Reserved Occupations

Discussion in 'United Kingdom' started by Phillip, Aug 23, 2009.

  1. Phillip

    Phillip Junior Member

    Good evening all,

    Does anyone know whether being a carpenter was regarded as a "Reserved Occupation"?

    Phillip
     
  2. Elven6

    Elven6 Discharged

  3. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Any job...skill... or "Know How" that was deemed essential to the war effort was a "Reserved Occupation"
    Oddly enough I was in a reserved Engineering occupation. HUGE row when I managed to get my PAPERS" In to the M Ds office..."You are more useful here than in the army" I insisted ! Daft patriotic idiot!

    Any one from anywhere... could be placed where they wanted you. You had to go..
    It was called "In the public interest" The job I was doing was "In the public interest"
    I was directed to report to that job..
    Sapper
     
  4. englandphil

    englandphil Very Senior Member

    I recently saw a documentry about the mosquito, which was mainly a wooden plane, stating that it could be mass produced by carpenters and cabinet makers in almost a cottage industry, so there must have been a fair few still left in the trade. However, this does not take into account age profile etc.

    This may be of interest, and suggests that it wasnt a reserved occupation in the UK

    BBC - WW2 People's War - Joining Up: A WAAF at RAF East Fortune

    P
     
  5. ADM199

    ADM199 Well-Known Member

    Some who were determined enough found a way of getting round reserved occupation status.

    I was working on the Roll of Honour for 11th R.H.A. for 1942 and found a few Casualties with Royal Irish Fusiliers Nos.which I found puzzling.
    The Family of one of them told me that to get round his reserved occupation status he had caught a Ferry from Liverpool to Ireland. He joined up there after declaring that he was a painter and decorator by trade.
    No further questions appear to have been asked.
     
  6. ads

    ads Junior Member

  7. peterhastie

    peterhastie Senior Member

    I believe a system was applied to many trades, like the Bevin boys, if their was a shortage of tradesmen then you were issued with a Green Card by the Minsitry of Works and you went and worked were you were needed, ie Joiner to London for bomb damage repairs.

    Charles Robertson Taylor lived at 44 Fifth Avenue in Heaton. After leaving school he became an Apprentice Joiner and obtained a Green Card from the Ministry of Works. In 1942 he joined "C" Company until 1944, when he was sent to London by the Ministry of Works to help rebuild the war ravaged capital city. He returned to the North East in 1946. After working for several builders he found employment with British Rail in 1949 as a Joiner and remained their until his retirement.
     
  8. Phillip

    Phillip Junior Member

    Thanks Guys,

    Sorry about the delay in responding, i counldn't work how to reply!!!!!!!

    Dad was a carpenter, but filled in his job application as Head Barman. There is a story that he changed it so he could serve.

    Many thanks again

    Phillip
     
  9. James Daly

    James Daly Senior Member

    I believe that what constituted a reserved occupation changed slightly as the war went on. As Britain became progressively short of manpower succesive legislation cut back the amount of occupations that were reserved, freeing up men for service in the forces.

    My late Grandfather was a shipwright apprentice at Vospers Shipyard in Portsmouth, building Motor Torpedo Boats and RAF rescue launches. Initially this was a reserved occupation but in January 1942 he got his call up for the Army, probably as an apprentice was semi-skilled and therefore more dispensable.

    Regarding Carpenters, there would also have been a great many of them working on Gliders I imagine.
     
  10. Phillip

    Phillip Junior Member

    Thanks for the info - my research continues

    Many thanks

    Phillip
     
  11. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    Hello Phillip,

    Carpenters were among the many civilian tradesmen listed in the first Schedule of Reserved Occupations, published in January 1939 (a complete listing is available in the January 25th edition of the Times). However, there were constant revisions to the Schedule throughout the war. The exact type of trade in which a man was employed was taken into account. For example, in April 1939 coffin-makers as a subcategory of carpenters were no longer given reserved status (rather counterintuitively, you might think, given that a bloody war was expected to break out soon). So your question is not a straightforward one.

    Also, bear in mind that reserved status only applied to men of a particular age and above. A trade might be reserved for men age (say) 25 and older; but men younger than that sharing the same work bench could be called up.

