtain his RAF record to see what it says.
Fred :)
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miners-Cannock-Chase-Images-England/dp/0752438158
sylvia
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hi a few years ago the fellowship ex services allowed merchant seaman to join im sure bevan boys were allowed after the seamen im sure some one will be able to comfirm this.
neil
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Can we please get the title of these people correct once and for all, they were BEVIN boys named after the Minister of Labour in the Wartime Government Ernest Bevin, and not after the Welsh Labour MP and prominent left wing socialist Aneurin Bevan.
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You may find this of interest; http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=78551
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My Uncle became a bevin boy as he had previously had TB and was turned down for the services and sent to the mines, lungs not good enough but okay to go down a mine. Unbelievable!!
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About par for the course at that time. I worked in a loco depot on the railway, we had one driver who after being gassed in WW1 had eventually been taken off the main line because of his breathing problems. Guess where he was accomodated, dropping engine fires on the ashpit. He did survive to retirment age, but died soon after. What a mind set they had?