National Camps Corporation

Last updated

The National Camps Corporation was a British government-funded non-profit organisation established under the Camps Act 1939. The role of the corporation was to construct and administer camps in the countryside that could be used for educational experiences. [1]

Contents

Origins

In the context of preparations for war, a Camps Act was passed in April 1939, which provided for the construction of government-financed camps for use as educational holiday centres for children during peacetime, and as camps for evacuees during war. [2] The Act prompted the creation of the National Camps Corporation to oversee these camps. [3] Lord Portal was given the task of chairing the corporation. [1] The initial funding given to the corporation was £1.2 million, half of which was as a loan. [1]

Construction of the camps

The government's expectation was that the corporation would construct fifty camps, but in reality only 31 were built in England and Wales, with a further five in Scotland. [1] The cessation of the construction of new camps was mainly due to the increased costs as a result of war, and the realisation that such camps were not a completely adequate solution to the problem of evacuation. [3] The sites were chosen by Lord Portal and members of the board, out of an original short-list of 155, although some of these sites were taken by the Royal Air Force before the corporation could decide on them. [1] The design of each camp was similar, consisting of huts made out of Canadian cedarwood, designed by architect Thomas Smith Tait. [1] Each camp was designed to accommodate approximately 350 children. [3] The average cost of each camp was £25,000. [3]

Wartime and post-war use

During the Second World War these camps were used as schools for evacuated children, run by local education authorities. [2] The first camp to be used in this way was at Kennylands, near Reading. [2] Some modifications were required for this purpose, as the camps had been intended for temporary holiday guests, rather than a semi-permanent population. [3] This had the obvious consequence of reducing the number of evacuees who could be housed at such camps to under 9,000 nationally. [3] Nevertheless, in November 1940 the Minister of Health Malcolm MacDonald described the camps as "one of the most significant pieces of work that Parliament has lent its hand to in recent times". [2]

In the decades following the war, most of these camps were sold to county councils and education authorities for use as schools. Of especial interest is Amber Valley Camp in Derbyshire used by Derby School starting in June 1940 on completion. The boys and masters having previously been located at Overton Hall, near Ashover, where they were all moved on Saturday 2 September by Derby Corporation petrol engine buses. Amber Valley Camp was used for several years by Derby Corporation for children/pupils living in Derby to enjoy the freedom of a very rural countryside for one month at a time. The valley where most of the dormitories, toilet facilities, meeting room, classrooms, laboratories, accommodation for site warden and one master and his family had to be demolished when Severn Trent Water Authority flooded the whole valley to create Ogston Reservoir. The one remaining large building at the top of the valley is now occupied by the Ogston Sailing Club where they have their clubroom, changing facilities, kitchen and bar. This large building had been used from 1940 to 1945 as the main school dining room, 'tuck shop' and masters' (teachers) common room. Built of cedarwood in 1940 the building is still as sound as originally. Most years it hosts a special school reunion of former school pupils who attended Derby School during the years of WWII. [4]

List of National Camps Corporation sites

NameLocationInitial authority (WW2)Users after sale/leaseSubsequent usersCurrent status
Brownrigg Camp School [5] Bellingham, Northumberland Newcastle 1945, Northumberland Education Committee Co-educational boarding schoolCaravan site
Colomendy Camp School [6] Loggerheads, Denbighshire Liverpool 1957, Liverpool Corporation Residential secondary schoolOutdoor activity centre
Derby School, Amber Valley Camp Woolley Moor, near Ashover, Derbyshire Derby Corporation 1945, Derby Corporation School providing one month holidaysValley flooded by Severn Trent Water, Dining Room, Tuck Shop and Masters' Common Room left and used by Ogston Sailing Club 2018
Finnamore Wood Camp Marlow, Buckinghamshire Redbridge, Greater London 1960, Home Office HM PrisonDerelict/Disused
Sayers Croft Camp School [7] Ewhurst, Surrey Catford 1946, Greater London Council Rural Studies CentreOutdoor and Environmental Learning Centre
Sheephatch Camp School [8] Tilford, Surrey Leyton 1946, Surrey County Council Co-educational boarding schoolOwned by Ahmadiyya Muslim Association
Stokenchurch Camp School [9] Horsleys Green, Buckinghamshire Disabled children1947, Lancashire County Council Horsleys Green School, an all-boys boarding schoolBeing redeveloped for retirement / assisted living complex [10]
Linton Camp School [11] Linton, North Yorkshire Bradford 1954, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council Residential secondary schoolDerelict, Redevelopment of luxury hotel 2019 awaiting planning

Related Research Articles

Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II

The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to protect people, especially children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk.

