They Escaped Persecution- Others Had Lived Here for Decades. Britain Still Interned Them as ‘Enemy Aliens’

They Escaped Persecution- Others Had Lived Here for Decades. Britain Still Interned Them as ‘Enemy Aliens’

Imagine escaping a country where staying had become dangerous, reaching Britain and believing that you had finally found somewhere safe. Or perhaps Britain was already your home. You had lived here for years, worked here, raised a family here and knew nowhere else as home. Then war began, and suddenly the country written on your passport was more important than the life that you had built.

Women classed as enemy aliens being escorted to trains for internment on the Isle of Man, Second World War. Press Agency photographer / Imperial War Museums, HU 36121. Public domain (UK Government work), via Wikimedia Commons.

Today I want to discover more about one of the more uncomfortable parts of Britain’s Second World War story: the people classed as “enemy aliens” and interned during the fear and uncertainty of 1940. Some were refugees who had escaped persecution in Germany and Austria, others had already lived in Britain for many years. There were scientists, businessmen, shopkeepers, academics and men with British wives and children.

When Britain declared war on Germany on the 3rd of September 1939, thousands of German and Austrian nationals were living in the country. Some had come to Britain for work or to study, others had lived here for years, while many were Jewish refugees or political opponents who had escaped the German regime.

The British government did have a genuine security problem. The country was at war, and officials needed to decide whether anybody living here might pose a danger. Tribunals were established and people were broadly divided into three groups. Category A meant someone was considered a potential security risk and could be interned, Category B meant restrictions could be placed upon them, while Category C meant they were considered to pose little or no threat.

Most were initially placed in Category C.

Then everything changed.

During the spring of 1940, German forces swept through western Europe. France collapsed, British troops were evacuated from Dunkirk and the possibility of an invasion of Britain suddenly seemed frighteningly real. Alongside that came fears about spies and a possible “fifth column” already living in the country. People who had previously been considered harmless could suddenly find themselves arrested.

One of them was Paul Bondy. Bondy was Jewish and had been involved in opposition to the German regime in Bremen. He had already experienced arrest and imprisonment in Germany before coming to Britain. When he appeared before a British tribunal in 1939, he was recognised as a refugee from oppression and placed in Category C. But on the 26th of June 1940, he was arrested anyway and eventually spent several months in Huyton internment camp near Liverpool.

There was also Herman Podolsky, who had lived in Britain for several years and ran a business in Camberwell. He too had originally been placed in Category C but was later interned. His case was eventually raised in Parliament, where concern was expressed for his elderly parents, who were themselves refugees from persecution and depended heavily on him.

Some of those interned would later become extraordinarily important figures in British life. Max Perutz had come from Austria to Cambridge in 1936 to carry out scientific research. In 1940 he was interned and eventually transported to Canada. He later returned to Cambridge and became one of the most important scientists of his generation, sharing the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Another young Austrian, Hermann Bondi, had arrived in Britain as a teenager and studied mathematics at Cambridge. He too was interned and sent to Canada. After his release, however, he returned to Britain and worked for the Admiralty on radar research. The same country that had considered him suspicious enough to intern was soon relying on his scientific abilities as part of the war effort.

Then there was Charles Forte, whose story shows that you did not have to be a recently arrived refugee to find yourself labelled an enemy alien. Forte had come to Scotland from Italy when he was about four years old. He grew up in Britain, attended school here and later built a successful catering business in London. Britain had been his home for almost his entire life, but legally he was still Italian.

When Italy entered the war against Britain on the 10th of June 1940, Forte was interned on the Isle of Man. He was released after around three months and would later build one of Britain’s best-known hotel and catering businesses, eventually becoming Lord Forte.

His experience formed part of a much wider upheaval within Britain’s Italian community. Italian families had lived here for decades, running cafés, restaurants, ice-cream businesses and shops. But once Italy entered the war, men who had spent twenty or thirty years living among British neighbours could suddenly find themselves regarded as potential enemies.

By the summer of 1940, thousands of people were being held in internment camps, particularly on the Isle of Man. There were genuine supporters of hostile governments, but there were also refugees who had fled those governments, scientists, academics, businessmen, shopkeepers and long-established residents with families in Britain.

