18TH SEPTEMBER
Consisting of a slideshow of photographs, here’s my new tribute to my Granny, Phyllis Grace Geake, née Weaver (1916-2005), who was born on 18th September 1916.
This video can also be viewed on my YouTube channel at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEHjeBf8Ha0
and in my website video gallery at
https://www.hibbitt.org.uk/gallery/videos/video-album/0043-granny-geake/
Last November, Harvey and I attended an event at Plymouth University in order to contribute to a new online archive called ‘Their Finest Hour’. The University of Oxford project was devised in order to preserve stories and take photographs and videos of items which may have been passed down to ordinary members of the public by their families and which are related to the Second World War.
The website was launched on 6th June. Unfortunately, I had to contact the archive to correct the information we had supplied as the volunteers we saw on the day had misunderstood what we told them and some of the details were either incorrect or lacked context. I’m pleased to say that the revised information is now live on the website.
Our stories can be viewed at the following links:
21st Devon (Post Office) Battalion, Home Guard – Charles George Hibbitt
A brief outline of my paternal grandfather’s time in the Home Guard.
A Ruined Homecoming – William Hellyer Geake and, wife, Phyllis
The story of my maternal grandfather’s homecoming after being away for four years in the War.
RAF Technical Training during WW2 – Air Commodore Cyril Norman Ellen D.F.C.
Details of Harvey’s maternal grandfather’s contribution to the RAF’s Technical Training Branch in which he was in charge of three schools related to Electrical & Wireless, Radio and Signals.
Their Finest Hour event held at Plymouth University on 23rd November 2023
I’d long been intrigued by what looked like a certificate which had been issued by the Home Guard amongst the papers belonging to my Grandpa Hibbitt (Charles George Hibbitt). However I’d never had any success in finding anything out about any potential service in this local defence force during WWII. That was until recently.
The Home Guard Certificate which belonged to Charles George Hibbitt
A huge project of ten million service personnel records are gradually being transferred from the Ministry Of Defence to The National Archives. It used to cost £30 to apply to the MOD for a deceased person’s record but now you can perform a request at https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-records-of-service/apply-for-the-records-of-a-deceased-serviceperson. If you apply online for a British Army or Home Guard record, the MOD will check if they hold it and, if they do, they’ll send it to you free of charge. If they don’t have it, you’ll be told to check The National Archives.
At the end of July, I sent for my Grandpa Hibbitt’s Home Guard record as well as my Grandpa Geake’s Army record. I was fortunate in that both were still with the MOD and even more fortunate that they both turned up within a couple of months. Initially I was told that nothing could be found for the Home Guard record so I sent back a copy of the certificate that we have in our possession and a couple of weeks later the record came in the post.
My Grandpa Geake’s Army record is quite comprehensive with a lot of abbreviations and will take me some time to fully explore.
By contrast, my Grandpa Hibbitt’s Home Guard record consisted of two sides of one piece of paper with scant information on it. This isn’t unusual but at least now I had official confirmation that Gramps had served in the force. I also discovered that he was with the 21st Devon (Post Office) Battalion, H.G. This made perfect sense as he was a General Post Office Telephone Engineer. His occupation on the form was noted as SWI POE Dept which stood for Skilled Workman Class I, Post Office Engineers Department.
The top of my Grandpa Hibbitt’s Home Guard Service Record (click to enlarge)
A search on the internet proved almost fruitless. The only information I could find was that the 21st (33rd GPO) Battalion, Devon Home Guard had their headquarters in Plymouth and was made up of employees of the General Post Office. They wore khaki uniform and were tasked with protecting the communications equipment of the GPO.
My Grandpa lived in Tavistock, about 15 miles north of Plymouth, and was working there at the time too. Nevertheless my dad remembers Grandpa would drive down to Plymouth three or four times a week to carry out emergency work. Apparently the office was full of maps. The bombs would drop in the streets and the circuits would need to be rerouted by the jointers. A few plugs would be put into the telephone exchange and they could then change over to another route. It wasn’t unheard of for the rerouted circuit to be knocked out at a later date and the same process would have to begin again. Grandpa later said his near-sight suffered as a result of reading all those plans during the blackout.
I imagine this work could have contributed towards Grandpa’s Home Guard service although it’s quite possible he was actively engaged in these activities before he was officially part of the force.
Originally, all members of the Home Guard were volunteers but in 1942 the National Service Act made it possible for compulsory enrolment to be applied in areas where units were below strength. From the service record above it looks as though Grandpa was one of these. There was a wealth of experience within the Home Guard. For example, in 1940 and 1941, approximately 40 percent of volunteers were World War I veterans and my Grandpa was no exception, having enlisted in the Royal Engineers on 6th November 1916, a month before his 18th birthday, and mobilized on 1st March 1917.
