Trevor Chadwick was a teacher at a British school in Swanage, Dorset. In early 1939 he was a volunteer in a small group within the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia (BCRC), led by Doreen Warriner. He went to Prague to bring two refugee boys to Britain to attend his school. While there, he met the later poet Gerda Mayer and her parents. Chadwick managed to take the girl back to Britain as well.
Chadwick wanted to save more children. He and the stockbroker Nicholas Winton organized eight transports of children to Britain. In Prague, Chadwick obtained the necessary papers and passports, some of them forged, and arranged the train transport. He had to get permission for the children to leave the country from the SS and the Gestapo. Winton took care of foster families and the required guarantees in Britain. A total of 669 mainly Jewish children were rescued with the aid of Chadwick and Winton’s network. After the war began in September 1939, the transports came to an end. Chadwick served in the British Army until 1942 and went on to work in various professions. He contracted tuberculosis and lived in Norway from then on.