Last Wednesday afternoon a group of us ventured up to the Museum of Lincolnshire life to see what information and documents they had on the first tank. On discovering the museum and its interior, it struck me how little I knew about life in Lincolnshire and the history that surrounds Lincoln. The museum itself is a listed former barracks built in the 1857 for the Royal North Lincoln Militia, in its present form, it is a collection of social history that reflects on the culture of Lincolnshire, also featuring a large selection on the areas military history.
The section that intrigued me the most was the First World War and how Lincoln had played a major role in its duration. A small part of the area had been built up like a Trench and that as you walked through you would be stepping back in time witnessing horrors of what Trench warfare would have been like, mannequins lie on the tops of the trenches injured or trying to get to cover, barbed wire stringed across the tops, even a soundscape of a battle echoed through the passage and the sense that death could been only a footstep away. Previous research that I had found indicated that the area of West Common, which is across from the Grandstand had been used to practise digging Trenches, handfuls of men craving their way through the earth, changing the landscape of the area, making their mark.
The main aspect of what we had come to see was located in the Transport area, The Tank. During 1915 the Landship Committee had decided that a new weapon was needed for the war, to conquer trench warfare. They commission William Tritton, William Rigby and Major Wilson of the war cabinet to come up with a design and that Fosters of Lincoln (owned by William Tritton) where to build a ‘Landship’.
On September 22nd 1915, William Tritton sent this famous telegram to the Admiralty.
“New arrival by tritton out of pressed plate STOP
Light in weight but very strong STOP
All doing well Thank you STOP
Proud parents” ((http://www.friends-of-the-lincoln-tank.co.uk/4.html,accessed 5th March 2013))
Little Willie was born.
Little Willie would change the face of warfare forever…….