{"id":192,"date":"2013-02-08T18:26:47","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T18:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/?page_id=192"},"modified":"2023-12-14T18:36:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T18:36:13","slug":"the-home-guard-of-oldbury","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk\/?page_id=192","title":{"rendered":"The Home Guard of Oldbury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research by swanwatch has revealed that Albright and Wilson employees and senior management were indeed part of a home guard and fire guard unit for the Oldbury area. At this time the borough of Oldbury still formed a part of Worcestershire. The area of Trinity Street and including the Birmingham canal network up to and including the Rattlechain site at Dudley Port were within The 8th<\/sup> Worcester Home guard area. <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

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Part of the 8th<\/sup> Worcester Oldbury Home Guard area showing the canal network and the Trinity Street works. This hand drawn map allegedly belonged to \u00a0\u201cCaptain\u201d Sydney Barratt- who later became the first none family member of the\u00a0 Albright and Wilson clans to hold the office of Chairman in 1958.<\/b><\/p>\n

8TH<\/sup> WORCESTER HOME GUARD LIST<\/b><\/p>\n

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Many names recorded on the official Home Guard list are works management from Albright and Wilson or key figures in\u00a0 the command structure of this particular battalion, which meant that they had almost a free reign of organising defences within their own area. Many of these names are indeed mentioned in Richard Threlfall\u2019s history of the company in connection with wartime activities with the company, and to illustrate this point, that is how one works controlled the home guard defences of the wider area, plotted to store weapons that their company had made and had carte blanche to do basically whatever they liked -we will list them here.<\/b><\/p>\n