At the north west corner of central Silvertown, close to the Pontoon Dock, was a recreation ground with a bandstand. Another recreational area, but requiring a walk of about half a mile along North Woolwich Road, was Lyle Park, which led down to the banks of the Thames at Silvertown Wharf. However, the favourite place for fresh air and exercise was the Royal Victoria Gardens. In June 2007, and I assume in 1939, you could play tennis or bowls there, walk along the promenade, watch the Woolwich Ferry crossing the river, or gaze downstream towards Gallions Reach and the place where in September 1878 about 650 people were drowned when a pleasure steamer, the Princess Alice, collided with the Bywell Castle.
Let us take a closer look at the electoral registers for 1939 and 1945. In West Silvertown the number of voters fell from 1385 to 600, and in East Silvertown the number fell from 1708 to 799. But in Central Silvertown it fell from 1155 to 64. Moreover, of those 64 only nine were people who were living at the same address as in 1939. In addition, in Benton Road one person, Violet Hodgson, had moved from number 6 next door into number 8. Six of the nine people who were still in central Silvertown at the end of the war lived in Oriental Road, but their houses too were demolished after the war to make way for a trading estate.
The electoral registers can be seen at the Newham Local Studies Library in Stratford. Contact details can be found at this address.
At present I have only limited information about the individual experiences of people who were living in central Silvertown at the outbreak of World War II. I will be keen to find out more about any relevant records or reminiscences, and this section will then be revised accordingly. In the absence of such information we can still make some general statements about the various outcomes for the people of central Silvertown and the reasons why they were no longer there in 1945.
Quite a lot of adults would have joined the armed forces. It is likely that some died during their war service. At the end of the war those who survived would have had to make plans to find a home elsewhere as their pre-war home no longer existed. In common with many wars World War II gave rise to a high level of dislocation, and individual events, new relationships, and other factors may have led many people to settle elsewhere in any case, but clearly returning to their previous home was not an option.
Many people were evacuated during the first year of the war. Opportunities for evacuation would have been offered to expectant mothers, mothers with pre-school children, and children of school age. On 16 June 1940 53 children from Silvertown School were evacuated to Ebbw Vale in South Wales. They went there with some of their teachers, and space was found for them at Waunlwyd School. The first three pages of the school’s log book can be seen at the Gathering the Jewels website at this address. It reveals:
• All the children arrived “safely” in Ebbw Vale and were billeted by 11.00 pm.
• Even in Ebbw Vale air raid sirens would sometimes go off and the children would have to move to shelters.
• From time to time children would be taken on walks up into the mountains.
• Several children were removed from the school and taken home by their parents. The first to leave were Donald and Leonard Sears, removed by their mother on 29 June.
General patterns of evacuation and the diverse experiences of children and mothers during the period of evacuation are vividly described in chapter 2 of Juliet Gardiner’s superb Wartime: Britain 1939-1945, Headline, 2004.
