Hi All, This is my first post on this forum as an interest in British Medals of the Great War has got me looking at WW1 veterans who went on to serve their country in WW2 on the Home Front. On looking over the 1939 Register I note that my man was a member of the ARP in Croydon, Sadly the next facing page of the register just gives the words ARP service no 35*** and written just below that is County Borough of Croy. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. So it shows he was a member of the ARP and had some sort of number starting 35 relating to that service ? In The Bourgh of Croydon. My question is... Is there any way of seeing these pages that often show our research subjects as serving Special Constabulary, ARP, AFS etc on the Home Front to gain those extra important snippets of information. Its such a shame that the facing pages with this information are not shown in full. Any comments gratefully received. Best Wishes, Tom.
Tom, The 1939 Register was used to form the National Health Service central register on it's inception in 1948. Records continued to be ammended, that is why maiden names are changed to reflect post-war marriages. Some entries on the right hand pages will relate to medical records and will therefore be protected from public access. Guy
Hello Tom and welcome if you share names etc forum members might be able to add further info Also there are a couple of forum members who offer a copy service from Kew at reasonable rates for your info Those who served in both World Wars regards Clive
If you have not tried it already Croydon Archives are usually quite helpful & may have retained some ARP Records. Archives and local studies This online map shows where bombs fell in Croydon & may indicate if your relative had to deal with a nearby bomb. Bomb Sight - Mapping the London Blitz I think one of the Croydon local papers (Advertiser ?) produced a Croydon only map of damage soon after the war as well. Travers
Hi All, Many thanks for the replies and some additional information on the register I didn't know that it was created for a future Health Service. I contacted Croydon Archive last year and the gent replied with a great well written write-up on my mans Great War Service start to finish. My man is Douglas Arthur Barnes, 7 Headcorn Road, Croydon he earned the Military Medal in October 1916 on the Western Front. He was a Bank Clerk on enlistment in May 1915 and on the 1939 register he is a Bank Manager. I would be interested in contact information for a look up and copy of the facing page. The ARP service number intrigues me, can anyone add anything further on this? Thanks for the link on the bombing too I will look this over later today. I would like to find the Croydon Advertiser bombing map I will try to search that out at some point. I will also contact the Croydon Archive about any ARP information that may be in the archives. Thank you all again, Tom.
Information on the 1939 Register, note the comment "It is only digital copies of the 1939 Register that are available to the public. The original register books are not held at The National Archives and have been retained by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, now called NHS Digital." 1939 Register - The National Archives
Hi Tony, That puts that away then I can see why though I guess there could still be many people about from 1939. Atlest what is out there has revealed his wartime work. Thank you for your input. Cheers, Tom.
Hi Tom Not definitive, but looking at other entries in neighbouring streets recorded by the same enumerator (and including Special Constables) they seem to have used "No ...." etc to record a persons serial number in the quoted organisation. If giving a place they seem to say "Depot No 3" or "Station No 3" or just give the place. Other 1939 Registers I have seen do not always quote the serial number, except for police & Army Navy etc. But I did note the enumerator has not exactly followed the rules as they only quotes a persons initials, not first forename. I have read that on the enumerators visit to the property they completed & handed out ID cards on the spot, so they had a busy job. Travers
Hi Travers, So here were my thoughts earlier. ARP service ? Never seen the word service after ARP. No35 being a depot number or unit number in the area of Croydon ? Or could there be more digits after No35 showing Douglas actually as having an ARP service/serial number ? You could be correct that the No35 could be a longer personal service/serial number. So as the image shows we have ARP, service No35****? county borough of Croydon. Then there cannot be much more gained from this. All input is gratefully received and I do understand more now about what is written of his particular register entry. Cheers, Tom.