Timeline of the United Kingdom home front during World War II

This is a Timeline of the United Kingdom home front during World War II covering Britain 1939–45.

Bournemouth School is a boys' grammar school and co-educational sixth form in Charminster, Bournemouth, Dorset, England, for children aged 11 to 18.

Itchen College Sixth form college in Southampton, Hampshire, England

Itchen Sixth Form College is a mixed sixth form college in Bitterne, Southampton, Hampshire, England. It was established in 1906 and was originally a mixed secondary school, it later became Itchen Grammar School under the reforms of the Butler Education Act. It became its present state following further reform in the 1980s.

St Helens House Building in Derby, England

St Helen's House is a Grade I listed building. situated in King Street, Derby, England. Now leased as offices, it has been used in the past as a private residence and as an educational establishment.

Derby School Grammar school in Derby, Derbyshire, England

Derby School was a school in Derby in the English Midlands from 1160 to 1989. It had an almost continuous history of education of over eight centuries. For most of that time it was a grammar school for boys. The school became co-educational and comprehensive in 1972 and was closed in 1989. In 1994 a new independent school called Derby Grammar School for boys was founded.

Southend High School for Boys Grammar school in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England

Southend High School for Boys, also known by its initialism SHSB, is a selective secondary Grammar school situated along Prittlewell Chase in Prittlewell, in the north-west of Southend-on-Sea, England, south-west of the roundabout of the A127 and A1159. It teaches students from the age of 11 through to 18 years old, and admission to the school is dependent upon their performance in selective 11+ tests set by the Consortium of Selective Schools in Essex (CSSE). It converted to Academy status on 1 February 2011, and has autonomous control over itself. Student numbers have been increasing over recent years. As of academic year 2008–2009, there are just over 1,150 students on roll, with over 230 of them in the Sixth Form, 20 to 30 of which come from other schools, including girls.

Primary schools in Dacorum

This article gives brief information on schools that cater for pupils up to the age of 11 in the Dacorum district of Hertfordshire, England. Most are county maintained primary schools, sometimes known as "junior mixed infant" (JMI). A small number are voluntary aided church schools or independent (fee-paying). The Local Education Authority is Hertfordshire County Council.

Childrens Overseas Reception Board British government-sponsored organisation

The Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was a British government sponsored organisation. The CORB evacuated 2,664 British children from England, so that they would escape the imminent threat of German invasion and the risk of enemy bombing in World War II. This was during a critical period in British history, between July and September 1940, when the Battle of Britain was raging, and German invasion forces were being amassed across the English Channel.

<i>Visitors from London</i>

Visitors from London is a children's novel written by Kitty Barne, illustrated with 40 drawings by Ruth Gervis, published by Dent in 1940. Set in Sussex, it is a story of World War II on the home front; it features preparing for and hosting children evacuated from London. Barne and Visitors won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books.

Evacuation of the Gibraltarian civilian population during World War II

The British Government's decision to enforce a mass evacuation of the civilian population during the Second World War from the Crown colony of Gibraltar, in order to increase the strength of The Rock with more British Armed Forces personnel, meant that most Gibraltarians were forced to be away from Gibraltar and did not have a place they considered to be home. Only those civilians with essential jobs were allowed to stay. However, this event gave the entire community a heightened sense of "Britishness" by sharing in the war effort.

Evacuations of civilians in Japan during World War II

About 8.5 million Japanese civilians were displaced from their homes between 1943 and 1945 as a result of air raids on Japan by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. These evacuations started in December 1943 as a voluntary government program to prepare the country's main cities for bombing raids by evacuating children, women and the elderly to rural towns. After American bombers started to devastate entire cities in 1945, millions more civilians fled to the countryside.

