INTRODUCTION to 49th County of London Battalion pages The 49th County of London Battalion, Home Guard, was wholly responsible for the defence of the South Metropolitan Gas Company's (Metrogas) facilities at Vauxhall, under the command of Lt.-Col. F. J. Baywater, M.C. Its membership comprised Company employees. Parts of this Battalion, like many similar units throughout the land, established funds to help local Home Guard members in different ways. These included the provision of creature comforts to Home Guards as they performed their duties, the recognition of hardship or bereavement, the organising of leisure events - the latter not only for the pleasure of the participants but also as a method of raising money for the fund. Membership was voluntary and members contributed a penny or two a week in financial support. From time to time there were grants from other sources but it appears that the funds were mainly self-financing and dependent on the dedication and energy of a small group of people. These Funds had of course to be run on a sound basis and evidence of how this was done has fortunately survived in the case of one Company in this Battalion. The Battalion's "D" Company formed an Entertainments Committee to manage a Social Fund established at the same time. The Committee had its first meeting on Monday 16th March 1942 when eight members attended. This first meeting under the chairmanship of Lt. Dancer appointed a Treasurer, 2/Lt. Wickins, and a Secretary, Vol. W.S. Seall. And from then on they were up and running for the next three years. Activities ceased in the second half of 1944 as the Home Guard wound down and wholly ceased its activities in December. Members reconvened much later, on 15th October 1946, to agree on the disposal of residual funds and that is the point at which they disappear from our sight. Our knowledge of the activities of the Entertainments Committee and the management of the Social Fund comes exclusively from the Minutes of the meetings held; these were meticulously prepared by Vol./Pte. Walter Seall and were preserved for the next eighty years by members of his family who have generously transferred them into the care of the Webmaster. These Minutes provide detailed information about the social activities of just one Company out of the thousands of units throughout the country who felt it appropriate and necessary to address the personal needs of members and their families. The activities demonstrated here, in one area of London, may well be very typical of what was happening throughout the land, where a few men - and possibly some women - volunteered precious spare time and effort for the greater good. What they were trying to do, all the difficulties and frustrations in achieving their end and their desire to handle matters correctly, whatever the obstacles, are all part of the history of the Home Guard and should not be forgotten. (Please see above for the Contents/Index of this section of the website).

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Vol./Pte. WALTER S. SEALL Vol./Pte. Walter Seall, as Hon. Secretary of the Committee whose activities we can follow on these pages, was perhaps the mainstay of the social activities within "D" Coy. of the Gas Works Home Guard. Walter is remembered within his family as a thoughtful, conscientious, capable man and a kindly grandfather; he was well-read, an accomplished pianist and a good conversationalist.  He was almost certainly a member of the 49th County of London Battalion Home Guard from its earliest days in 1940 up to its stand down at the beginning of December 1944. We, and now the wider world, see him through the Minutes of a Battalion Entertainments/Social Fund Committee which he regularly created from 1942 until 1946. His conscientiousness and the thoroughness with which he performed his duties shine through these documents; and also the meticulousness with which he recorded, in his copper-plate handwriting, the ups and downs of a group of men doing their best, in the most difficult of times and circumstances, to maintain the morale of their comrades and alleviate discomfort and hardship. Walter Seall was an employee of the Gas Company, like all his comrades, although his function within that organisation is no longer remembered. He had been born in about 1892 and so was around fifty years of age at this time. He lived during much of his adult life in Thornton Heath in Surrey. He and his first wife had a family whose members and descendants are now thought to live in Kent. After her death he married again and a picture of him and his wife, Rose Lily, survives (left). Her descendants live in various counties in southern England and also in Ireland. Walter Seall died in 1976 at the age of 84.