For some, internment in Britain was not the end of the story. Thousands were transported abroad to Canada and Australia. The most notorious transport was the HMT Dunera, which carried more than 2,000 internees to Australia in terrible conditions. Another voyage ended in tragedy when the Arandora Star was torpedoed on the 2nd of July 1940 while carrying German and Italian internees to Canada. More than 800 people died, most of the civilian internees killed were Italian.

The disaster helped to increase criticism of the policy, and cases began to be reviewed. Large numbers of internees were eventually released. Some joined the Pioneer Corps, some returned to scientific research and others tried to rebuild the lives that had been interrupted.

Britain faced a very real threat in 1940, and security concerns could not be ignored. But these individual stories show just how quickly fear could blur the difference between someone who genuinely presented a danger and someone whose only problem was the nationality written on a document.

I’ve gone much deeper into this story for my subscribers, including more of the people who were interned, the extraordinary contradictions in their cases, the camps, the deportations to Canada and Australia, and what happened to them afterwards. The full extended version is available now in my subscriber page.

Had you realised that some of the people Britain interned as “enemy aliens” had already lived here for years, while others had actually fled the very regime Britain was fighting?

The Boy Chosen to Be King of England -But Never Crowned- Edgar Ætheling

The Boy Chosen to Be King of England -But Never Crowned- Edgar Ætheling 

Edgar Ætheling, detail from a late 13th-century manuscript, British Library, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. 

He was born into England’s royal family with perhaps the strongest hereditary claim to the throne, only to watch another man become king instead. Then, just months later, that king was killed and the leading men of England finally turned to him. There was only one problem: the man who had defeated him was already advancing towards London.

Today I want to discover more about Edgar Ætheling, one of the most easily forgotten figures in the struggle for England in 1066. Harold Godwinson had power and experience, William of Normandy had an army and Harald Hardrada had a formidable reputation. Edgar had something rather different: royal blood.

Edgar was probably born around 1052. His father was Edward the Exile, the son of King Edmund Ironside, which made Edgar a great-grandson of King Æthelred II and a member of the old English royal house. His title, Ætheling, mattered because it marked him out as someone of royal blood who could potentially inherit the crown.

By ancestry, Edgar’s claim was extremely strong, but medieval kingship was not quite as simple as following a family tree. A king also needed powerful supporters, political experience and, particularly in the dangerous world of 1066, the ability to defend the kingdom. Edgar had the bloodline, but he did not yet have the experience.

His father had spent much of his life abroad after the Danish conquest of England. In 1057, Edward the Exile returned to England with his family, but died soon afterwards. Edgar was still young, and suddenly the young boy was left as one of the last male representatives of the old royal line.

When Edward the Confessor died on the 5th of January 1066, Edgar was probably only around fourteen years old. England was facing the very real possibility of invasion, and the country’s leading men instead turned to the powerful and experienced Harold Godwinson, who was crowned on the 6th of January.

For Edgar, it must have been an extraordinary situation. He had royal ancestry, but ancestry alone was not enough to put a crown on his head, especially when England needed a ruler who could command armies and deal with rival claimants.

Then 1066 became even more chaotic. Harald Hardrada invaded from Norway, Harold Godwinson raced north and defeated him at Stamford Bridge, and shortly afterwards William of Normandy landed in southern England. Harold then turned his army around and marched south to face him.

On the 14th of October 1066, Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings. England suddenly needed another king, and this time Edgar’s name came forward. In the aftermath of the battle, leading English nobles in London proclaimed the young Ætheling as king.

At last, the boy whose royal blood had not been enough in January appeared to have inherited the throne. But Edgar was never crowned.

William had won at Hastings, but England had not simply dropped into his hands. He began moving towards London while English leaders tried to decide whether they could continue resisting him. Edgar was still very young and had never commanded an army, while William was an experienced military leader who had already defeated England’s king.

Gradually, the resistance collapsed. Edgar and other leading English nobles submitted to William, and on Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. Edgar Ætheling had come astonishingly close to becoming king, but his chance was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.

His story did not end there. Edgar later became involved in resistance against Norman rule and was connected with rebellions in northern England. His family eventually found refuge in Scotland, where his sister Margaret married King Malcolm III and became Queen of Scots.

