Features / Things you didn't know
11 things you probably didn’t know about Bristol’s role in World War One
This month marks 100 years since Armistice Day, and the ending of World War One after more than four years and 16 million deaths, both civilian and military. We reflect on the roles Bristolians played during the war, both abroad and closer to home.
1. Roughly 55,000 men from Bristol enlisted during the war, of whom approximately 7,000 died.
is needed now More than ever
2. When war broke out, ‘Bristol’s Own’, the 12th Battalion Gloucester Regiment, became stationed at Ashton Meadows in a series of buildings known as White City. It had opened in May 1914 as Bristol International Exhibition and featured a replica of Bristol Castle and a rollercoaster, but was forced to close just three months later as the outbreak of war threatened. After being taken over by the Army, it continued to be used as barracks until 1919. The name of the White City Allotments is now one of the few reminders that it ever existed.
3. Field Marshall Douglas Haig, who commanded the British Army on the Western Front including at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, was a former pupil of Clifton College. He was nicknamed ‘Butcher Haig’ for the two million soldiers wounded under his command.
4. More than 20,000 British men were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, among them 19-year-old Fred Wood of Easton, who was experiencing battle for the first time. Fred was one of the first to go over the top and his body was never found.
5. More than 347,000 horses and mules passed through the Shirehampton Remount Depot during the war, which was one of the largest in the country, supplying animals to the Front.
Credit: Imperial War Museum
6. Avonmouth became the centre of British chemical warfare manufacturing during 1917, making 20 tons of mustard gas each day across two factories largely staffed by women. In six months there were 1,400 work-related illnesses, 160 accidents and over 1,000 burns reported amongst the 1,100 workers. Three people died from accidents and another four died from their illnesses.
The factory as dramatised in the play Gas Girls
7. Glenside Hospital in Stapleton, formerly an asylum, was converted into Beaufort War Hospital between 1915-19. It was made famous through the paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer who worked there as a medical orderly and was home to Belgian soldiers as well as British.
8. Robert Bush, who had played cricket alongside WG Grace and farmed sheep in Australia before becoming Sheriff of Bristol, converted his home in Sneyd Park into a hospital for the Australian wounded once war broke out. More than 2,000 recovered in Bishop’s Knoll House, which he ran with his wife Margery Scott.
9. The Bristol M.1, manufactured by the Bristol Aeroplane Company in Filton was the only British monoplane fighter to reach production during the war. It was armed with a single Vickers machine gun, mounted on the port wing.
10. Bristol’s most famous conscientious objector was Walter Ayles, a city councillor who was arrested for distributing a leaflet criticising conscription. After serving time in prison he was conscripted but applied for conscientious objector status; this was refused and he was made to serve 112 further days in prison with hard labour. He went on to become MP for Bristol. A blue plaque was unveiled on his former home in Ashley Down 100 years after his initial arrest.
11. Eight soldiers who won the Victoria Cross during World War One have Bristol connections. Of those, the four that were born here have been commemorated in the form of special stone slabs, the last of which was laid in September 2018 as part of a nationwide project. Three are outside St Peter’s Church in Castle Park whilst the fourth is outside St John’s Church in Bedminster.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
