by cities, towns and villages of Great Britain during 1941-2
Between October 1941 and the end of
March 1942, Warships Weeks were organised in cities, towns and villages
throughout Great Britain. The intention was to raise a sum by
investment or deposit in all types of war savings representing the cost
of building one of His Majesty’s ships ranging from the smallest to the
largest vessels.
Local History News Summer 2020 click image to enlarge, then cick again
Once the target had been raised the community adopted
the vessel along with her crew and the bond was strengthened by
presentations by the Admiralty.
Adoption plaques mounted with the ship's crest were
presented to the Councils which took part in raising the national
savings towards the cost of the hull of a destroyer during the Warships
Week and plaques bearing the coat of arms of the town were presented to the ship. Where the Rural and Urban
District Council raised funds as well as the City or borough two crests
would be presented mounted on wooden shields. Villages which raised
funds towards the adoption would be presented with illuminated scrolls
for hanging in a glass fronted frame. John Buchanan,
an artist without hands produced the majority of these
certificates completing over 3,500 in less
than twelve months. Where the plaques and illuminated
scrolls have been traced they can be seen on the pages about the
adoption of V & W Class destroyers by Urban and Rural District
Councils and villages arranged by county bekow. Links with the destroyers were deepened by
the exchange of letters, the provision of "comforts" and, when possible,
visits by officers and men. Sadly, many of these crests
and scrolls have been lost or mislaid and I would welcome your help in locating
them and seeing that they are put on display in a public place to make
sure these wartime bonds are remembered even though the ships have all
gone to the breakers yard and most of the men who served in them have
"passed the bar".
Most of the V&W Class
destroyers in commission with the Royal Navy were adopted during the
Warship Week scheme and in a number of cases local sea cadet units
later took the name of the ship.
Click on the name of the town, village or district
to find out more about its Warship Week, the sum raised and the links established Please note that some ships were adopted by more than one town and others were not adopted at all
PUBLICITY
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Posters Port Talbot adopted HMS Wishartand a
souvenir programmes of events was published
Dr Peter Schofield, a former
submariner, the main authority on the adoption of warships during
Warships Weeks, is the author of ‘National Savings and Warships Week’.
The following extracts will be of special interest to local historians
who would like to locate the replica of the adopted
vessel's crest presented to their councils:
"Warship
Week schemes provided for the
presentation to the Civic Authority in
the adopting area of a replica of the adopted
vessels crest or an Admiralty badge as a memento. The adoption
plaques as they were known were presented by the Admiralty on behalf of
the people to the Civil Authority for permanent safe keeping in
the Town Hall or Council Offices whilst parishes received
illuminated certificates if they reached their targets. John Buchanan,
an artist without hands produced the majority of these
certificates completing over 3,500 in less
than twelve months.
In the majority
of cases only one adoption plaque was
presented, however, where districts (e.g. Urban
and Rural) combined to achieve the
same target two identical adoption
plaques were presented with appropriate
inscriptions on their dedication plates. In County
efforts where a number of towns combined to adopt one ship, numbers of
replica plaques were presented. One of two patterns of plaques
could be presented; the first a replica ship's
crest mounted on a wooden shield
for vessels with official crests
and the second a standard Admiralty badge
for vessels without official crests.
Initially, the Admiralty stated that in the case of ships
not entitled to a crest, a photograph of the ship signed by the
Commanding Officer would be presented to the
adopting area (after submission to censorship). Generally,
vessels down to the size of
sloops were allocated ships crests,
consequently all areas adopting destroyers received a replica ship's
crest.
The adopting areas meanwhile
provided suitable presentation plaques with coats of arms (where they
had one) for display onboard the
adopted vessels, many of these were
returned to the adopting areas and Admiralty stores
before the vessels were disposed of at the end of their careers."
The practice followed in Scotland
and Northern Ireland differed in some respects from that of England and
Wales as Peter Schofield explains below:
The figure of 1,178 Warship Weeks given
by the Naval Historical Branch (above) is for the number of adoptions in England and Wales but
at least 51 Warship Weeks in Scotland and
a further seven in Northern Ireland need to be added. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer stressed the desire to have the national programme of Warship
Weeks completed by 31 March 1942, with an extension applicable to
Scotland until 30 May, but only in the event of exceptional circumstances.
In practice a considerable percentage of Scotland’s Warship Weeks were
held throughout April and May 1942.
