Warship Week in 1942 was from 14 February to 21 February inclusive. Rushden, Higham Ferrers and Raunds were aiming to raise £250,000 in order to adopt H.M.S. Quorn, a destroyer of the Hunter Class. The week was to start with a huge procession, and the long list of marchers was to include the A.T.C., Women’s Land Army, Fire Guards and R.N.V.R. There was also to be a Warship Week service held in St. Mary’s Church, Rushden on Sunday 15 February, when the speaker was the Rev. T. A. Embleton of the Queen Victoria Seamen’s Rest, London.
Inside St. Mary’s Church, Rushden
During Warship Week daily dinner-hour announcements of progress were made at Rushden from the balcony of the Council Buildings, where the gradual hoisting of the anchor attached to a warship was to show the progress of the voyage.
The balcony on the Council Buildings
By the 13 February it was said that seven streets in the area had raised over £300 each during the last six months, Cromwell Road, Rushden being the highest with £762. One factory had averaged 20 shillings per head per week of its employees.
The Warship Week for Rushden and District raised £200,231, and the investment from Rushden averaged £6 10s. 7d. per head of the population.
By March just over £20 had been given for the supply of comforts to the destroyer’s crew, and it was suggested that girls’ organisations in the area would help to make socks, gloves and other articles.
The school children of the district had collected about 5,000 ‘ship’ halfpennies for the Quorn Comforts Fund, and these halfpennies were used to provide Active Service Bibles, which was an abridged Bible with the Psalms set out as poetry. Other comforts sent direct to the ship included about 100 woollen articles made by the ladies of the area, and more than 100 books, games, writing materials, cigarettes and tobacco.
One of the bibles to be presented to the crew of H.M.S. Quorn
It was in July 1942, when the adoption of H.M. Destroyer Quorn was celebrated in a ceremony held in the grounds of Rushden Hall, that about 100 copies of the bible were presented to a representative of the ship’s crew. Officers of the ship were honoured guests at the ceremony.
Councillor T. W. Cox (Rushden), who presided as chairman of the Warship Week Committee, said the occasion reminded them of the area’s great achievement in February. The committee’s aim then was to raise enough money to pay for at least part of a Hunter class destroyer. At every stage of that campaign whole-hearted support of investors large and small was given and they raised sufficient to provide the hull and he had the joy and satisfaction to announce the grand total of £200,231, Thus they were able with immeasurable pride to adopt that worthy ship the Quorn, together, of course, with the lads who formed the ship’s crew.
Inside one of the bibles presented to the crew of H.M.S. Quorn by the school children of Rushden, Higham Ferrers and Raunds
The Rushden Hall grounds
Sadly, on 3 August 1944 H.M.S. Quorn was sunk in the English Channel during “Operations for the Liberation of Europe.”
H.M.S. Quorn was a Type 1 Hunter Class Destroyer, built by J. Samuel White & Co., at Cowes, Isle of Wight, and was attached to 21st Destroyer Flotilla based at Harwich.
Duties included convoys in the English Channel and the North Sea, E. Boat Patrols, and harassing enemy shipping off Dutch, Belgian and French coasts.
Do you know the latitude and longitude of the wreck of HMS Quorn off the Normandy beaches?
You might find the information you want a UK Admiralty Wrecks Database (bodc.ac.uk)
Gill