The Penny -a-Week Fund …… the Ashton-Under-Lyne Committee .... and a neglected history book

Now the Tiger Kills, was one of the books I bought from Bryan the Books on Beech Road sometime in the 1980s.

It was already almost 40 years old and was one of a series published by HMSO telling the story of the Second World War.

Soldiers of the Indian Divisions, 1944

A modern historian may be careful about their lack of objectivity and the accuracy of some of the detail given wartime censorship, but they remain a fascinating contemporary insight into those six years.

I have a few, but despite their length in my custody, I have to admit to never reading them, and only writing about one.*

But today I brought down The Tiger Kills, which came out in 1944, and was “The story of the Indian Divisions in the North African Campaign”.

‘The first formations to go overseas from India were the now renowned 45y and 5th Indian Divisions.  The story of their deeds up to the destruction of Italy’s East African Empire and the expulsion of the Vicy French from Syria was told in the Tiger Strikes which was published in India in 1942.  [while] the Tiger Kills tells the of the fighting against the Germans by Indian and British soldiers who together composed the formidable fighting formations which went from India to the Middle East.  

The story is one of further successes, of desperate defence and then final victory in North Africa,  [with] their dash and courage in attack, and their steadfastness and tenacity in defence.’”**

So I rather wish I had read it earlier, not least because of its emphasis on the contribution made soldiers of was then the Empire and now the Commonwealth.

The Penny-a-Week- Fund, circa 1944

Nor is that all, because just inside the book were three sheets of headed note paper for the Penny-a-Week- Fund, H.R.H., The Duke of Gloucester’s Red Cross and St. John Appeal.

According to one source, "it was launched in September 1939 to raise funds for those affected by the Second World War. By 1946 the appeal had raised £54,324,408, which is the equivalent of £7,700,000,000 today, making it the largest charitable fund ever raised in the UK. The proceeds of the fund went to the Red Cross and St John War Organisation.

The fund committee decided to run appeals targeted to particular sections of the community.

The penny-a-week fund was a scheme created with the co-operation of the TUC and Employers’ Organisation to collect a penny week from workers, which was deducted from their wages. The fund raised £17,663,225 (£2.5 billion today) – all in pennies. Its success was credited to the idea of collecting a small amount of money from a large number of people. 

The amount did not make a significant difference to the donor’s weekly budget but the pennies added up to raise more than one third of the entire Duke of Gloucester’s Appeal. This was the precursor to payroll giving as we know it today. In 2011/12 £118 million is donated through payroll giving in the UK currently 2, a mere 34 per cent of what the penny-a-week fund collected annually during the war years.”***

Detail of the Penny-a-Week-Fund, circa 1944

I must confess  to having come across it before, and having read about the Spitfire Fund, but like the Great War charities raised vast amounts of money during the six years of the war.

But I am drawn to the Ashton-Under-Lyne Committee, partly because I lived in Ashton in the early 1970s, and so went looking for 51, Hutton Avenue which was home to Jim Timperley, who was the Honourable Secretary of the branch.

 He was living in Hutton Avenue by 1939, described himself as a “shop manager, tailoring” had been born in 1910 and was active in the Auxiliary Fire Service.  He was married but as yet the name of his wife has yet to be discovered.****

Into Battle- British and Indian Together, 1942

And the house is still there just up from Beaufort Road a short walk from Stamford Park close to the Sycamore pub, a place we regularly visited.

So that is about it, but presents more research opportunities connected with the Ashton Committee, and The Penny-a-Week Fund, along with anafternoon reading about the contribution of the Indian Divisions.

*The book and the personal story …..... Greece in 1941, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-book-and-personal-story-greece-in.html

**General Sir Claude Auchinleck, G.C.I.E, C.B., D.S.O., A.D.C., Commander-in-Chief in India

*** British Red Cross: the £7.7 billion appeal that changed British fundraising forever, SOFII,  https://sofii.org/case-study/british-red-cross-the-7.7-billion-appeal-that-changed-british-fundraising-forever

****1939 Register