• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Warwickshire Home Guard

As Janice suggests, I think that he had a war grave, and was regarded as a military casualty, because he was engaged in Home Guard activity at the time he died. The cutting indicates that he was on his way to his unit for a night's duty when the accident occurred and this puts him in a different category from a normal civilian victim of the blackout.

Did you ever get his name corrected in the cwgc records?

Chris
 
ChrisM said:
As Janice suggests, I think that he had a war grave, and was regarded as a military casualty, because he was engaged in Home Guard activity at the time he died. The cutting indicates that he was on his way to his unit for a night's duty when the accident occurred and this puts him in a different category from a normal civilian victim of the blackout.

Did you ever get his name corrected in the cwgc records?

Chris
Click to expand...
hi chris
no im not a member of that site
thanks kc
 
Those two cuttings came from the Birmingham Weekly Post. I understand that such material is available through the Find My Past website, under Newspapers and Periodicals. Where the originals are kept, I don't know, but I should think that the Birmingham Central Library might be a good starting point.


Chris
 
thank you chris for your help I shall try and get into Birmingham kind regards kc
 
My father was in the home guard..I would love to find out more..How do I go about it ??
His name was George Luckman, he worked at the austin works at longbridge...and lived at Jervoise Grove Weoley Castle
 
Hi chris
Have you any idea which year of the birminghm post it could possibly printed in please about george luckman,
as i have got several years of the periods in my possesion and from the war years they was printed into series s
So if you can give us a clue i will dig my papers out i have fetch out a couple already dated the 1947 ayears and the one before
many thanks Alan,, Astonian,,,,
 
Astonian said:
Hi chris
Have you any idea which year of the birminghm post it could possibly printed in please about george luckman,
as i have got several years of the periods in my possesion and from the war years they was printed into series s
So if you can give us a clue i will dig my papers out i have fetch out a couple already dated the 1947 ayears and the one before
many thanks Alan,, Astonian,,,,
Click to expand...
I have no idea whether my father would be mentioned during the war years. We are presuming he was in the Longbridge group of Home Guard... But on the brighter side he may have been mentioned in the paper around November 1947, when he applied for a divorce from his first wife Arabella, quite a scandal, as she had been caught with the lodger !
 
Think a bit of confusion is creeping in here: I am not aware that Margaret's father, George Luckman, has ever been mentioned in any newspaper article. The discussion previously in this thread which concerned a Home Guard being mentioned in a press cutting referred to another gentleman.

Chris
 
Margaret,

It is good to hear mention of another Birmingham Home Guard.

Most Home Guards would have belonged to a unit either close to their home address or at their place of work, provided that the latter was a sufficiently large organisation to justify its own Home Guard unit. Records are regrettably very patchy and so it is difficult in most cases to find out much about the service of a particular individual. Some time ago I attempted to pull together most of the options in this article:
https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/J9GeneralInformationSearchingforMembers.htm
I think most of those comments are still relevant although links to various government departments may require updating. The latter are easily findable via Google.

As far as your father, George Luckman, is concerned, unfortunately I have not come across any further information about his service. You have mentioned separately a comment he made many years later when on the top of the Malvern Hills. What he was doing there on the evening of Thursday, November 14th, 1940 when Coventry was bombed, we can only guess at. I have to say it seems to me very unlikely that it could have been anything associated with his Home Guard service. He was much too far away from his normal territory and, whilst it is not absolutely impossible, it seems not at all likely that at that stage local Birmingham units would have been undergoing any sort of training so far from home. Is there any other Malvern association with his family? Could he have been having a couple of days holiday?

If we can find out anything further about his Home Guard service, and especially if he was a member of the Longbridge works unit, I should be more than happy to make an mention of him on my Home Guard website, in commemoration of him and his service.

Chris
 
Last edited:
  • Hi all , Just thought i would post this picture of my Grandad in the homeguard James davis 1941 He is the smiling right of the trophy.Home Guard 1941 (Birmingham gas department) 001.jpg
 
Great image, AstonGazz, and thanks for posting it.

Your grandfather was a sergeant in No.4 Platoon which was part of "B" Company of the 29th Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion of the Home Guard and it is notable that he is wearing Great War ribbons. At that time almost everyone in a position of authority within the Home Guard would have had similar military experience.

The 29th consisted entirely of members of the Birmingham City Utilities Departments and "B" Coy. was the group within that Battalion responsible for the city's gas supply facilities. (Other Companies were for electricity, water etc etc). The shield which the platoon is proudly displaying was provided by the Gas Committee in order to encourage competition amongst the platoons in the fields of drill and attendance.

