Pension Card - W.S.C. [War Savings Certificates]

[Matlock1418]

An interesting set of remarks in red on this pension card - partly shedding some more light on what might go on when a widow re-married and got a remarriage gratuity.

Can anyone please explain what "W.S.C." stands for?

Image courtesy of WFA/Fold3 - with thanks.

And if you can, please explain your answer so as to more fully put me out of my misery.

I'm guessing it was some form of trust for the children ?? [again guessing - until they were no longer eligible for support, typically 16yo ??]

Thanks.

:-) M

 

Edit: Minutes later - Quite fortuitously, and by complete accident, the very next PC I looked at had a similar annotation in red!

This time it records "W.S. Certs" - so part of an answer

Image courtesy of WFA/Fold3 - with thanks.

But a more complete interpretation and explanation is still sought - what were W.S. Certificates and how did they work?

 

Further edit;  I think my grey cell has now better activated = I think they potentially mean War Service Certificates War Saving Certificates [which I think might have been a sort of government investment bond] - Am I correct?

Still not sure how those WSC might have worked though.

Edited 12 November , 2020 by Matlock1418
edit & further edit and strikethrough

[Matlock1418]

I now realise I have answered my own question(s) but will leave the thread for others to follow/comment on should they wish

WAR SAVINGS CERTIFICATES

This seems to explain much:

Image courtesy of IWM© IWM Art.IWM PST 10359 - with thanks

:-) M

 

Edit:  And this is how they 'sold' them to the British public

To prevent this - buy war savings certificates now / F. Gregory Brown ; J.W. Ltd.

- described as: Poster showing German soldiers overseeing slave labor in a factory, and whipping one of the workers.

Image courtesy of Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3g11205 - with thanks

:-) M

 

 

 

Edited 12 November , 2020 by Matlock1418
Edit

[Matlock1418]

 

Researching another topic I came across this interesting advert for WSC on another website [the Note on Saving, No.3 about shoes is interesting too]

- and brief comment was made on that other site about the swastika logo used for WSC

https://sites.google.com/site/northamptonwarhospital/northampton-war-hospital-duston-northampton [with thanks]

The WSC advert image appears to be from the Northampton Mercury 30/8/1918

 

Its seems remarkable nowadays but as an ancient symbol the use of the swastika was not unusual as a goodwill type of symbol in the first decades of the C20th before it developed the stigma associated with the later National Socialist / Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s.

 

In fact it was also widely benignly used by the Boy Scout movement pre-WW1 on a 'Thanks Badge' and post-WW1 on a 'Badge of Merit' - it was dropped from scouting in the late 1930s as the alternative interpretation was developed in Germany.  For more info on scouting use the following is informative: https://www.worldscoutingmuseum.org/swastikas.shtml  - but that's all an aside to WSC!

:-) M

Edited 16 November , 2020 by Matlock1418

[Matlock1418]

An interesting article:

England's Effort to Pay for the War out of Savings Author(s): Basil P. Blackett Source: Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, Vol. 7, No. 4, Economic Conditions of Winning the War (Feb., 1918), pp. 59-70 Published by: The Academy of Political Science

Available from JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1172198.pdf 

:-) M

[Matlock1418]

Another WSC poster

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/29754 

One certificate at 15/6 turned into £1 [20/-] after five years

M

Edited 27 November , 2022 by Matlock1418
add link

[David Tattersfield]

On 12/11/2020 at 10:24, Matlock1418 said:

I now realise I have answered my own question(s) but will leave the thread for others to follow/comment on should they wish

WAR SAVINGS CERTIFICATES

This may be of interest on this subject >>> The First World War paid off?

[Matlock1418]

On 10/12/2022 at 11:26, David Tattersfield said:

This may be of interest on this subject >>> The First World War paid off?

Thanks David. I think there was a small glitch with your link.

I believe you refer to War Loans, National War Bonds and War Loan Bonds etc. - all pertaining to the level of national debt and the financing of the war through other investment opportunities - this would thus be the correct and interesting link https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/the-first-world-war-paid-off

M

[David Tattersfield]

2 hours ago, Matlock1418 said:

Thanks David. I think there was a small glitch with your link.

 

My mistake. Thanks for correcting.