The First World War profoundly impacted life in England from 1914 to 1918, reshaping the home front in countless ways.
Life on the home front
Food shortages and rationing became the norm, and women took on roles traditionally held by men, becoming engineers and working in factories, farms, and offices.
Cities and towns faced air raids, and public spaces became military training grounds, hospitals, and even munitions factories. These changes left a lasting mark on society and the English landscape.
Throughout the First World War, pre-eminent architectural photography firm Bedford Lemere and Company recorded how the war affected life at home through a different type of war photography.
This selection of evocative photographs from Historic England’s Bedford Lemere and Company collection illustrates the variety of activities and places the firm was commissioned to record during the early 20th century, providing us with a lasting snapshot of what life was like during this period of significant upheaval.
Automobile Association (AA) Scouts, Westminster, Greater London, 1914
In this photograph, 500 AA Scouts parade in front of the Association’s offices in London.
Following Great Britain’s declaration of being at war with Germany in August 1914, these staff members volunteered for service. Many men joined the 8th (Cyclist) Battalion of the Essex Regiment.
The AA office, Fanum House on Whitcombe Street in Westminster, was used as an address where applications for recruitment could be made.
Belgian refugees at General Buildings, Westminster, Greater London, 1914
General Buildings in Aldwych, London, was built for the General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Company, which had strong links with the Belgian insurance industry.
During the First World War, the company’s grand head office became home to the War Refugees Committee and the Belgian Labour section of the Ministry of Labour’s Employment Exchange.
In September 1914, ‘The Times’ newspaper reported that between 300 and 400 Belgian refugees a day were passing through General Buildings.
This photograph shows a crowd of Belgian refugees making their way to and from the building.
Australian soldiers outside the Union Jack Club, Lambeth, Greater London, 1915
This photograph shows Australian soldiers, civilians, and a policeman posing for Bedford Lemere and Company’s photographer outside the Union Jack Club in Waterloo Road, Lambeth.
A few of them are wearing the distinctive slouch hats of the Anzac troops.
Founded in 1904, the Union Jack Club was where service members could meet, eat and stay the night in London.
The photograph, taken for Orient Line (Orient Steam Navigation Company), shows part of the original building when its address was 91A Waterloo Road, which was later demolished and replaced with a new building on the junction of Waterloo Road with Sandell Street.
The splicing room at TT Nethercoat and Company, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, 1915
TT Nethercoat and Company was a chandler and sailmaker that applied its specialist skills to help the war effort during the First World War. At its East Works, staff made ammunition carriers and tents.
Photographed here, workers, including a boy and older men, make rope handles for canvas ammunition buckets destined for the Chief Inspector of Equipment and Stores at the Royal Dockyard, Greenwich.
Some of the men are photographed wearing jumpers featuring the names of local yachts.
Preparing aircraft propellers at Hampton and Sons Ltd, Lambeth, Greater London, 1916
In this photograph, male and female staff work on 4-blade aircraft propellers in a workshop at Hampton and Sons Ltd in Lambeth.
Like many manufacturers with skilled workforces, furniture makers Hampton and Sons produced a variety of items for the war effort. In addition to aircraft propellers, the Lambeth factory made canvas bags and webbing.
Sadly, Hamptons and Sons was dealt a blow when a bomb hit its Pall Mall premises in the Second World War, destroying a large part of the building.
Doping aircraft wings at Waring and Gillow, Hammersmith, Greater London, 1916
Utilising the skills of its workforce, Waring and Gillow’s fine furniture factory in Hammersmith was used to build aircraft for the war effort.
In this photograph, women, men and a boy are seen varnishing or ‘doping’ wings in a workshop.
This is a good example of life on the home front, where societal gender norms were banished, and an ‘all hands on board’ attitude was adopted.
Workers at Waring and Gillow, White City, Greater London, 1916
Waring and Gillow didn’t just facilitate the building of aircraft. The company’s role in the home front effort also extended to turning their facility at White City into a war equipment factory.
This photograph shows the workers, mostly female, leaving the main entrance.
After large numbers of men joined the armed forces, and following the implementation of conscription in 1916, over 600,000 women filled the jobs that men left as they went off to war. These roles included industrial work, driving, and producing explosives.
At the Waring and Gillow factory, they produced items such as valises, respirator satchels for use during gas attacks, horse nosebags, machine-gun belts, and tents.
Tent manufacturing at Waring and Gillow, White City, Greater London, 1916
Female sewing machinists at Waring and Gillow’s White City factory in London used Singer sewing machines to make tents for troops.
