The documentation of England’s medieval past is surprisingly fragile, often relying on lone copies of ancient parchment housed in localized regional archives. For centuries, the complete lineage of the Anglo-Norman House of de la Pomerai (Pomeroy) was preserved primarily within the city of Exeter, Devonshire—the geographic anchor where the family had been seated since the Norman Conquest of 1066

However, during World War II, a calculated military campaign by the German Luftwaffe brought this entire repository of family history to the brink of total annihilation. The preservation of this lineage survives today as a primary historical record by default, due to the timing of a single British historian named Edward B. Powley.

The Archival Anchor of the Pomeroy Line

Following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the progenitor of the family, Ralph de Pomerai (Ralf de La Pomerai), was granted vast holdings across Devon and established the family seat at Berry Pomeroy. For nearly nine centuries, the ensuing legal battles, marriage certificates, land grants, transfer deeds, and testamentary wills of his descendants accumulated locally.

By the 20th century, these irreplaceable original parchments were consolidated within the Exeter Probate Registryand local diocesan records offices. Because British archival practice historically left regional county data within the local “capital” of that shire, duplicates of Devon’s medieval records generally did not exist at the national repositories in London. The regional history of West-Country families existed in only one physical location.

The Threat: The Baedeker Blitz of 1942

In April and May of 1942, the German high command initiated a series of strategic air strikes known to history as the Baedeker Raids. Named after the popular German tourist travel guidebooks, these raids deliberately targeted English cities not for their industrial, military, or manufacturing capabilities, but for their high concentration of cultural heritage, historic architecture, and mediaeval antiquities.

On the night of May 3–4, 1942, the Luftwaffe descended upon the cathedral city of Exeter. The high-explosive ordnance and subsequent uncontrollable firestorms intentionally devastated the city’s historic core. Among the catastrophic architectural and cultural losses was a direct hit to the Exeter Probate Registry.

In a matter of hours, centuries of unique, unprinted West-Country manuscripts, original legal rolls, and localized genealogical histories were reduced to ash. The catastrophic destruction permanently blinded historians looking to reconstruct the ancestral lines of families rooted in Devon and the surrounding counties.

The Narrow Rescue by Edward B. Powley

The absolute eradication of the Pomeroy family narrative was narrowly averted by the academic timelines of Edward B. Powley (1887–1968), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Powley was engaged in a deep-dive academic study tracking the continuous annals of the family.

Powley's Methodical Preservation Workflow:
1. Conducted multi-year research inside the physical Exeter archives (late 1930s)
2. Transcribed verbatim text directly from fragile medieval parchment sheets
3. Removed the typed transcripts to safety at the University of Liverpool
4. Published the final, codified annals in 1944 post-destruction

Working inside the Exeter archives just prior to the outbreak of the war, Powley laboriously reviewed, translated, and copied the fragile, unprinted medieval manuscripts, tax rolls, and property deeds associated with the family. Crucially, Powley did not just take summary notes; he performed literal, verbatim hand-transcriptions of the primary text.

Because Powley had moved his finalized transcripts safely out of Exeter to the University of Liverpool before the 1942 bombing runs commenced, his copies survived the war. Supported by a university research framework, Powley published his findings in 1944 under the title The House of de la Pomerai.

Historical Legacy

Because the original physical parchments he held in his hands were incinerated during the Exeter Blitz, Powley’s printed pages transitioned overnight from secondary literature into the primary source texts by default. For hundreds of specific Pomeroy records spanning from the 11th century to 1719, history is completely reliant on his pre-war accuracy. Without his timely research intervention, the exact legal names, land matches, and family timelines of this historic lineage would have been permanently erased from the historical record.

If you missed the links above you may download the book here: https://pomerology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/g005175.pdf

Bibliography

  1. Primary Texts & Verbatim Transcript Compilations
    • Powley, Edward B. The House of de la Pomerai: The Annals of the Family, Which Was, From the Conquest to 1548, Seated at Beri (Berry Pomeroy), in Devonshire. Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1944.
  2. Contemporary Academic Appraisals & Book Reviews
    • Bowditch, Harold. “Review of The House of de la Pomerai by Edward B. Powley.” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 1945, p. 135. (Detailing the explicit impact of the Exeter bombing on West-Country genealogical research).
    • Brooks, E. St. John. “Review: The House of De La Pomerai by Edward B. Powley.” Irish Historical Studies, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4, no. 14, 1944, pp. 200-202.
  3. Archival & Secondary Institutional History
    • Exeter Blitz Historical Records. “The Destruction of the City Registry and Regional Diocesan Archives.” Devon County Local History Collection, Exeter.
    • American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association (APHGA). Sinnock Family Annotated Bibliography. Cross-references detailing the primary links between medieval Pomeroy registries and modern descendants.