Our plan

Lincoln in WW1

A night of commemoration on 18 October 2018 at 7pm at Lincoln Drill Hall

A recognition of the contribution made by Lincoln engineers and the ordinary workers of Lincoln, both men and women.

We would also love you to bring and show your memorabilia but also the stories that have been passed down in the family. What was Lincoln like in those dark war years? Please contact BBC Radio Lincolnshire or me through this website.

Lincoln, like probably all towns and cities across Britain, lost a great many young men to the carnage of the Western Front and elsewhere. It did however also make a quite particular contribution by the invention of the tank and the manufacture of military equipment. This story will be told in words, film and contemporary images.

We are delighted that Radio Lincolnshire's Melvyn Prior will be comparing the evening.

Two of Lincoln’s military gurus, Richard Pullen and Charles Parker, will tell the story of the city’s contribution to the national war effort by the invention of the tank and the huge efforts made by Lincoln companies in aircraft and aero engine manufacture.

Some of the employees of Wm Foster & Co

They will be joined by film maker Andrew Blow who discovered a copy of the only known film of the Lincoln tank on Foster’s training ground taken a hundred years ago. Andrew will also show footage of aircraft production.

We will place all this into the broader context of equipping the army.

We will tell of the Drill Hall’s own role in the war. We will be joined by representatives of the Royal Anglian Regiment who are the successors to the 4th Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment for whom Lincoln Drill Hall was home.

On display will be an exhibition of memorabilia collected by Friends of the Lincoln Tank.

A film of the ‘Green Fields Beyond’ tank drama performed in Lincoln Castle grounds in July 2016 will be shown and some of its props exhibited.

We hope also to show extracts from the play The Beechey Brothers.

Tickets for the event are available from Lincoln Drill Hall in person or by following this link.

“Sponsored by Cartwright Brothers hauliers”