North Queensferry School – WWII

1938 National Evacuation Plans

 
Another Air Raid Precaution was the Government Evacuation Scheme developed during the summer of 1938 by the Anderson Committee and implemented by the Ministry of Health.

The country was divided into zones, classified as either “evacuation”, “neutral”, or “reception”, with priority evacuees being moved from the major urban centres and billeted on the available private housing in more rural areas. Each zone covered roughly a third of the population, although several urban areas later bombed had not been classified for evacuation.

In early 1939, the reception areas compiled lists of available housing, and the government also constructed camps which provided a few thousand additional spaces.

The government began to publicise its plan through the local authorities in summer 1939; Operation Pied Piper began on 1 September 1939, before war was declared.  Approximately 1.5 million people were relocated.

The Imperial War Museum website has this article on The Evacuated Children Of The Second World War

And Wikipedia has this article on The evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II

There were several debates in Parliament about the success and otherwise of the evacuation plans. They give interesting insights into life at that time.

Here are the full reports on the debates – they are long pages!

Parliament – Evacuation – 24th October 1939

Parliament – Civil Defence And Evacuation – 2nd November 1939

Parliament – Scottish Education And Evacuation – 21st November 1939

North Queensferry was in a neutral zone.  However, when the village school closed for the summer vacation on 7th July 1939, it remained closed for more than three years before opening again in November 1942, because it was occupied by the military.