Object Category: Archive

 

Object Type: Ledger

 

Object Name: Sheffield Blitz Duty Book

 

Service Category: Fire & Rescue

 

Accession: SHENE.2024.216

 

Visual Description: Maroon, hard-cover ledger with marbled end papers. ‘DUTY BOOK’ embossed in gold lettering on the spine.

 

Abstract: This ledger contains a hand-written record of incidents and fire service responses during the Sheffield Blitz of 1940. It is one of several Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) station records compiled in Sheffield between November 1939 and October 1941. Inscribed as an AFS ‘Eastern Division Duty Book’, it likely relates to activity at Carbrook Auxiliary Fire Station. The ledger contains information about a range of activities including: daily logs, fire reports between 03.01.1940 and 21.03.1941, details of Air Raid Warden messages received and enemy action responses, listing incidents attended between Thursday 12 December and Monday 16 December 1940 (the Sheffield Blitz).

 

Service context: Wartime Response Services

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The outbreak of World War Two (1939-1945) saw the reorganisation of the UK’s emergency services into nationally organised wartime response units. Civilian volunteer services were formed in the run-up to war, including the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) which ran an ambulance section and wardens in 1937, and the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) in 1938. A reorganisation during the war in 1941 saw the AFS merge with the professional fire brigades to form the National Fire Service (NFS) while the ARP was renamed the Civil Defence Service.

 

Object Date: 1940-1941

 

Museum Collection: Core Collection

 

Object Collection:  SFPM Collection

 

Source Category: Donation

 

Location: In Store

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Associated events: World War Two; Sheffield Blitz

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Resources

Transcription of pages covering the Sheffield Blitz (PDF)