Children and War: A Historical Anthology

20. Against Their Will: The Use and Abuse of British Children during the Second World War

Chapter Twenty Against Their Will The Use and Abuse of British Children during the Second World War Penny Elaine Starns and Martin L. Parsons Prior to the outbreak of war in 1939, 1,500,000 British children were moved from their homes in the cities to rural areas over a period of three days. Subsequent large-scale evacuations also took place in 1940 and 1944.Yet despite the uniqueness of this mass child migration, traditional accounts of British wartime history have failed to include the experiences of these evacuated children. Any analysis of the evacuation process has been viewed primarily in terms of how the process affected the lives of adults. Thus, the views of government officials, billeting officers, host parents, teachers, and health workers have been considered, but the evacuee voice has been strangely excluded from evacuation history. The overriding debate has concentrated on whether evacuation served to challenge existing class boundaries within British society or merely served to reinforce them. However, while historians have debated the evacuation process in terms of social class structures and subsequent postwar policy, they have failed to confront more fundamental issues, such as the varied motivations which prompted government evacuation schemes and the diverse treatment of those children involved. Conventional accounts of evacuation history have portrayed the British government as one which initiated evacuation schemes merely in order to protect children from the horrors of war.1 Yet despite this assumption, there were other, more pressing concerns which directed evacuation policy. Children also became an integral part of the British war effort, and far from being protected, many suffered widespread 266 physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of the very people who were responsible for their welfare. This chapter will expose just some of the ways in which British children were used and abused during the Second World War. Planning Prior to 1939, the British government divided the country into “Evacuation ,”“Reception,” and “Neutral” areas (the latter areas did not evacuate or receive children under the evacuation scheme but as the name suggests remained neutral), and decided that children should be evacuated with their schools, under the guidance of teachers. These children and their teachers would then be billeted in individual homes in the countryside. Billeting was made compulsory. Therefore, if people had spare rooms they were forced to take in evacuees regardless of their circumstances. In the beginning there were exceptions; the disabled, elderly, chronically sick, and those who were at work all day did not have to be hosts. However, when the war actually started, pressure to find billets meant that even these categories found themselves having to look after lively young children. In early 1939, billeting officers toured the countryside recording the number of rooms available in each area, but no checks were ever made on the suitability of the receiving hosts. Furthermore, although billeting was compulsory, evacuation was voluntary. Consequently, individual villages never knew how many evacuees to expect, since numbers were always based on dubious estimates. For instance, Hungerford in Berkshire was expected to receive no evacuees at all, yet over 800 turned up. Over the whole of Britain all counties received a different number of evacuees to the number for whom plans had been made.2 Moreover, despite the fact that advisors from the Air Ministry had warned government officials of the dangers of evacuating children to the east coast, since the main thrust of air and sea attack would be targeted on this area, this advice was ignored. Many children were evacuated to the eastern counties and consequently saw far more of the war during the first few months of the conflict than if they had stayed in London. Most were later re-evacuated several times. Why then, in view of previous advice, was a decision taken to send children into known danger areas? The answer to this question was quite simple , and underpinned the whole of the government’s evacuation policy. Against Their Will 267 Evacuation was not simply about moving civilians from dangerous areas to places of relative safety; it was about “the dispersal of the population,” and meeting essential wartime demands. The evacuation of children liberated more women for work in munitions factories. Propaganda played on the fears of parents and argued that children would be healthier and stronger in the country. Mothers in particular were portrayed as being irresponsible if they did not...