Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Civil Division, unnamed as issued (M.B.E.) L.G. 4.6.1943, 1939/45 Star, France & Germany Star, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939/45 (LT. F.C.S.HALLEWELL, R.N.V.R.)
LT. F.C.S.HALLEWELL,R.N.V.R. Francis Christopher Stanley Hallewell was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire on 7.9.1909. He was awarded the M.B.E. in WWII.
He was an active trade unionist and office bearer of the National Union of Bank Employees in the West Midlands. According to the 1939 Register, he was a Bank Accountant living at 38 Trafalgar Road, Birmingham. It was noted that he was an Air Raid Warden. This status quo changed when he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 13 August 1943 attached to High Speed Target Service. This was a MTB - Motor Torpedo Boat - serving at HMS Beehive (Felixstowe). It was renamed CT 18 in 1943.
He had made a name for himself promoting a scheme for "black coat" employees to be used in a voluntary capacity in factories and work places, where their hours permitted it, on behalf of the war effort. The scheme, stated by Hallewell in Birmingham, gained traction and most of the big towns and cities in the UK adopted it. Known as the Bank Officers Guild, it earned him a M.B.E., published in the London Gazette of 4.6.1943 which entry read: "lately Secretary of the Birmingham Branch of the Bank Officers Guild, now serving in the Royal Navy.
His promotion from Temporary Acting Sub-Lieutenant to Temporary Sub-Lieutenant was published in the London Gazette on 24 March 1944. By 21 October 1944 he was in Command of CT15
He married twice - once to Vera in Poole, Dorset in January 1944 (a war-time romance) and the second time to Phyllis Speirs in Birmingham in July 1951.
Francis Christopher Stanley Hallewell passed away on 3 April 2003 in Birmingham.