I have online quite a lot of information concerning the background to this picture, including a (not quite so clear) version of the latter. (You may or may not have found it already). If you or anyone else is interested in reading further it can be found here:
https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/DotherReminiscences134D29thWarks.htm

Chris
 
Amongst all the Home Guard group images which crop up, there occasionally appears a more informal photograph which tell us rather more about that moment in time when the shutter clicked.

I particularly like this one! It is a fag and pipe moment for some Erdington blokes who have just completed artillery weapon training at Umberslade Park, Hockley Heath. They are at Wood End station on the Stratford to Snow Hill line and are on their way home. It is probably late on a Sunday afternoon. (More information here, if anyone is interested: https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/DotherReminiscences148A23WarksBeard.htm )

Something up above has caught the eye of one or two of them. We shall never know what it. But as they look up at it, is their expression one of idle curiosity or is there a touch of caution there as well?
 

Attachments

  • GroupRailwayPlatformw700.jpg
    GroupRailwayPlatformw700.jpg
    82 KB · Views: 16
My granddad Charles Coughlin served in WW1 in the South Staffs regiment, would he be in the same as a home guard member in WW2 or would he be in the Warwicks?
He lived in Farley Road, Erdington (Perry Common maybe)
 
ChrisM said:
Amongst all the Home Guard group images which crop up, there occasionally appears a more informal photograph which tell us rather more about that moment in time when the shutter clicked.

I particularly like this one! It is a fag and pipe moment for some Erdington blokes who have just completed artillery weapon training at Umberslade Park, Hockley Heath. They are at Wood End station on the Stratford to Snow Hill line and are on their way home. It is probably late on a Sunday afternoon. (More information here, if anyone is interested: https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/DotherReminiscences148A23WarksBeard.htm )

Something up above has caught the eye of one or two of them. We shall never know what it. But as they look up at it, is their expression one of idle curiosity or is there a touch of caution there as well?
Click to expand...
Great photo !
I wonder what sort of "Artillery weapon" the men were training on, the ranks in view make up the sort of detachment you'd expect to see on a 3.7 Anti - aircraft gun for example.
 
Eric, your grandfather would have been in the Home Guard unit adjacent to where he lived (unless it was a factory unit where he worked which might have been elsewhere). So very likely to have been one of the Warwickshire battalions, most probably the one we are talking about.

Maypolebaz, follow the link for full details. The images there indicate two anti-tank weapons, the Spigot Mortar and the 2-pounder. As you imply, some blokes were transferred to anti-aircraft duties but I am not sure where that training occurred.

Chris
 
I hadn't thought about works units Chris, he was working at Wolseley Sheep Shearing in Witton at the time, do you know if they had their own unit?
 
No, I'm afraid I don't know, Eric. Depends on how big a company it was. Might have had its own unit, or it might have been under the umbrella of one of the several factory Battalions in Birmingham who had responsibility for a number of industrial premises within their area.

Chris
 
Thanks for that, Stitcher. Do we have any idea of the date of the cutting?

Chris
 
Hello Chris, no I am afraid not, Most of these things that I post I have had for some considerable time, I have posted the best of them over the years but I keep finding odds and ends as I clear out my clutter. I used to repair clocks and watches but I gave that up when the electric rubbish took over, I also trained as a gents tailor and made several suits for myself then I started making my wife's clothes. I was a tourist guide for Birmingham and that caused me to gather a lot of papers and books so you can see where all my clutter came from. I am clearing everything out because my wife keeps talking about moving into sheltered accommodation and I will only continue with my sewing (X stitch) hobby.
 
IMG_2078.jpg
Stitcher said:
Hello Chris, no I am afraid not, Most of these things that I post I have had for some considerable time, I have posted the best of them over the years but I keep finding odds and ends as I clear out my clutter. I used to repair clocks and watches but I gave that up when the electric rubbish took over, I also trained as a gents tailor and made several suits for myself then I started making my wife's clothes. I was a tourist guide for Birmingham and that caused me to gather a lot of papers and books so you can see where all my clutter came from. I am clearing everything out because my wife keeps talking about moving into sheltered accommodation and I will only continue with my sewing (X stitch) hobby.
Click to expand...

Keep them coming! I can't find this actual cutting in the Archives, but here is a similar one from 13 June 1942.
 
Birmingham-Exercise-6and7Mc.jpg
I remember the family talking about my dad being in the Home Guard but I also had two step brothers fighting abroad so after it was all over their stories were more interesting then Dads were.
 
I wonder if in your Home Guard studies you might come across a Charles Coughlin, he was my maternal grandfather, I know he was in the HG but not where or which unit, he served with the South Staffs in WW1, would he have done the same in the HG or could he have just as easily been in the Warwicks?
 
Hello Eric, I do not actually study the Home Guard but I do come across snippets now and again so I will remember the name you mentioned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top