Week 35 - 'Back To School'
The only ancestor I can think of that had anything to do with schools is my great-uncle Charles Albert Pearce (Charlie).
He was born (the same day as me ! ) on 26 July 1879 at Miller Street Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, Scotland. He was the eighth of ten children and a younger brother of my paternal grandfather Francis George Pearce. His parents were William Pearce and Sarah (nee Clarke).
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Picture of young Charles Albert Pearce
Cropped family photo, the only photo I have of Charlie. |
Charlie married Jessie Jenkins 25 July 1905 - 25 years old, one day off 26, at Loch Ryan Cottage, High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
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Loch Ryan Cottage on the Loch Ryan estate with view over the Mull of Kintyre.
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Charlie and Jessie had 3 children two girls and a boy.
Jessie Kerr Jenkins born 15 Feb 1909, Dora Margaret born 10 Feb 1913 and Charles Fraser born 22 Jan 1915.
Charlie was teaching when he enlisted with the UK Royal Air Force and is listed in the Airmen Records 1918-1940, Service Number: 198118. His Military Record states: Charles Albert Pearce, Occupation Teacher, Religion is Church of Scotland, Attestation Date 17 Jun 1918, Attestation Age 38, Spouse's first name Jessie, Archive reference AIR 79/1798
His medical report makes him a 1 A, so fit for duty. Also, he is 5’ 6 3/4” tall with 36” chest, brown hair, brown eyes and pale complexion with mole behind R. ear and on R. side of spine.
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| Military Record of Charles Albert Pearce. |
At that time older men were being called up. It was only a month before he turned 39. He was at a place called ‘Thornycroft’ (a vehicle manufacturer that supplied to the forces). Then he was sent to Aberdeen for a while before he was discharged to the reserves in 1919.
Charlie returned to teaching and taught at Clydebank High School Glasgow until his retirement.
On the '1939 Register for England and Wales', he is listed as Retired Assistant Teacher of Maths, Handwork & Drawing.
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Charlie died 27 October 1947 aged 68, at Berwick on Tweed, Northumberland, England.
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History of Clydebank High School
Quote from Wikipedia:
“Workers at the local shipyards wanted a proper education for their children, so in 1872, the first Clydebank High School was created, in a house with only one qualified teacher. After the rise of population in the area caused the creation of the town of Clydebank, a new school building was needed. In 1876, the school board opened the first purpose-built Clydebank High School. Twelve years later, in 1888, the board decided that the school was too small and built another, larger, school on the Kilbowie Road site.
By the middle of the 1930s, a new school building was being built at Janetta Street, in the north of Clydebank.
During the Second World War, the building was hit by a parachute mine but was still usable as a temporary first aid post.
The school roll continued to rise in the 1950s and huts had to be assembled in the playgrounds to compensate. To cope with the rising numbers an extension of the building was completed in 1977.”
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| Clydebank High School, the 4th school building at Janetta Street, in the north of Clydebank. |
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“The Blitz on the industrial town of Clydebank, seven miles from the centre of Glasgow, was one of the most intense, deadly and remarkably unknown of the war. Well over 1,200 people were killed in the Clydeside area and at least the same again were seriously injured by the bombing on the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941.
The town had been bombed for a total of 9 hours by the Luftwaffe on Thursday 13th March. After the first wave of bombing, people started to move out of their homes and into shelters when they realized that the raid would continue throughout the night.
The local people knew a second night of raids was imminent and made it out of the town while others had to find shelter once again.
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| Clydebank Blitz 1941. |
The destruction in Clydebank was so severe that only seven properties were left undamaged by the bombing and the population was reduced from almost 60,000 to little more than 2,000.
The awful truth about the scale of destruction and the number of casualties never hit the headlines as wartime censorship meant that the whole event was effectively 'hushed up'. But the stories still live on in the minds of some of the children that survived the raid and in The Clydebank Blitz, they tell their own harrowing stories of what was one of Britain's worst bombing raids and Scotland's biggest civilian disaster. The aftermath on the town showed the destructive effect of the bombing and the displacement of the population.”
Charlie and his family would have been caught up in the Blitz, which must have been a horrendously frightening time for them, whether they stayed or left their home. Indeed this may have been when they moved to 16 North Road Berwick upon Tweed, where Charlie died.
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REFERENCES:
Record set British Royal Air Force, Airmen's Service Records 1912-1939, Category Military, armed forces & conflict, Subcategory Regimental & Service Records, Collections from Great Britain, England.
Wikipedia: Clydebank-2009, Clydebank High School.
Photo: Flickr, 'My Clydebank Photos' 2009,
BBC News, bbc.co.uk/news: ‘Clydebank Blitz’. Notes and photo.
Thank you for that piece of history. We know, as Australians, the loss that occurred in Gallipoli and the Western Front, although Darwin and other surrounding areas did get bombed and many killed. But to read of this happening in scotland too. We hear of England's bombing raids, but not so much scotland or is that just my ignorance?
ReplyDeleteHi Jenny. True we don’t hear about Scotland's bombings much at all. According to Les Taylor, author of Luftwaffe Over Scotland, Peterhead was bombed 28 times during World War Two, Fraserburgh 23 times and Montrose 15. In total, there were more than 500 German air raids on Scotland - ranging from single aircraft hit-and-runs, to mass bombings by 240 planes. But Clydebank had the worst experience and lost the most people.
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