Edgar himself survived the dangerous politics of the Norman Conquest and lived for decades afterwards. Remarkably, the boy who had been passed over for the crown in January 1066, recognised as king after Hastings and then pushed aside by William was still alive well into the 12th century.

There is something rather sad about Edgar’s place in the story. Harold Godwinson wore the crown, Harald Hardrada died trying to take it and William of Normandy conquered it. Edgar Ætheling may have had the strongest hereditary claim of them all, but he became the king England chose but never crowned.

Had you heard of Edgar Ætheling before, or did you think the struggle for the English crown in 1066 was mainly between Harold and William?

Thousands of Women Were Given One Enormous Job: Protect Britain’s Skies.

Thousands of Women Were Given One Enormous Job: Protect Britain’s Skies

“Join the WAAF” recruitment poster, Air Ministry, 1939–1945. Imperial War Museums collection, Art.IWM PST 4916. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Thousands of women were given one enormous responsibility during the Second World War: helping to protect Britain’s skies with giant barrage balloons. They worked outdoors in wind, rain and darkness, handling heavy winches, steel cables and sandbags while trying to control something the size of a small building floating high above them.

If anyone thought “balloon duty” meant standing around holding a rope, they were in for a surprise.

Today I want to discover more about the women of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force who operated Britain’s barrage balloons during the Second World War. The balloons themselves are familiar from wartime photographs, hanging above cities like enormous silver creatures, but the women working beneath them are much less remembered.

Barrage balloons over London during the Second World War, 1939–1945. UK Government photograph, originally published in Air Publication 3003: A Brief History of the Royal Air Force. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Barrage balloons were designed to make low-level attacks more dangerous for enemy aircraft. Beneath each balloon hung a strong steel cable. A pilot flying into one risked serious damage or the aircraft being destroyed, so the sight of a balloon barrage could force aircraft higher or even make them change course. That made accurate low-level attacks more difficult and helped to protect cities, ports, factories and other important targets.

By July 1940, RAF Balloon Command was operating around 1,466 balloons across Britain, with roughly 450 protecting London. At first, the work was largely carried out by men, but Britain desperately needed manpower elsewhere. From 1941, women began increasingly taking over balloon sites.

One of those women was Nancy Scamp, who later recalled her experiences with the WAAF. She had originally worked repairing balloon fabric before volunteering to train as an operator. She eventually served on a balloon site around Sheffield.

The work was far from easy. Women learned how to launch and bring down the balloons by day and night, operate the winches, secure the equipment and respond to changing weather. Sandbags still had to be moved, heavy cables still had to be handled and the balloon still had to be controlled whether it was cold, wet or the middle of the night.

Their clothing was practical rather than glamorous. Nancy remembered being issued heavy boots, thick socks and boiler suits originally intended for men. Life on some sites could be basic too, with women cooking for themselves on paraffin stoves and managing with water delivered in containers.

Then there was the balloon itself.

These enormous hydrogen-filled balloons were controlled from the ground using powerful winches and thousands of feet of cable. Wind could make them difficult to manage, and crews had to understand when it was safe to raise them, lower them or secure them. Hydrogen was highly flammable, while the cables and machinery demanded constant care.

Despite early doubts about whether women could cope with such physically demanding work, they proved themselves very quickly.

By December 1942, more than 15,000 WAAF balloon operators had replaced around 10,000 men in Balloon Command. Those men could then be transferred to other wartime duties.

The balloons did not need to bring down an aircraft every time they were raised to be useful. Their value was often in forcing pilots to climb, alter course or avoid certain approaches altogether. In that sense, the women operating them were helping shape where enemy aircraft could and could not safely fly.

Later in the war, barrage balloons were also used against V1 flying bombs. They were not a perfect defence, and their cables could pose dangers to friendly aircraft too, but they formed an important part of Britain’s wider air-defence system.

What I find most striking is how quickly this unusual and demanding job became normal wartime work for thousands of women. They stood outside in bad weather, operated heavy machinery, handled dangerous equipment and kept watch over the skies above Britain.

The barrage balloons may dominate the photographs, but underneath those great silver shapes were thousands of women doing one of the strangest and hardest jobs of the wartime home front.

