Guest Posted 1 December , 2016 Share Posted 1 December , 2016 A fellow bookseller-and an old and good friend of decades, recently put up a query about a little book by a Watkins-Pitchford, thought to be the Rev. Wilfrid Watkins-Pitchford, the father of "BB" the field sports illustrator. He believed that it was a report written up at the end of the war (for LLoyd-George??) about a small organisation that helped make armaments at home on an amateur basis. My friend thought it had been published by a religious publisher. A thread about this produced no response. But my friend has scratched his head a bit harder,looked at his old bookfair records and believes the item concerned "A.O.V"-which itself may be the title of the report. Right-AOV is Amateur Ordnance Volunteers. The only references to it are from Warwickshire's database on WW1 matters, listing info. from a Kenilworth church magazine, which may well be the Watkins-Pitchford connection- an appeal for making shellcases at home for example.There appears to be no information on this Forum It may be that this was a purely local (and rather eccentric) scheme but does anyone know anything at all about it?? Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaJane Posted 1 December , 2016 Share Posted 1 December , 2016 National Archives has Wilfrid Watkins-Pitchford based at Bridgnorth, Shropshire in the period - but that does not preclude his being in Warwickshire by the end of the war, or his communicating with Kenilworth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBrockway Posted 1 December , 2016 Share Posted 1 December , 2016 (edited) This 1916 letter from Rev Watkins-Pitchford in The Engineer gives useful background. [The Engineer 06 Oct 1916, p.302] Mark Edited 2 December , 2016 by MBrockway Surname selling corrected Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBrockway Posted 1 December , 2016 Share Posted 1 December , 2016 Full name was Walter Maristow Watkins-Pitchford. His only entry in the Bod catalogue is as editor of an infantryman's letters published in 1885. Searching the catalogue using 'ordnance' of course generates pages of hits for the Ordnance Survey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan Tall Posted 2 December , 2016 Share Posted 2 December , 2016 Glad you found the Warwickshire WW1 database. It's just gone live after myself and other volunteers have been working on it for about three years. As one of the authors of "Kenilworth & The Great War" I can give you a few more details about the vicar's appeal for volunteers. In October 1915 he said he had been in touch with a new organisation called the A.O.V (Amateur Ordnance Volunteers) and sought help from anyone who could do a little metal lathe work and who either had, or had access to, a lathe. He intended to make shell bases, many thousands of which had already been made successfully by amateurs. The Reverend Cairns seemed to be a very "hands-on" person and was also planning to start carpentry classes for ladies to make bed tables for wounded soldiers in hospital. I've no idea if he had any connection, or even knew, Watkins-Pitchford. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBrockway Posted 2 December , 2016 Share Posted 2 December , 2016 thought to be the Rev. Wilfrid Watkins-Pitchford, the father of "BB" the field sports illustrator. it?? On 01/12/2016 at 02:43, seaJane said: National Archives has Wilfrid Watkins-Pitchford based at Bridgnorth, Shropshire in the period - but that does not preclude his being in Warwickshire by the end of the war, or his communicating with Kenilworth. As per the letter from The Engineer I posted above, the Watkins-Pitchford involved in the Amateur Ordnance Volunteer Association was Rev. Walter Maristow Watkins-Pitchford of Lamport, Northants. (in Oct 1916 certainly). Wilfrid Watkins-Pritchard appears to have been a surgeon doctor in Bridgnorth. Probably a relation, given the unusual name, but not our AOV man and not a DD. Rev W.M. Watkins-Pitchford was still in Lamport in Nov 1917 as there is a Death notice for his 16 year old son in The Times from then. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 2 December , 2016 Share Posted 2 December , 2016 Thanks Mark- My colleague has a good memory-but we are all infallible!! He happened to mention it when we were talking about books we perhaps regretted selling across the years-as we would never see another- and his bookfair records are just lists of abbreviated titles and prices,with his code number to keep the Revenue happy. Now,whichever W-P it is, then there is a printed account of it out there somewhere!! See if we can find it. (PS-If you can bear to wait until Tues., I will be at BL to get info. on KRRC recruiting in Wandsworth-a bit "Tom and Dick" at the moment and "CB".) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBrockway Posted 3 December , 2016 Share Posted 3 December , 2016 A fellow bookseller-and an old and good friend of decades, recently put up a query about a little book by a Watkins-Pitchford Mike, Do you mean here on GWF? If so, who/where? I can only find the original topic started by yourself. Cheers, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBrockway Posted 3 December , 2016 Share Posted 3 December , 2016 Still hunting for clues on Rev W.M. Watkins-Pitchford. A newspaper entry in the Cardiff Evening Express of 23 Sep 1903 records him as a minor canon at Gloucester Cathedral and responsible for the musical arrangements at a masonic ceremony at Lydney Town Hall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan Tall Posted 3 December , 2016 Share Posted 3 December , 2016 A quick search of newspapers via FindmyPast reveals that the Rev. Walter Marestow Watkins Pitchford was 40 years the rector of Lamport and formerly Minor Canon and Precenter of Gloucester Cathedral. He was also well known on the radio as "Walter Pitchford" "Our Country Correspondent" broadcasting talks on village life and folk lore. He died on 25th May 1944. He was also the father of twin sons - one was Denys Watkins-Pitchford better known as BB, the other Roger worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Co. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 3 December , 2016 Share Posted 3 December , 2016 Hi Mark- I started this under Watkins-Pitchford, then started again as AOV-and am grateful for the steers from you.So far, there are a couple of odd references on Tinternet, plus the Engineer article from yourself. Its just curiosity - one of the pleasant things about bookselling is the good company of many of my colleagues-especially the one in question- Hedley Morgan-always worth looking at the books he has at any bookfair he does-he has a good eye for the unusual. And the throughput of books means that we see things that are out of the way (Plus a huge amount of crud as well), so that we become repositories of out-of-the-way information. Modern libraries and bibliographical systems are good but nothing beats having a chat on a topic with a specialist bookseller-if I had a query about any naval publication or subject,I would chat to Tony Simmons of Greenwich. Two colleagues now retired were also good on things military, Peter De Lotz and Philip Austen-information always enthusiastically given (It was Philip years ago who pointed me to a WW2 account called "I was in Noah's Ark"- an account of the Raiding Support Regiment, in which my next-door neighbour had served as a Sergeant,based on Vis- John was more pleased even than J.R.Hartley in the old ad! I would never have found it on my own) On this topic, its not important in itself but now we know there is a printed account of it out there somewhere, then its the thrill of the chase to find it- as well as the social history concerned as well. Vicars making home-made shellcases-you couldnt invent it!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBrockway Posted 3 December , 2016 Share Posted 3 December , 2016 On the contrary - I think this topic is of great interest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 3 December , 2016 Share Posted 3 December , 2016 Good- I managed to get out and hit British Newspaper Archive for a while this afternoon-some interesting odds and sods about this group in various provincial newspapers-When Im done and have tidied up the PDF translator and deciphered its misreadings, I'll e-mail it over to you. A post-war report would be ideal- there is a limit to how many times I can water-board my old friend and colleague to make him remember more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 4 November , 2019 Share Posted 4 November , 2019 The formation of the Amateur Ordnance Volunteers (AOV) came into being under the supervision of Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and company.[1] The firms leading officials had received requests from people to be given munition work of some kind, not for pay, but patriotism. Armstrongs found they could not deal individually with these volunteers, so appointed the Rev. W. Watkins Pitchford of Lamport Rectory, Northampton as sub-contractor, giving him a free hand to organise the amateurs into a single movement. A man of the cloth may seem a strange appointment, but it was said he was an organiser and motivator, who by October 1915 had recruited 1,000 amateurs to the cause. The Rectory was the schemes headquarters, and initially a hundred amateur lathe operators throughout the country turned out base plates from patterns and drawings supplied by Rev. Pitchford.[2] The finished work was returned before being sent in large batches to Armstrong’s. [1] Northern Whig, Thursday, 14 October 1915 [2] Evesham Standard and West Midland Observer, Saturday, 3 July 1915 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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