The Home Front – Shropshire Remembers WW1

Women Work on the Land

Site Coordinator — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 15:29:40 +0000

As more and more men were taken off the land to be sent to the Front, attention turned to women as possible agricultural labourers. As early as 1915 the Board of Agriculture considered this, but it was January 1917 before the Women’s Land Army, was officially set up. In the Borough of Wenlock, things were […]

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KSLI Regimental Postcards

Site Coordinator — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:28:43 +0000

Visitors to this website may have noticed the line of weary soldiers trudging across the header of the screen. These figures are taken from a postcard issued by the 6th battalion of the regiment for Christmas 1916. There is a marked difference in tone between this and other, earlier regimental postcards. In 1914 there was […]

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DIGGING IN ON THE HOME FRONT: ALLOTMENTS

Keith Pybus — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 14:41:44 +0000

Did even the Government in 1914 believe ‘it would be over by Christmas’? For two years it lamentably failed to address our greatest strategic vulnerability – the dependence on imported food for 60% of the nation’s diet. In 1914 we produced 19% of our wheat (today 83%). The Germans had imposed duties of 33% on cereals […]

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CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS IN DITTON PRIORS

Site Coordinator — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 13:02:13 +0000

The ‘Home Office Scheme’ in July 1916 offered conscientious objectors, whose reasons for objection were considered genuine, an alternative to prison. This would be a Work Camp where they would live communally, wear civilian clothes, and undertake ‘arduous work’. Ditton Priors Camp dates from March 1917, and was largely forgotten both in the village, and […]

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War-times ABC

Site Coordinator — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 10:52:26 +0000

A is for armour all shiny and bright that men used to wear when they went off to fight. B is for button that ought to be bright when you fight for your King, your home and your right. C is for commandant whose uniform is red and when a train load comes in she […]

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Olympian dreams and the First World War

Keith Pybus — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 10:06:30 +0000

For sixteen days in August the eyes of the world will be on Rio and the finest athletes. There will be many invocations of the Olympic spirit, of fair play and sportsmanship. I expect to be accused of sour grapes when I recall that the Ancient Greeks saw their athletic events as an important preparation […]

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AE HOUSMAN AND THE SHROPSHIRE LADS

Keith Pybus — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 13:13:31 +0000

What turned a decidedly sluggish seller into the one of the most popular books of poetry ever published? Originally published in an edition of 500; at the end of two years, the poet’s brother, Laurence Housman, bought up the last few copies. The Times, in a round- up of “Books of the Week” on 27 […]

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Waste Not, Want Not – Recipes from the First World War

Site Coordinator — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 14:14:09 +0000

Buried among the documents that have survived in Stokesay Court’s WW1 hospital archive I came across a sheaf of 4 large, double sided printed pages headed: …WASTE NOT, WANT NOT… ECONOMY WILL WIN THE WAR As I started to read them in detail, I realized that these recipes themselves, together with the ingredients they used, […]

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The Waste of Daylight

Keith Pybus — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 14:40:57 +0000

When the clocks spring forward on March 27th who will remember that we owe British Summer Time to the First World War? And to the Germans? Happily the Hero of the Hour is impeccably British. William Willett was a keen horseman. In summer he would take an early morning ride. In 1907, returning from a […]

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KHAKI -THE DUSTY ANSWER Part Two

Keith Pybus — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 14:47:43 +0000

UNIFORM was not the word for it According to the official military historian Brigadier James Edmonds, “The British Army of 1914, was the best trained best equipped and best organized British Army ever sent to war.” He was, of course, referring solely to the Regular Army. They were the only army to wear any form […]

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