In Scotland the tendency was for a county to adopt a single vessel with
the exceptions of cities and some major towns which adopted their own
vessels. A county was divided into districts and divisions, each
with a quota objective which was usually exceeded. In the County
of Argyll, for example, the target was £300,000 to adopt the
destroyer HMS Inglefield, but £800,00 was raised with the two largest
areas competing to see which could raise most. Kintyre and Campbeltown
was set a target of £70,000 but raised £227,000, beating Cowal and
Dunoon which raised £212,000. The remaining seven districts raised
smaller amounts with the islands of Coll and Tiree raisiing £3,781,
half their target of £15,000.
The crests mounted on the wooden shields presented to the councils were
replicas of the massive bronze castings attached to the screen, the
front of the ship's bridge structure, at head height. These screen
plaques weighed 33 lbs and measured 15 3/8 inches from the top of the
crown to the bottom of the rope. Some councils were unhappy about the
cost of making presentation crests from bronze but to keep the cost
down they were made from cast iron with "Nelson's Crown" made from
brass.
Local newspapers can be invaluable in researching the Warship Week held by your town or city. This major resource is
available in most counties on microfilm in local study libraries and nationaly as
bound copies at the British Library in London. The full text British Newspaper Archive (BNA) can be searched online from home by key words on payment of a subscription or for free at the British Library.
In
far too many cases the towns or cities which adopted a warship during a
Warship Week in 1942 - 2 have forgotten all about the association and
in some cases known to me these crests mounted on their wooden shields
were thrown into skips for disposal or sold at auction to collectors in
this country or abroad. I know of one case where an interested person
went to their museum and asked to see the shield and crest presented to
the town and they denied all knowledge of it until it was found by the
janitor in a cupboard with the mops, brooms and buckets used for
cleaning the floor. I would like to appeal to local historians to trace
the crests awarded to their cities and towns, make sure they are on
public display in an appropriate place and send me photographs for this
website.
Unofficial adoptions - merchant ships and warships
The British Ship Adoption Society
was established in 1936 to establish links between schools and merchant
ships. The lead was usually taken by Geography teachers who saw the
pairing of a school with a ship and the exchange of correspondence which
followed would inspire pupils to take more interest in the countries
the ships visited. The programme continued long after the war and the Saint Gregory (formerly Empire Heywood)
was adopted in 1955 by the boarding school I was (reluctantly) sent to
by my parents. The school was established for children who had lost
their father, usually in wartime, but I was sent there because my
father was at sea in the Merchant Navy and I had a working Mother.
The Empire Heywood was built on the Tyne by the Wallsend Shipyard and Engineering Commpany for the MOWT in 1942
She was renamed the Saint Gregory in 1947 and broken up for scrap at Hong Kong in 1967
After being expelled from School Christopher Lee joined the Saint Gregory at Amsterdam in January 1958 and 40 years later published the Diaries he kept
For an insight into the effect of ship adoptions on pupils read the novel "All the nice girls"
(2009) by Joan Bakewell, broadcaster, author and Labour Peer who
was born
near me in Heaton Moor, Stockport. The British Ship Adoption Society
was merged with the Marine Society in 1976. In 2004 the Marine Society
(founded in 1756) merged with the Sea Cadet Association (dating from
1854) to form the Marine Society and Sea Cadets (MSSC).
Once the war began there were many
private initiatives for schools to adopt warships, including V & W
Class destroyers, and these are some of those mentioned on this website:
When the Admiralty sanctioned the
holding of Warships Weeks
in towns and cities to raise national savings for the construction of
new ships schools contributed to the money raised and there are
frequent references to this on the Warship Week pages in the regional
guide above.
But the adoption of warships was not limited to schools:
HMS Whirlwind (D30) was adopted by St. Leonard’s Mother’s Union in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, six months before she was torpedoed and sunk on 5 July 1940 with 57 men, eactly half the crew, killed:
Evening Despatch, Wednesday 10 July 1940 – Mothers Union Loses Adopted Destroyer: News of the sinking of the destroyer Whirlwind has been received with deep regret at Bridgnorth, where St. Leonard’s Mother’s Union six months ago adopted Whirlwind.
At that time is understood that St. Leonard’s Mother’s Union was the
first organisation of its kind to adopt a destroyer. During the
intervening period monthly consignments of comforts have been
despatched, and as recently as last Saturday two parcels were sent.
When a second HMS Whirlwind
(R87) was built its adoption was offered to the Thanet towns in Kent in
1942 but was rejected indignantly as they expected to be offered a new
HMS Thanet for adoption.
If
you have stories or photographs a V & W adopted by your town please contact Bill Forster We would
particularly like to know the present location of plaques and ships'
crests presented by the ship to the town or by the town to the ship
Return to the Home Page of the V & W Destroyer Association Return to the Index Page for the 69
V & W Class Destroyers
