Mixed Up 1940

Previously selected items of news from the decade years was featured, and 1940's choice was weather related, how people continued to survive everyday life through the bitterly cold weather. But there were other events.

Life in St Albans was, of course, a very different community than usual. A depleted young male population as they moved into the Services, large number of adults out of place, that is, having arrived in the city from elsewhere on wartime contracts, many of them boarding in homes with spare rooms.  It was this coming together of strangers which gave rise to the hugely successful Garden Club. Then of course there were schools and families who had evacuated, initially from London, and just a year later from the south coast.  Not far away were also island groups from the Channel Islands now  living more safely in Harpenden.

With the safety of the nation's children in mind, the government set up convoys of chartered ships to take families and unaccompanied children to Canada for the duration.  Although escorted, the passage of ships across the Atlantic was a huge risk and a convoy in mid-September was attacked by U-Boats.  

One vessel early in the convoy, thought to be SS Volendam, was torpedoed.  On board were "several hundred children" according to the Herts Advertiser and later recorded as 320, so we assume it to be a large vessel.  One of the supervisors on board was a teacher, Margaret Walker from 23 Hatfield Road.   

Later ships, SS City of Benares, SS Marina and SS Hurricane were also hit and the resulting loss of life was considerable.  This included death from extended exposure over several days in lifeboats.  Evacuation to Canada was immediately halted as the risk was clearly significantly greater than if the families and unaccompanied minors had remained at home.

Although Margaret Walker came from St Albans – or at least she was living here immediately before being deployed on the evacuation mission – we are uncertain whether any local families or children were also part of that convoy.  But there are other examples of people moving towards perceived safety and who nevertheless lost their lives.  Many Fleetville residents will be aware of the Strowbridge family who moved out from north London and took up residence into a newly completed house in Beaumont Avenue and on the night of the Coventry bombing in November suffered the loss of four of its members in a direct hit.

St Albans had other connections with child refugees both during World War 2 and in the decades following.  Details of some of these connections will be related by the author at a Fleetville Diaries event at Fleetville Community Centre on Wednesday 29th January at 7.30pm.

St Albans provided relief funds to the survivors of the
Duisberg bombing many of whom had become refugees
in their city's basements.

Decade News

The recent news from the District Council announcing its new and welcome policy on trees, as well as the County Council's proposals for use of some of its land for solar energy, is a positive start to a new decade.  Looking back to the first month of earlier decades provides a mix of decisions, events and observations which are shared here.

Stanhope Road homes built of land sold by Thomas Kinder

1880: Thomas Kinder, owner of Beaumonts Farm relinquished two fields he had previously grown malting barley in – for his brewery business – and this provided the development opportunity we know as Stanhope and Granville roads.  And what became a huge event that summer, the murder of Marshalswick farmer Edward Anstee.

1890: The district was in a bind regarding the treatment of patients with contagious diseases, especially since the pest house at Smallford had been closed.  The city council proposed to build a new isolation hospital on part of the Hatfield Road cemetery, itself only opened six years earlier.

1900: At the beginning of the year the Bath & West Agricultural Society announced it would organise an agricultural show that summer at Cunningham Hill Farm.  Animals and equipment was brought by rail to London Road Station and taken to the site via a drive, now Cunningham Hill Road.

St Paul's Mission Church, Stanhope Road

1910: It was announced that St Paul's Parish Church would be consecrated at a special service that Easter.  The church had been launched in a tin building in Stanhope Road and building work on the permanent building begun in 1908.

1920: Work began on a cenotaph memorial at the intersection of main paths at Hatfield Road Cemetery, and was completed in time for its dedication that November and before the memorial in St Peter's Street.

War Memorial at Hatfield Road Cemetery

1930: A partnership of builders, Walter Goodwin and Charles Hart completed purchase of a small field and began the task of building homes along three short roads, Lynton, Windermere and Glenlyn avenues.

1940: The beginning of the year proved to be bitterly cold; fuel was in short supply; most schools were working part time to provide accommodation for evacuated schools, and some schools remained unheated.

1950: A major main drainage project began to enable both old and new Marshalswick estates to be connected to the city's sewer network and its treatment works.  It was still a time when such work lagged behind house building.

1960: Residents living in St Albans' East End districts who commuted to London, finally saw the launch of new diesel trains and said goodbye to the steam locomotives calling at the City Station.

1970: A field with access from Barley Mow Lane was considered for a suitable location for gypsies, although the field was thought to be too large.

1980: St Albans Co-operative Society submitted yet more plans to a concerned council for its proposed supermarket on the site of the former Ballito hosiery mill.  The concern was not its size, but elements of its design and brickwork.