The forgotten origins of the tank

“The tank had mixed results at first, but as it developed it became a vital military tool used by nations across the world.”

As we endure hard times, it often does well to remember the tougher times that came before us. World War One claimed countless lives in a history we are aware of, but there is so much forgotten about the Great War and the role each part of Britain played in the conflict. Coming from Lincoln myself, I have learnt the role we played in engineering the first operational tank in a story that is relatively unknown.

Two years into the war, the top brass of both sides were working out solutions to break the stalemate that had come to engulf the entrenched soldiers. No man dared venture across the infamous ‘No Man’s Land’, for fear of barbed wire and the deafening cry of a machine gun bringing their final end. An unlikely company would break that stalemate, namely William Foster and Co. William Foster purchased a Lincoln flour mill in 1846, with his commercial enterprise eventually expanding to all kinds of agricultural machinery. William Ashbee Tritton became director of the company in 1911, with his large workforce deeply involved in coming up with proposals to assist in the war effort.

Discussions with Rear Admiral Reginald Bacon led to the proposed plans to utilise caterpillar-tracked tractors for moving guns across the battlefield, something that the military caught a glance of in the form of a wooden mock-up of the design on the factory floor in September 1915. Winston Churchill and the War Office urged Tritton to continue to develop the invention with high hopes that, with enough improvements, a miracle machine could be produced that would smash the ongoing stalemate.

Churchill, of course, was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, and strongly urged the creation of what would be known as the ‘tank’.

Engineer Walter Gordon Wilson visited the factory floor at Firth Road, Lincoln frequently until the first modern tank was produced in January 1916 – making William Foster and Co. a major asset to the war effort. William Tritton, who gave Tritton Road its name, was knighted in 1917 and his work partner Walter Gordon Wilson continued in his work of designing mechanical marvels for the War Office.

This first tank was named ‘Little Willie’, which passed all the tests the army threw at it, with the first fighting tank dubbed ‘Mother’ – with a number of marked improvements. The tank had mixed results at first, but as it developed it became a vital military tool used by nations across the world. Lincoln, at the time, became known as ‘Tank Town’, with tank parades taking place in the city as a point of local pride. Once other much larger factories began production, Lincoln’s founding role was increasingly overlooked by the rest of the nation. Today, the tank’s origins remain mostly unknown, until one drives into Lincoln and sees the tank memorial where the proud words can be seen: ‘Lincoln: Birthplace of the tank’.