Inspectorate of Armaments

[Terry Waters-Marsh]

Here is another tough one guys |banghead| . My late grandmother worked for 23 years in the Inspectorate of Armament until her retirement in 1966. I have tried to find her personnel file to see if it contains information on her schooling in India (where she was born & raised) and on her work as an ambulance driver during the blitz in London. I contact the MOD and after a 6 month wait received a letter saying that they do not have the Inspectorate personnel files in their archives in Llanelli, Wales. I tried the Ministry of Supply with similar results. A2A searches only produce aircraft/airframe inspectorates.

I would really appreciate some help with this one as my father and I are trying to write a history of my grandmother and the 1939-1945 period is pretty much an empty file....:( . TIA

[Geoffers]

[QUOTE=Terry Waters-Marsh]My late grandmother worked for 23 years in the Inspectorate of Armament until her retirement in 1966. I have tried to find her personnel file to see if it contains information on her schooling in India (where she was born & raised) and on her work as an ambulance driver during the blitz in London. I contact the MOD and after a 6 month wait received a letter saying that they do not have the Inspectorate personnel files in their archives in Llanelli, Wales. I tried the Ministry of Supply with similar results. A2A searches only produce aircraft/airframe inspectorates.QUOTE]

I would suspect that if there is any refrence, it is likely to be at TNA.
You might try searching the online catalogue
http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search.asp

I would suggest just entering the word armaments and limiting the years to 1939 and 1945 - just to see if there is obvious department for WW2 - then browsing the the options by department to see if anything possibly matches. There is also a fair chance that any personnel file as recent as 1966 would still be closed.

A passing thought for India - have you tried the British Library Oriental and India Office Collections 96, Euston Rd, London NW1 2DB? They have a website and they may conceivably have something on the family.

Geoffers
Charlbury, Oxfordshire