Celebrating the pioneering work of Reg Blanchford
20 June 2025
Reg Blanchford was the founder of St John Ambulance and Rescue Service. He is celebrated for his vision, innovation and pioneering work.
Reginald Blanchford, known as Reg, was born in Guernsey on 24th February 1915. He had six sisters and went to Les Vauxbelets College.
In 1930, he joined his father’s concrete works base at the Rohais in St Peter Port. Later that year, a serious motorcycle accident set him on a path that would determine his future. At the time, the Island’s only ambulance service was run by the States of Guernsey on a part-time basis. After a long wait for the ambulance, a passing car took Reg to hospital. He was in a critical condition with serious injuries, resulting in a long recovery period.
Reg was determined to start a professional ambulance service so in 1934, he joined the newly formed St John Ambulance Brigade. In 1936, he purchased a second-hand ambulance, housed at the Rohais and Reg was on call 24 hours a day, relying on volunteer Brigade colleagues to assist him.
Reg was a natural pioneer and innovator, dedicating his life to developing the ambulance service into, what was probably then, the most advanced of its kind in the world. Reg married Rona in 1940 and they had two boys.
During World War II, whilst Guernsey was occupied by German Forces, no ambulance call went unanswered. The St John Transport Section developed under the most trying circumstances with Reg’s innovation playing a leading part.
After the Occupation, Reg developed the service with the first ambulance radio communications system in the British Isles and the world’s first marine ambulance, Flying Christine, launched in 1952. ‘St John Ambulance & Rescue Service’ grew with diving, cliff rescue and inshore rescue teams, a mobile radar unit and hyperbaric chamber.
Reg’s bravery and innovations lead to him be made an MBE and OBE and receiving a gold Lifesaving medal; the George Medal; and the gold bar to the Lifesaving medal. He was appointed as a Knight of Grace of The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in 1970. He was also the subject of ‘This is Your Life’.
Reg retired in 1976 and was voted ‘Our Greatest Guernsey Man’ in 1997.
He died on 4th September 2002 leaving behind an ambulance service that he would have been proud of today.