Did you know thousands of WAAF women operated Britain’s barrage balloons during the war, or is this a part of the home front you’d never heard about before?

 

 

The Day the Ice Gave Way: The Regent’s Park Skating Disaster That Killed 40 People

The Day the Ice Gave Way: The Regent’s Park Skating Disaster That Killed 40 People

Imagine spending a winter afternoon skating in one of London’s most fashionable parks. Hundreds of people are gliding across the frozen lake while thousands more watch from the banks. Then, without warning, the ice beneath you begins to crack. Within moments, huge sections give way and men, women and children disappear into freezing water.

Today I want to discover more about the Regent’s Park skating disaster of the 15th of January 1867, one of Victorian London’s most terrible winter tragedies. What makes the story even more disturbing is that there had already been a warning the previous day. 

January 1867 had brought exceptionally cold weather to Britain. The lake in Regent’s Park froze and, as happened whenever London experienced a prolonged frost, people flocked there to skate. Outdoor skating was enormously popular, and the frozen lakes of the capital’s parks could attract large crowds. Regent’s Park had been used by skaters for decades, and to many Londoners a frozen lake meant entertainment rather than danger. 

But on the 14th of January, the ice had already broken. Twenty-one people fell into the water, although remarkably they were all rescued. Overnight the surface froze again and snowfall helped disguise cracks and weaker areas. There was another complication too. Evidence later heard at the inquest revealed that ice had been deliberately broken in places around the lake, including around islands so that water remained available for birds.

Despite what had happened only a day earlier, crowds returned.

By the afternoon of the 15th of January, several hundred people were on the frozen lake and many more had gathered around it. Estimates vary, but contemporary accounts described an enormous crowd, with thousands watching the skaters. Then, at around half past three, the ice began to fail. Large areas suddenly broke apart and roughly 200 people were plunged into the freezing water, which in some places was around 12 feet deep.

Panic followed almost immediately. People desperately tried to climb onto pieces of broken ice, but those fragments could overturn or break beneath them. Victorian winter clothing became dangerously heavy once soaked, and many people could not swim. Those standing safely on the bank suddenly found themselves watching dozens of people fighting for their lives only a short distance away.

But the disaster also produced extraordinary acts of courage. Spectators and park workers rushed to help. Boats were launched, ropes were thrown and branches were torn from trees so that people trapped in the water had something to grasp. Many of those who had fallen through were eventually pulled out alive. 

One survivor, Mr Dunton of Frederick Street, had been skating with his two children. When the ice disappeared beneath them, he found himself standing in deep water while trying to keep both children above the surface. He remained there for a frighteningly long time as the cold began to cramp his legs and the water rose around him. His account described people struggling among broken pieces of ice and a small boy drowning only yards away. Somehow, Dunton and his children survived. 

Others were not so fortunate.

Bodies were taken to the nearby Marylebone workhouse, while rescuers continued searching the lake. The bitter weather made recovery even more difficult because the water repeatedly began freezing again. Divers eventually had to search the bottom, and it took several days to recover everyone who had died. Forty deaths are generally recorded today, although some contemporary reports gave the total as 41. Thirty-nine of the officially recorded victims drowned, while one died from the effects of the cold. 

An inquest followed. Questions were inevitably asked about the condition of the ice and about the areas that had deliberately been broken before the accident. Ultimately, however, the jury returned verdicts of accidental death. They also recommended something that would permanently change Regent’s Park lake: it should be made much shallower. 

That recommendation was acted upon. The lake was later drained, its bottom was levelled and its maximum depth was greatly reduced, to roughly four feet. The intention was simple. If the ice ever failed again, someone falling through should have a much better chance of surviving. Remarkably, the ice did break beneath skaters again in 1886, sending around 100 people into the water -but this time nobody died. 

I think what makes the Regent’s Park disaster so haunting is how ordinary the afternoon had begun. These people had not gone somewhere they expected to be dangerous. They had simply wrapped themselves against the cold and gone skating in a London park. Within minutes, families were searching for loved ones and strangers on the banks were risking themselves to pull people from the freezing water.

Today Regent’s Park looks peaceful, but beneath that familiar landscape lies the memory of a disaster that actually changed the lake itself. Had you ever heard of the Regent’s Park skating disaster before?

