100 Days Centenary Countdown: Armistice Day
We have reached the end of our 100 days centenary countdown. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918. Exactly 100 years ago today the guns fell silent, marking the end of hostilities and the end of 4 years of war.
Armistice Day parade of officers and men at Duxford on Armistice Day, November 1918. Copyright: © IWM (Q 96081)
When the First World War came to an end the landscape and fabric of society in the UK had changed forever.
Civilians and soldiers had been killed on the Home Front throughout the war. Airship and fixed wing bomber raids that struck throughout the war had killed over 1,300 people; many workers had killed by explosions, work related illness and accidents at munitions factories; and soldiers were killed while training in the UK before they even reached the front.
Today we remember all those who lost their lives or had their lives changed forever as a result of the First World War.
Pvt. George Ellison
Every soldier retained a connection with the Home Front; often through their families and loved ones back home. When on the front a soldier would write letters home and when on leave they would return to their family.
George Edwin Ellison was the last British soldier to be killed during the First World War. Ellison had left the army in 1912 to become a coal miner but rejoined at the outbreak of war to serve with the 5th (Royal Irish) Lancers.
Private Ellison was killed at 0930 on the 11th of November 1918 having been shot by a sniper while scouting woodland near Mons, Belgium.
Ellison’s CWGC casualty record shows he lived at 49 Edmund Street, Leeds. Using old maps, available from the National Library of Scotland, it is possible to trace where Pvt. Ellison lived. Edmund Street has long since been demolished. Today Dolphin Street, Saxton Gardens, now stands on the site of Edmund Street.
49 Edmund Street is the last site recorded on the Home Front Legacy Map of Sites.
Countdown of Sites
As this will be our final blog post we thought we’d give a quick countdown of a small selection of the sites recorded through the project.
Of the 5,948 records we have-
1,378 Wrecks
651 Hospitals
563 Drill Halls
293 Trenches
212 Airfields
211 Bomb Sites
113 Pillboxes
68 POW Camps
60 Munitions Factories
25 Accommodation Huts
24 Air Raid Shelters
3 Women’s Land Army camps
2 Nissen Huts
Again, we thank everyone who recorded sites or submitted project data to be recorded through Home Front Legacy.
All Home Front Legacy project records will be published on the Archaeology Data Service website shortly.
Over To You
There are many sites that remain to be recorded and you can continue to record them after Home Front Legacy comes to an end in December.
Contact your local Historic Environment Record to record your new discoveries.
