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The First World War
Many local men rushed to join the army at the start of the war. Major Gordon Watney of Weybridge encouraged men to enlist in the 'Watney Lot' and they served as lorry drivers and mechanics in the Royal Army Service Corps.
On the home front, local committees of the Red Cross were set up. Ethel Locke King, the wife of Hugh Locke King, ran a Red Cross hospital at Brooklands House from 1915 until 1919. The New Zealand Army ran military hospitals at Mount Felix, Walton and Oatlands Park Hotel, where 27,000 soldiers received treatment.
Local women worked in the Vickers aircraft factory at Brooklands and the Bleriot propeller factory at Addlestone. Food rationing was introduced in 1917 to combat the shortages caused by German submarine warfare against British shipping.
Hundreds of local people were killed fighting for their country during the Great War. Throughout the 1920s, war memorials were put up in the towns and villages of Elmbridge to commemorate those who had died.
Local man, R.C. Sherriff, recorded his memories of life as an officer on the Western Front in his play, 'Journey's End', which later became a major theatrical success.