For an image, there is also an excellent 1867 Illustrated London News engraving on Wikimedia Commons showing the rescue scenes, which would suit this post very well. 

A contemporary illustration of the Regent’s Park skating disaster of 1867, showing rescuers attempting to save skaters after the ice on the lake broke.

Credit: Wikipedia Public Domain

They Were Nicknamed the ‘Idle Women’ - But Their Wartime Job Was Brutal

They Were Nicknamed the ‘Idle Women’ - But Their Wartime Job Was Brutal

Imagine working an 18-hour day hauling ropes, opening heavy lock gates, steering a loaded narrowboat through darkness and bad weather, then sleeping for only a few hours before getting up and doing it all again. Now imagine doing all of that while being known by the nickname “Idle Woman.” It sounds almost ridiculous, but during the Second World War a tiny group of women carried out some of the hardest and least remembered work on Britain’s home front.

Ministry of Information Photo Division, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Daphne March aboard the narrowboat Heather Bell in 1942, holding a coil of rope as she works on Britain’s wartime canals. She was one of the experienced boatwomen involved in training women for canal work during the Second World War.

Today I want to discover more about the women who helped keep Britain’s canals moving during the war. While thousands of women entered factories, farms and the armed services, a much smaller number took to the waterways, working narrowboats that carried vital cargo including coal, steel and other essential materials to factories and industrial centres.

By the middle of the war, Britain’s canals were still an important part of the transport network, but experienced boat crews were becoming increasingly difficult to find. Many men had left for military service or other wartime work, yet the cargo still had to move. A scheme was therefore created to train women to work on the Grand Union Canal, and those who joined wore badges carrying the letters IW, meaning Inland Waterways. From those initials came the nickname that has survived ever since: the “Idle Women.”

There was, of course, absolutely nothing idle about their lives. Crews generally consisted of three women working together on a motor narrowboat towing an unpowered “butty” behind it. Between them, the boats could carry around 50 tonnes of cargo. One regular route involved taking steel from London to Birmingham and then returning south with Warwickshire coal. A complete round trip could take around three weeks.

The work was physically demanding and relentless. Days lasting 18 to 20 hours were possible, and the women had to steer the boats, work the locks, haul ropes, secure the vessels and manage the boats through all kinds of weather. They lived aboard throughout the journey, sleeping, cooking and eating in cramped conditions with very little comfort. For women who had never experienced canal life before, it must have been an enormous adjustment.

Training usually lasted around six weeks, and recruits were expected to be physically strong enough to cope with the demands of the job. One official description stated that women should have a “robust constitution,” which gives some idea of what was expected of them. Former ballet dancer Eily “Kit” Gayford became one of the best-known women involved and helped train new recruits for the waterways service.

What makes their story even more remarkable is just how few women actually took part. Around 45 women are believed to have worked in the main wartime waterways scheme between 1943 and 1946. Compared with the tens of thousands of women who became Land Girls or worked in munitions factories, their numbers were tiny, and perhaps that is one reason their contribution has so often been overlooked.

The women earned around £3 a week, and despite the exhausting physical work they did not receive extra food rations. After spending weeks travelling the canals and working extremely long days, they could take time away from the boats, but that leave was unpaid. Their conditions were certainly not glamorous, yet the work they carried out was important to the wider war effort.

I think what makes this story so striking is the contrast between the nickname and the reality. Anyone watching one of these boats moving slowly along the canal might have imagined a peaceful journey through the countryside, but life aboard was anything but peaceful. These women were handling heavy boats, difficult locks and valuable wartime cargo for weeks at a time, often in cold, wet and exhausting conditions.

The “Idle Women” were never idle. They were a tiny group carrying out work that demanded strength, resilience and determination, and although their numbers were small, the materials they transported helped keep Britain’s industries supplied during some of the most difficult years of the war.

Had you heard of Britain’s “Idle Women” before, or is this another part of the wartime home front that deserves far more attention?

What Was It Really Like to Be Catholic Under Elizabeth I?

What Was It Really Like to Be Catholic Under Elizabeth I?

Was Elizabeth I persecuting Catholics simply because of their religion, or did years of rebellion, invasion threats and plots against her life convince her that Catholicism had become a political danger as well as a religious one?