The Home Guard was eventually stood down on the 3rd December 1944 and from this date they became an inactive reserve unit. The archive online catalogue at the Box in Plymouth contains photographs of the Home Guard Stand Down on Plymouth Hoe dated 27th November 1944. Perhaps Grandpa was in attendance at this event. The Home Guard was finally disbanded on 31st December 1945 and ceased to exist from this date.
I’ve recently carried out another upload to my Hibbitt family tree and have added 52 more people in the process.
WORGAN
Amongst the new additions are my 7 x great-grandparents, John Worgan and Anne Worgan – Anne appears to have had the same maiden and married name. It seems as though they had five children in Woolaston, Gloucestershire, but it was quite difficult sorting out who was who as there were other Worgan families in the same area. To compound the problem, there was a couple called John and Margaret Morgan having children at the same time as my 6 x great-grandparents, John and Margaret Worgan, and the letters ‘M’ and ‘W’ are not easily deciphered in the parish registers. In the end, a process of elimination helped me to move back to the previous generation.
BROAD
I managed to go back a further generation on my mother’s Broad line. Mary Broad was my 4 x great-grandmother and she married William Sillick in Tavistock, Devon, in 1792. There was no baptism for Mary in Tavistock and so I’d left it at that until I looked again more recently. At that point, I found a couple called John Broad and Thomasin, née May, about ten miles away in Bridestowe who’d had a daughter, Mary, baptised in the right time frame. They’d married in nearby Sourton and their first five children were baptised in Bridestowe. Nevertheless, I managed to follow the family to Tavistock for the baptisms of their sixth and seventh children and John and Thomasin also died in Tavistock, but not before Thomasin had been widowed and married again, to a man called William Waterfield.
WEAVER
My 5 x great-grandfather on my mother’s side, Robert Weaver, lived in Curry Rivel in Somerset and was married to Anne Toogood, from whom I’m descended. Some time after Anne died, Robert married again, this time to Sarah Munkton. I knew this wasn’t her maiden name as she was a widow when she married Robert. After a little digging I made a surprising discovery. It turned out that Sarah was Anne’s first cousin. Sarah’s maiden name was Ostler. Her father was Samuel Ostler and his sister, Elizabeth, married Robert Toogood, who were Anne’s parents.
The 1787 marriage of Charles Munkton and Sarah Osler/Ostler
as recorded in Pallot’s Marriage Index
HALL
I have, at last, placed Sydney Herbert Hall on my tree as the son of my 2 x great-grandfather, William Elbert Dando. DNA evidence points to either William or possibly his father, Joseph Dando the Younger, being Sydney’s father. More on this here.
MURCH
Finally, I’ve extended my Murch branch. Ann Murch was my 4 x great-grandmother and she married Joseph Dando the Elder in Bristol in 1801. I’ve undertaken some detailed research on this family line and added three further generations of Murch ancestors. The web pages contain significant additional information together with footnotes. I’m in the process of writing a narrative on the Murch family in preparation for a forthcoming trip to Bristol where I’m going to be meeting a couple of others descended from Joseph and Ann.
[UPDATE: Since my trip to Bristol I’ve produced a comprehensive document about four generations of the Murch family. The material is available in my E-shop.]
1ST APRIL
The 1st April was no fool’s day for Harvey’s grandad as it popped up several times during the course of his career. Here I list a few examples.
Cyril Norman Ellen joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915. On the 1st April 1918, the RNAS merged with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to become the RAF (Royal Air Force). At that time Cyril was serving in Stavros in Greece. No 2 Wing, RNAS, ‘D’ Flight (Stavros) became D Squadron in late 1917 and on 1st April 1918 (upon the creation of the RAF) it became 221 Squadron, 62 Wing RAF. His rank changed from Observer Sub-Lieutenant to Lieutenant ‘O’ RAF that same day.
On 1st April 1921, No 45 Sqn officially came into being. Based in Iraq, Cyril joined the squadron that day, having just completed his pilot training. He received authority to wear ‘Wings’ a couple of weeks later. Whilst serving with No. 45 Sqn, Cyril was engaged in the Cairo to Baghdad Airmail route.
In 1945, on 1st April, Cyril became the Director of Signals in the Air Division for the Control Commission for Germany. After he completed his signals task in the following February he was sent to Berlin to assist the Deputy Chief of Air Division on all matters until his retirement in May.
Badge and medal ribbons on Cyril Ellen’s uniform
