North Queensferry School – WWII

November 1939 Evacuation Issues

 
While the national evacuation scheme moved 500,000 people (mainly children) out of vulnerable areas (mainly in cities) to safer areas in the country, it was not without problems.  By November 1939, many children had not been to school for three months, some were missing their parents and some parents were missing their children.

Evacuees began to drift back home, where with schools still closed, they were free to wander the streets as discussed in the IWM article on The Evacuated Children Of The Second World War

These issues were debated in Parliament on 21st November 1939.

In Inverkeithing there were 700 children on the school roll, 90 registered for evacuation and 34 went.

In North Queensferry, there were 90 on the school roll.  Of these, 45 children were evacuated under the government scheme; others may have been evacuated independently.  Those who chose not to be evacuated attended Inverkeithing School.

[The situation in North Queensferry was different from that in Inverkeithing because the school was occupied by the military.  So more parents may have elected for evacuation so that their children could attend school.]