Today I want to look at what life was actually like for Catholics under Elizabeth I, because their experience was not the same throughout her reign. Elizabeth did punish Catholics, and by the later decades some of those punishments became extremely severe, but her attitude hardened gradually as religion became increasingly tangled with questions of loyalty, rebellion and foreign threats.

When Elizabeth became queen on the 17th of November 1558, England had already changed religion several times within a generation. Henry VIII had broken with Rome, Edward VI had pushed England further towards Protestantism, and Mary I had restored Catholic worship. Ordinary families had lived through each change, watching the religion practised in their parish churches alter depending upon who sat on the throne.

Elizabeth’s Religious Settlement of 1559 established a Protestant Church of England and required people to attend its services. Catholics who refused became known as recusants. During the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign, however, the government was often more concerned with outward obedience than with investigating exactly what somebody believed inside their own home. Enforcement also varied considerably from place to place.

For an ordinary Catholic family, this could mean living two lives. They might attend their parish church to avoid trouble while still praying privately as Catholics, keeping religious objects hidden and maintaining older traditions within the family. Others refused to conform and faced fines, imprisonment and increasing pressure from the authorities.

One fascinating example among the nobility was Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. He remained Catholic and had served Elizabeth’s Catholic half-sister Mary I, yet Elizabeth continued to trust him because he repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty to the Crown. He opposed parts of her religious settlement, but Elizabeth still employed him on diplomatic missions and even visited his home at Cowdray in 1591.

His story is important because it shows that being Catholic did not automatically make someone Elizabeth’s enemy.

But events during the 1560s and 1570s changed the atmosphere dramatically. In 1569, Catholic nobles led the Rising of the North, hoping to overturn Elizabeth’s religious settlement. Then, in 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth and declared that her subjects were no longer bound to obey her.

From Elizabeth’s point of view, the problem was becoming much bigger than private religious belief. Could somebody remain completely loyal to the Queen while recognising the authority of a Pope who had declared that she should not be obeyed?

The situation became even more dangerous because Mary, Queen of Scots was living in England. Mary was Catholic and had a powerful dynastic claim to the English throne and gradually became the focus of several schemes to replace Elizabeth.

Elizabeth even faced trouble from people close to her own court. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, one of the most powerful noblemen in England and Elizabeth’s cousin, became involved in plans surrounding Mary. He was eventually implicated in the Ridolfi Plot, which proposed removing Elizabeth and placing Mary on the throne with foreign assistance. Norfolk was convicted of treason and executed on the 2nd of June 1572.

By the 1580s, Elizabeth’s government had become far more suspicious. Catholic missionary priests were secretly entering England after training abroad and travelling between Catholic households. To Catholics, these men were bringing them Mass and the sacraments. To Elizabeth’s government, men arriving secretly from institutions abroad while Catholic powers threatened England could look dangerously like agents of her enemies.

One of the best-known was Edmund Campion, who travelled secretly through England ministering to Catholic families. He was arrested in 1581, tortured, convicted of treason and executed.

Ordinary people could be caught in these laws too.

Margaret Clitherow of York was not a wealthy noblewoman or political conspirator. She was married to a butcher and had converted to Catholicism. She repeatedly refused to attend Church of England services and eventually allowed Catholic priests to hide and celebrate Mass in properties connected with her.

In 1586, she was arrested for harbouring priests. Margaret refused to enter a plea and was sentenced to the horrific punishment of being pressed to death. She was executed in York on the 25th of March 1586.

Her story perhaps shows most clearly how the religious struggle reached far beyond queens, popes and noblemen and into ordinary homes.

Another striking case was Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who had spent time at Elizabeth’s court but he was reconciled to the Catholic Church. He attempted to leave England in 1585, was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He remained there for around ten years and died in captivity in 1595.

So why did Elizabeth become increasingly harsh?

Her own experiences may also have influenced her. Her mother, Anne Boleyn, had been executed when Elizabeth was a small child. Elizabeth’s own legitimacy had been questioned, and during Mary I’s reign she had herself been imprisoned in the Tower while suspected of involvement in rebellion.

As queen she then faced the Northern Rising, papal excommunication, repeated plots involving Mary, Queen of Scots, threats from Catholic powers abroad and eventually war with Spain.

