During the Second World War schools were evacuated from Southampton, mostly to Bournemouth. A poster reproduced in Rosaleen Wilkinson's Bitterne School: A Diary, 1862-1997 lists the schools / groups of children to be evacuated on 1st and 2nd September 1939 as:

Aldermoor Infants
Aldermoor Junior Mixed
Ascupart Girls And Infants
Atherley School for Girls
Bassett Girls Junior Girls
Bassett Green Infants
Bassett Green Junior Boys
Bevois Town Boys, Girls and Infants
Bitterne CE Boys and Girls
Bitterne CE Infants
Bitterne Manor
Bitterne Park Boys
Bitterne Park Girls
Bitterne Park Infants
Central District Boys
Central District Girls
Chestnut Road Boys
Coxford Girls
Deanery Boys and Girls
Eastern District Boys and Infants
Foundry Lane Boys
Foundry Lane Boys, Girls and Infants
Freemantle Boys, Girls and Infants
Grammar School for Girls
Highfield CE
King Edward VI School
Laundry Road Infants
Ludlow Road Boys, Girls and Infants
Merry Oak
Mount Pleasant Girls and Infants
Mount Pleasant Boys
Northam Boys and Girls
Northam Infants
Pear Tree Green
Portswood Boys
Portswood Girls
Regent’s Park Boys and Infants
Regent’s Park Girls
Shirley Infants, Junior Boys and Girls
Shirley Warren Senior Boys and Girls
Sholing Boys and Infants
Sholing Girls
St Anne's Secondary
St Denys Boys, Girls and Infants
St John's
St Joseph's RC
St Jude’s CE
St Mary's CE
Station Road
Swaythling Infants
Swaythling Senior Girls
Taunton’s School
Western District Boys and Girls
Western District Infants
Woolston Boys, Girls and Infants
Woolston RC

Bournemouth figures estimated that at the start of the war there were from Southampton 7,724 official evacuees, 5,104 unaccompanied children, 859 mothers, 1,038 under-fives, 42 expectant mothers, 340 teachers, 12 helpers and 327 blind people. The number fell fast as children and families returned home, and in April 1940 the number still in Bournemouth from Southampton was estimated as 2,800. By December 1941 the number was given as 907. (These figures seem low given the size of some of the schools evacuated to Bournemouth.)

St Anne's School was evacuated to Talbot Heath School, Bournemouth, from 1939 to 1944. Taunton's School was the largest secondary school in the country to be evacuated (600 children were evacuated) and was accommodated at Bournemouth School (a boys' grammar school). The two schools maintained links after the war. The Girls' Grammar School was evacuated to Bournemouth School for Girls at the Lansdowne until 1942 when they moved to the Wentworth School site at Southbourne (now Wentworth Milton Mount School).

Some children were accommodated in hostels in Bournemouth. There were several hostels for young children (4 Milton Road for twenty children under 2; 11 Marlborough Road and 53 Wellington Road for 76 children aged 2-5). There were also hostels for older children (boys at 12 Suffolk Road, girls at 11 Argyll Road) and one for "difficult" girls (179 Belle Vue Road).

An Evacuees' Club was started by Horace Maybray-King and his wife, Florence King, at 109 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, to provide a place where parents could spend time with their children.

Two Southampton evacuees were injured by a bomb on the beach in Bournemouth in 1942, the children having got through the barbed wire defences.


See also:

Horace Maybray-King - Maybray-King was very involved in the Bournemouth evacuation.


External links:

Echo article about children evacuated from Southampton to Bournemouth. Includes a picture of Maybray-King leading the evacuation of Taunton's School.
Bournemouth and the Second World War 1939-1945, by M A Edgington (Bournemouth Local Studies Publications No 728, 1994). Much of the detailed information above comes from this book.
David Diaper's memories of growing up in Northam, including being evacuated first to Wimborne and then to Chandler's Ford.


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