Children and War in Early Twentieth Century England

The decades leading up to the outbreak of the First World War have been identified as a period of increasing enthusiasm for war and of intensifying militaristic patriotism. Children, especially boys, were seen as a group especially attracted to the idea of war. Historians, however, rarely know what children themselves thought, felt or did.

This talk looks at what children thought about war and peace in the early-twentieth century, by using their surviving drawings, stories and letters. Many ordinary children growing up in the North East wrote about their experiences and understandings of war, especially in local newspapers. This talk focuses on uncovering the voices of these young people. Their writings challenge many of our assumptions about how people responded to the outbreak of war in 1914.

Dr Sian Pooley teaches modern British history at Oxford University. Her research focuses on parenthood, child-rearing and children's writing in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century England.