Very little is known about John Graves except that he was a temporary official in the Education Department of Oxfordshire County Council at the outbreak of the War. The collection suggests that his role was quite important and includes draft letters and articles for various publications including The Times Educational Supplement.
Approximately 9000 schoolchildren were evacuated to Oxfordshire in the first 4 days of September 1939. Approximately 6000 were evacuated with their teachers in parties from 36 schools in the area covered by the London County Council and the boroughs of Barking, Ealing, East and West Ham. They were distributed among 98 schools in Oxfordshire. In addition 17 temporary schools were opened. The remaining children were in most cases evacuated privately (i.e. by their parents) and came from all over the country including areas designated as neutral or safe. They included refugees from the European mainland. Despite the sudden huge increase in numbers at the outset of the war, only 17 (out of more than 200) schools were forced to adopt the 'two-shift system' whereby children attended school for only part of the day.
The collection was deposited in 1985 as Acc 2504 and a temporary list created. The catalogue follows the arrangement of this list which was based presumably on the original order in which the documents were found, namely three labelled loose-leaf folders containing a variety of papers in no particular order and some miscellaneous papers. No attempt has been made to re-arrange particular document-types into discrete series.
The collection includes:
(1) surveys of Oxfordshire school accommodation (elementary & secondary) by district;
(2) lists of schools evacuated to Oxfordshire
arranged by LEA (e.g. LCC, Barking, Ealing, West Ham, etc) showing names of evacuated and host schools, numbers of children, names of school party leaders, areas billeted (see P22/2);
(3) MS & TS memos, reports and drafts by Mr Graves providing informed criticism of the Evacuation Scheme on issues such as the multiplicity of and lack of cooperation between transporting, evacuation and billeting authorities*, the unnecessary commandeering of premises by military authorities and the removal by parents of their children back to danger zones (referred to as 'kidnapping');
(4) Circulars, bulletins and leaflets issued by the Board of Education, London County Council and Oxfordshire Education Department among others providing an insight into issues such as the impact of lighting restrictions on the school day, protection of children during air raids, the introduction of horticultural activities and 'outdoor studies' (nature walks, map reading exercises, etc.) into the curriculum
* at the national level the Ministry of Health had overall charge of the Government Evacuation Scheme and the Home office was responsible for Air Raid Precautions arrangements whilst in evacuation and reception areas local authorities coordinated the evacuation, reception and accommodation of school parties and private individuals; in Oxfordshire as in other reception areas this responsibility was divided between the County Council which provided additional educational accommodation and the district councils which were responsible for billeting arrangements.
See Oxfordshire County Council Education Emergency minutes 1939-1942 (CC1/12/A27/1) for a full account of the County Council's evacuation arrangements for schools
Catalogued by Chris Gilliam, Sep 2003