Bunce Court School Boarding school in Otterden, Kent, England

The Bunce Court School was an independent, private boarding school in the village of Otterden, in Kent, England. It was founded in 1933 by Anna Essinger, who had previously founded a boarding school, Landschulheim Herrlingen in the south of Germany, but after the Nazi Party seized power in 1933, she began to see that the school had no future in Germany. She quietly found a new home for the school and received permission from the parents of her pupils, most of whom were Jewish, to bring them to safety in England. The new school was called New Herrlingen School, but came to be known as Bunce Court. The school closed in 1948. Alumni, who sometimes stayed on at the school even after finishing, were devoted to the school and organized reunions for 55 years. They have referred to its "immense effect" on their lives, as "Shangri-La" and to being there as "walking on holy ground".

Liverpool Collegiate School

Liverpool Collegiate School was an all-boys grammar school, later a comprehensive school, in the Everton area of Liverpool.

Evacuation of Polish civilians from the USSR in World War II

Following the Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II, in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact against Poland, the Soviet Union acquired more than half of the territory of the Second Polish Republic or about 201,000 square kilometres (78,000 sq mi) inhabited by more than 13,200,000 people. Within months, in order to de-Polonize annexed lands, the Soviet NKVD rounded up and deported between 320,000 and 1 million Polish nationals to the eastern parts of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia. There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women, and elderly people aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. The second wave of deportations by the Soviet occupational forces across the Kresy macroregion, affected 300,000 to 330,000 Poles, sent primarily to Kazakhstan. Thanks to a remarkable reversal of fortune well over 110,000 Poles, including 36,000 women and children, managed to leave the Soviet Union with Anders' Army. They ended up in Iran, India, Palestine, New Zealand, and British Africa, as well as in Mexico. Among those who remained in the Soviet Union, about 150,000 Poles perished before the end of the war.

Sayers Croft is a large outdoor ‘learning camp’ located in the village of Ewhurst, Surrey. It is one of the few remaining 'Camp schools' built by the National Camps Corporation in 1939 to provide fresh air and fun activities for inner city children and offer a refuge for civilian evacuees in the event of war breaking out.

HMYOI Finnamore Wood, formerly known as HMYCC Finnamore Wood or Finnamore Wood Borstal, was an open prison located 1km North of the town of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England. The prison was operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

The evacuation of civilians from the Channel Islands in 1940 was an organised, partial, nautical evacuation of Crown dependencies in the Channel Islands, primarily from Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney to Great Britain during World War II. The evacuation occurred in phases, starting with school aged children, their teachers, and mother volunteers. The islands and the British military began the evacuation following the Allies' loss in the Battle of France, after which the British Army withdrew from the islands.

Civilian life under the German occupation of the Channel Islands

During the five-year German occupation of the Channel Islands civilian life became much more difficult. During that time, the Channel Islanders had to live under and obey the laws of Nazi Germany and work with their occupiers in order to survive and reduce the impact of occupation. Given no guidance on how to behave by the British government, there were individuals who got close to the enemy and others who undertook resistance activities.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Morris, Clifford. "The National Camps Corporation" (PDF). Old Derbeian Society. Retrieved 7 May 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Dent, H. C. (2007). Education in Transition. Read Books. pp. 96–98.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cole, Margaret (1940). Evacuation Survey: A Report to the Fabian Society. Taylor & Francis. pp. 279–280.
  4. ↑ 'The Derbeian' School In-House magazine - December 1939- July 1945.
  5. ↑ "About Brownrigg School" . Retrieved 7 May 2011.
  6. ↑ "All change for Colomendy". BBC . Retrieved 7 May 2011.
  7. ↑ "Camp Schools".
  8. ↑ "Camp Schools". Screen Archive South East. University of Brighton. Retrieved 7 May 2011.
  9. ↑ "Horsleys Green School: Old Boys and Staff Website". Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2011.
  10. ↑ "Supported living development gets the go-ahead".
  11. ↑ "About Linton Camp". P Hartingdon . Retrieved 23 February 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.