‘Duty well done. That, in a simple phrase, sums up Warrington’s part in the greatest of wars. It is a proud reflection that, in the most critical period in history, Warrington was true to its splendid traditions of patriotism and loyalty,’ declared a local newspaper in 1919.

Encompassing those serving in the South Lancashire Regiment and in other theatres of war, those ‘Keeping the Home Fires Burning’ and those working in Warrington’s war industries and military hospitals, Warrington’s war was far more than a tale of Tommies in the trenches of the Western Front. Munitions girls, nurses, aid workers, conscientious objectors, Prisoners of War; the great and the good and grieving mothers and sweethearts all had their part to play in the story of these tumultuous years.

Warrington and the Great War explores the events of 1914–19 through eyewitness accounts, contemporary photographs and newspapers, official records and family histories to recreate the dramatic events of a century ago, and provides clues to those wanting to discover their own family’s role in Warrington’s Great War.