    Best, Alan
     
  12. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    I'm curious to know if there was a flood of people trying to get into reserved occupations to avoid combat.
     
  13. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Wasn't the whole idea of reseved Occupations to stop the wholsale volunteering of large sections of Specialists such as Engineers, miners etc, who were required to continue the war effort with regards to production of munitions and equipment.

    I presume that there will always be a certain percentage wishing to take advantage of a reserved Occupation status in order to avoid being called up.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  14. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    On the same subject I have often wondered was the a complete list of all the reserved occupations?
     
  15. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

  16. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Cheers Tom.

    • Dock Workers
    • Miners
    • Farmers
    • Scientists
    • Merchant Seamen
    • Railway Workers
    • Utility Workers - Water, Gas, Electricity
    • Teachers and university lecturers
    • Doctors (Unless in the Territorial Army)
    • Police officers
    • Certain Civil Servants
    • Students (Only for the duration of their studies. Undergraduates were deferred, but not fully exempted. They could be conscripted at the end of their studies, unless they had a criminal record or ill health)
    • Priests, monks, nuns and anyone in Holy orders
    • Journalists (Though they may have been sent to the front, even running the risk of being shot or held by the enemies as spies. Some worked as intelligence officers during WW2.)
    • Some artists involved in propaganda work
    • Other media workers (especially those involved in technical roles, such as lighting engineers, electricians, cameramen, photographers, sound engineers, etc.)
    • Anyone running a small business, including government and local council contractors and their employees.
    • Local authority employees
    • Bank employees and employees of insurance companies
    • company directors
    • Veterinary surgeons
     
  17. Vitesse

    Vitesse Senior Member

    I was already working on this before you asked, Drew! From The Times, January 25th 1939:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Drew5233 likes this.
  18. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

  19. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    I'm afraid the list on Wikipedia is pretty unreliable. AFAIK teachers and journalists were never exempted, nor was "anyone running a small business," nor bank or insurance employees (very few middle-class jobs were Scheduled). As for railway workers, I calculated in Demobbed that about 85,500 of them were in the Forces on V-E Day ...

    The real Schedule of Reserved Occupations was subject to many changes throughout the war; the first, peacetime Schedule reproduced by Vitesse was revised in spring '39, for instance. As the Times list shows, many Reserved Occupations were only reserved beyond a certain age - e.g. farmers over, but not under, 25 - and these age minimums were often tinkered with. It was also possible for an employer to request a deferment or exemption for a specific worker.

    Although there were regular complaints in the press about civilian workers 'dodging the column' in Reserved Occupations, in fact the system was mainly introduced to prevent craftsmen with badly needed skills from joining up, as so many had done in WWI (with disastrous effects on war production). Ministry of Labour officials screened volunteers trying to enlist to make sure that they weren't in Reserved Occupations.

    Best, Alan
     
  20. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Regarding the numbers conscripted into the armed forces

    By 1944 the military forces had enough manpower for the military tasks envisaged, while the coal mining industry manpower numbers were found to be deficient to meet industrial output.To rectify the deficiency,military conscripts were directed to the coalfields as underground workers under a Bevin labour scheme.Such conscripts to the mining industry were known as "Bevin Boys".

    A late friend always used to say jokingly "The Prince of Wales" saved my life.What he implied was conscripted employment as a Bevin Boy at the local colliery probably saved his life as he did not have to serve in HM Forces.

    Digressing now.

    On the other hand I know of a then young miner who was determined to get out of the pits by volunteering for RAF Aircrew and had a narrow escape from death on the ground. He was a Rear Gunner in a Halifax on No 51 Squadron at Snaith on March 21 1945 when they were brought down in an operation to Rheine.He was injuried and sent to hospital and another Gunner was captured by Italian workers.Of the remaining five crew members,four were murdered by their German escort detachment with shots in the back, while the the other survived execution by evading shots from Schmeisters.He evaded for two days and survived being hunted by dogs.

    He gave himself up on April 1 1945 and was treated as a POW.Postwar, he saw the perpretators brought to justice by his evidence and said he owed his life to deciding to run for it after hearing the Schmeisters being cocked and glancing around

    [Geoff. Largely a RAAF crew with F/O Jack Paradise (RAAF) the skipper.]
     
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