Daphne Pauline McGeagh Royal Air Force scrapbooks

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: MS-0896

Staff Only

Content Description

The collection consists of a two-volume scrapbook on the Royal Air Force kept by Daphne Pauline McGeagh from 1942–1944. The scrapbook contains newspaper clippings of R.A.F. pilots and aircraft with photographs, sketch portraits, and short biographies or profiles. American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand pilots are included.

The initials of the creator appear on the cover of the first volume along with the title “R.A.F. 1942–1943” and a photograph of “His Majesty the King” in uniform disembarking from a plane. On the inside front cover, the name of the creator and the date of November 1, 1942, are written in ink. In pencil is a note: “Additional material added 1979/80. Albert H. Frost” with an address label for Frost in West Malvern. Also inserted into volume one are guides for badges, markings for aircraft, buoys, and wrecks, aircraft lights, flags of merchant vessels, and signal flags. Some pages at the back of volume one are detached.

On the cover of the second volume is the handwritten title, “Royal Air Force. 1943.” The creator’s initials and last name appear below. On the inside front cover, the name of the creator and the date of June 1943 are written in ink. In pencil is a note: “Additional material added 1979/80. Albert H. Frost” with an address label for Frost in West Malvern. A second note added by Frost mistakenly derives the identity of the creator from the obituary of Ian Gleed contained in the scrapbook (see the Biographical note). His picture is found on page 9, captioned, “Commander Ian Gleed, DFC, Slap in the middle of Weymouth High Street.” Four death notices for Gleed appear later in the volume, clipped from The Times. Volume two includes material from 1944.

Dates

Creation: 1942 - 1944

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is housed off-site and requires 48-hours' notice for retrieval. Contact Special Collections for more information.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions. It is not necessary to seek our permission as the owner of the physical work to publish or otherwise use public domain materials that we have made available for use, unless Johns Hopkins University holds the copyright.

Biographical / Historical

Daphne Pauline McGeagh was likely born in Liverpool in October 1922, married Anthony Robinson, whose name she took, in Wirral, Cheshire, in July 1948, and died in September 1984 at age sixty-two. She would have been twenty years old when she started compiling the scrapbook. Despite the note added to volume two by Albert H. Frost in 1979–80, the creator is unlikely to be the sister of Wing Commander Ian Richard Gleed, D.S.O., D.F.C., R.A.F., killed in action in April 1943 at age twenty-six. His obituary in volume two names a sister, Daphne, and their parents, Dr. and Mrs. Seymour Gleed of Finchley, London. However, a search of the Ancestry database reveals that his sister, Daphne Isabella Leonore Gleed, never changed her name. On April 16, 1943, Gleed disappeared in air operations over Cape Bon, Tunisia. According to The Times, he was presumed killed in November 1943 and buried in Enfidaville Cemetery, Tunisia by 1946. Gleed is commemorated as a Battle of Britain pilot and author of the bestselling memoir, Arise to Conquer, published in 1942, the year that McGeagh began her scrapbook.

Sources on McGeagh: Ancestry.com: England and Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007, vol. 8b, p. 326; England and Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005, vol. 10a, p. 2170; England and Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007, vol. 6, p. 712.

Sources on D. Gleed: Ancestry.com: 1939 England and Wales Register, ref. RG 101/767E; London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965; England and Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995.

Source on I. Gleed: Deaths, The Times (London, England), Nov. 13, 1943; Apr. 15, 1944; Apr. 16, 1945-1949; Apr. 17, 1950; Apr. 16, 1951-1959.