None of this lessens the suffering of people who simply wanted to practise their faith. But it does help explain why Elizabeth increasingly struggled to separate Catholic religion from political danger.

What I find most interesting is that there was never one single Catholic experience under Elizabeth. Some remained quietly Catholic and avoided serious punishment. Others paid enormous recusancy fines. By 1581 recusancy fines could reach £20 a month. Some nobles retained Elizabeth’s trust, while others found themselves imprisoned or executed.

It leaves me with a difficult question.

Was Elizabeth’s treatment of Catholics primarily religious persecution, or had the political dangers surrounding her reign made it almost impossible for her government to separate Catholic faith from the threat of rebellion?

The Secret Factories Hidden Beneath Britain While the War Raged Above

The Secret Factories Hidden Beneath Britain While the War Raged Above

Today I want to discover more about the extraordinary underground world created across wartime Britain. As bombing threatened factories, military sites and supply depots, the government increasingly looked below ground for protection. Old quarries were converted, new tunnels were excavated and important parts of Britain’s war effort were hidden beneath layers of rock.

Betty Turner and another worker carrying out factory work underground, probably Spring Quarry, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

One of the most remarkable examples could be found around Corsham in Wiltshire, where generations of Bath stone quarrying had already created a vast underground landscape. By 1940, more than 60 miles of tunnels stretched beneath roughly 3,000 acres of countryside, generally around 80 to 100 feet below the surface.

Workers receiving instructions at a workbench inside an underground factory, probably Spring Quarry, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

One of the most important sites was Tunnel Quarry, which the War Office acquired before the war and converted into a huge underground ammunition depot. This was far more sophisticated than simply stacking explosives inside an old quarry. There were underground railway platforms, conveyors, lifts, ventilation systems, communications equipment and power facilities. By June 1944, more than 10,000 tons of ammunition were being moved through Tunnel Quarry every week.

Workers clearing stone from the old quarry during its conversion into an underground factory, probably Spring Quarry, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

But how do you hide something on that scale?

Thousands of workers had been involved in preparing the underground sites, while military personnel, railway traffic and supplies became increasingly visible. Local people could hardly fail to realise that something unusual was happening.

One explanation allowed to circulate was that the Ministry of Food was creating an emergency food store underground. It sounded believable enough, but later recollections suggest many locals knew, or at least strongly suspected, that it was not the truth. The aircraft factory and what some simply called “the dump” appear to have been fairly well known locally, even if the full scale of the operation was not.

Corsham contained a lot more than ammunition. After the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s works at Filton were badly bombed in September 1940, the government became increasingly worried about the vulnerability of aircraft production. Spring Quarry was chosen for a huge underground aircraft-engine factory.

Transforming an old quarry into a modern factory was hugely difficult. Rubble had to be removed, floors levelled, roofs strengthened and electricity and ventilation installed. Lifts and even escalators were provided to move workers between the underground complex and the surface.

Spring Quarry never became quite the vast production centre originally imagined. Construction took longer and cost more than expected, and by the time much of it was ready, the immediate bombing threat had reduced. Aircraft-related work did take place underground, but on a smaller scale than first planned.

Other Corsham quarries had completely different roles. Clubhouse Quarry was used by De La Rue to store replacement currency for occupied European countries, while other underground spaces were used for military storage and headquarters.

And Wiltshire was not alone.

At Drakelow in Worcestershire, tunnels were excavated into sandstone from 1941 to create an underground factory connected with aircraft-engine production. By 1943, Rover was carrying out work there as part of the wartime shadow-factory programme, while unused parts of the complex were used by the RAF for storage.

These underground sites were not easier places to work. They brought problems with ventilation, damp, lighting and transport. But that was not the point. They existed because factories, ammunition and essential services hidden beneath layers of rock were far harder to destroy from the air.

I keep wondering what it must have been like for people living nearby. They saw buses carrying workers towards guarded entrances, increased railway traffic and military personnel, but they may never have understood the true scale of the hidden world beneath them.

Above ground, wartime Britain carried on while, below it, another Britain was working in secret.

If you had lived nearby, do you think you would have believed the official story, or would you have worked out what was really happening underground?