Reference
WW2/AR/C2
Title
Agenda Papers
Admin/biog history
Scope and Content
The Air Raid Precautions Sub-Committee became the Air Raid Precautions Special Committee on 7 Jul 1937 which became County Emergency Committee for Civil Defence on the outbreak of war in Sep 1939 and on 17 Apr 1946 became the Civil Defence Committee.
The Sub-Committee, later Committee, began before the advent of the Second World War and continued after it, as will be seen; nevertheless the principal interest in the material is likely to be for the period 1939 to 1945. The agenda papers have not been weeded since they form a coherent body of records with very little which is extraneous. The catalogue entries have been made by consultation with the material noted in the, very extensive, agenda sheets for each set of papers. The form of the meetings (and therefore the agenda papers) during the Second World War was as follows:
* to hear reports from various officials first these including the County Medical Officer of Health, County Surveyor, County Civil Defence Officer, County Equipment Officer, County Ambulance & Transport Officer and County Social & Welfare Officer. Reports were not always given;
* to deal with correspondence and circulars from various sources these, most commonly, including the Eastern Region Senior Regional Officer, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Home Security. The circulars and some of the correspondence related to national matters rather than specifically to Bedfordshire but this national material has been retained and listed since it forms a complete body of information giving the national context in which Bedfordshire events and issues should be seen.
* Note: during the period of the war Government circulars of particular note are mentioned in the relevant catalogue entry. Immediately after the war the circulars cease to be appended and are merely summarised until the 1960s when they are, again, included with the agenda papers. The circulars from the 1960s have been retained but have not been listed, unless they include a handbook or pamphlet relating to Civil Defence organisation or activity.
* Note: from 1941 the practice developed of dealing with all reports, correspondence and circulars relating solely to the Borough of Bedford first, before going on to deal with matters affecting the rest of the county (Luton Borough Council was responsible for its own Civil Defence and thus is relatively rarely featured). This practice ceased at the end of the war.
It is hoped that the full listing and indexing of the papers will be of use to a wide variety of researchers; areas of particular interest include (but by no means comprise) the following:
* the organisation of Civil Defence in the county;
* pay and conditions of Civil Defence staff, including deferred call-up, female membership etc.;
* appointments of staff at all levels;
* arguments and personality clashes in branches of the Civil Defence Service;
* co-operation with Home Guard, Police, Fire Service, Army, RAF etc.;
* precautions against possible gas attack;
* instructions for dealing with unexploded bombs, shells and parachute mines;
* use of specific equipment such as rhythmatic control telephonic equipment, sirens etc.;
* references, for reasons such as need for black-out material, rent, installation of telephones etc., to public shelters, Wardens' Posts, First Aid Posts and various depots at specific locations e.g. 22 Pollard's Nursery Cottages, Lower Stondon;
* mention of some specific incidents and statistics for the number of incidents for a given month;
* statistics on the number of evacuees in the county at given dates;
* surveys of the condition etc. of individual cars, vans, lorries and trailers etc. used for casualty evacuation, Rescue Party work etc.;
* references, for reasons such as lighting and heating, dilapidations, staff pay etc., to emergency hospitals, sick bays, maternity hospitals etc. such as Clophill Rectory Sick Bay or Battlesden House Maternity Home;
* national publications such as Air Raid Precautions Equipment Bulletins and Air Raid Precautions Training Bulletins;
* the position of aliens and enemy aliens;
* provisions of various national Acts and Orders.
Level of description
file