A serving soldier wrote to Waring and Gillow: “It may please you to know that the tentage of the troops on this station bears the name of Waring and Gillow, the tents are all under my charge, and I have not had a single complaint through all the storms of sand, wind and rain.”
A workshop at the Belgian Munition Works, Richmond upon Thames, Greater London, 1918
In January 1915, labour exchanges were instructed to obtain lists of employable Belgian refugees.
One refugee, the Belgian engineer Charles Pelabon, was living and working in Antwerp when the German army invaded. He successfully escaped to England with a few of his workers.
Dedicating himself to the war effort, he established a munitions factory in Richmond, where a sizeable Belgian community soon developed.
This photograph shows the Belgian Munition Works in action, where workers, mostly women, use lathes to create ammunition casings and other parts.
WH Smith bookstall at Piccadilly Circus underground station, Westminster, Greater London, 1916
Commissioned by printers’ engineers William Dawson and Sons, this photograph shows a WH Smith bookstall at Piccadilly Circus underground station.
This stall displays newspaper placards mentioning the Battle of the Somme, ‘Vogue’ magazine, and novels, demonstrating the need for entertainment as well as news during this difficult time.
An advertisement for the illustrated paper ‘The Gentlewoman’ promotes an article on ‘Gentlewomen as Munition Workers’.
Temporary buildings for the War Office, Victoria Embankment Gardens, Westminster, Greater London, 1917
Before the war, the grand Hotel Cecil, with 800 rooms, was a hotspot for dancing and socialising in London. When the war broke out in 1914, the War Office took it over, using it as a base for operations.
However, more offices were required, so a temporary 2-storey building was erected next to the hotel in Victoria Embankment Gardens.
In this photograph, the hotel can be seen in the background. The Hotel Cecil was largely demolished in the 1930s when Shell-Mex purchased it.
The dining hall at the Eagle Hut, Westminster, Greater London, 1918
The United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, almost 3 years after the war started.
At the beginning of the First World War, the US army consisted of 127,500 officers and soldiers. By the end of the conflict, this number had expanded to 4 million.
Many US troops were stationed in England during the war while waiting to embark to France to join the front or to convalesce and get medical treatment.
The Eagle Hut was erected in September 1917 by the American YMCA on a vacant plot in Aldwych, London. It provided company and refreshments to US and other service members, attended by American ladies living in London.
The YMCA in Bloomsbury opened a similar facility in 1916. Named the Shakespeare Hut, it was built on a site that had been earmarked for a Shakespeare memorial theatre before the war.
The Red Cross Prisoners of War Parcels Department, Westminster, Greater London, 1917
The Red Cross and the Order of St John of Jerusalem formed a committee to serve prisoners of war during the conflict.
Photographed here, workers can be seen sorting through many parcels at their Prisoners of War Parcels Department in London.
This photograph was taken for Mrs Rivers Bulkeley, who was invested as a Lady of Grace for the Order of St John following the death of her husband, who was killed in action in 1914.
The recreation room at the Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, 1915
Woburn Abbey was one of many country houses used as hospitals in England during the First World War.
The abbey’s owner, the Duchess of Bedford, provided the use of her riding school and tennis court, as well as facilitating (among other things) an operating theatre and 100 beds for the wounded.
Here, soldiers relax in the hospital recreation room, formerly the tennis court. Many of them have crutches or visible bandages.
Patients and staff at St Andrew’s Hospital, Dollis Hill, Greater London, 1916
St Andrew’s Hospital in Dollis Hill was originally built in 1912 to serve paying patients, primarily Catholics. However, during the war, it became a hospital for wounded soldiers.
Bedford Lemere and Company photographed the newly completed hospital in 1914. The firm returned in 1916 to photograph patients, nurses and nuns.
The hospital’s treasurer and chaplain, Monsignor M E Carton de Wiart, was a cousin of the war hero Adrian Carton de Wiart, who had recently been awarded the Victoria Cross.
The Muslim Burial Ground, Horsell Common, Woking, Surrey, 1917
T Herbert Winney, an India Office Surveyor, designed this burial ground in Woking.
On its completion in 1917, the cemetery was a place where Muslim soldiers killed in action during the First World War could be buried according to their religion. By 1917, 19 Muslim soldiers were laid to rest here.
The gravestones were made from simple Portland stone, with round-arched heads facing west, according to Islamic tradition.
The India Office commissioned this photograph.
Further reading
- 10 Things You Should Know About the First World War
- High Explosive: Bootle’s Cunard Shell Works During the First World War
- Home From the War: What Happened to Disabled First World War Veterans
- The Story of the Royal British Legion
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