Modern Lincolnshire Part I (1914–1945)

An agricultural county confronts total war (1914–1945)

In 1914, Lincolnshire was a county defined by the soil. Its fortunes rose and fell with the harvest, its industry was anchored to the production of farming machinery, and its people lived by the steady rhythm of the seasons.

This quiet, deeply agricultural identity was about to be shattered. Over the next thirty years, two global conflicts would drag Lincolnshire from the field to the factory floor and the airfield runway, leveraging its landscape and engineering genius to forge a new identity of iron, aviation, and immense sacrifice.

The First World War: from ploughshares to prototypes (1914–1918)

The declaration of war transformed Lincoln into an engine of military innovation. The city’s great engineering firms, like William Foster & Co., immediately pivoted from producing tractors to manufacturing the machinery of modern warfare. In deep secrecy within a hotel room in Lincoln, engineers developed the world’s first operational combat tanks, including the prototype ‘Little Willie’, which would revolutionise land warfare.

At the same time, the city became a powerhouse of aviation. Ruston & Proctor’s factories built thousands of aircraft, including more than 1,600 Sopwith Camels—more than any other company in Britain.

This colossal industrial effort was powered by a new workforce. Women, the ‘munitionettes’, flooded into the workshops to take on the hazardous assembly lines, many suffering from the poisonous effects of the varnish used on aircraft fabric.

The cost of this new warfare was felt with brutal speed. The 10th Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment, known affectionately as the Grimsby Chums, was torn apart on the first day of the Somme in 1916. In a single morning, the battalion suffered 502 casualties, carving a scar into the collective memory of the county’s close-knit communities.

The inter-war years: hardship and the gathering storm (1919–1938)

The end of the war brought not relief, but severe economic disruption. As military contracts vanished overnight, Lincoln’s factories faced a jarring industrial slump.

Farming, the county’s bedrock, was plunged into a deep and prolonged agricultural depression as wartime price guarantees were removed, triggering widespread unemployment and accelerating a migration of workers from the countryside into towns like Lincoln and Grimsby.

Yet as one threat receded, another gathered on the horizon. As Nazi Germany rearmed in the 1930s, the British government made a deliberate strategic choice, looking again to Lincolnshire’s flat, open spaces to expand the Royal Air Force. RAF Cranwell had already been established as the world’s first air academy, anchoring the county’s future to military aviation.

Engineers moved in to compulsorily purchase farmland and construct a new network of heavy-duty airfields, activating bases like Scampton and Waddington that would soon become the front line in a new European conflict.

The Second World War: forging 'bomber county' (1939–1945)

Lincolnshire’s geography made it the perfect fortress for an air war. Its flat terrain was ideal for the long concrete runways needed by heavy bombers, and its eastern coastline offered a direct, unimpeded route into occupied Europe. The county became the operational heart of RAF Bomber Command, earning its enduring nickname: ‘Bomber County’.

At the war’s peak, 49 active airfields were scattered across the landscape, hosting tens of thousands of aircrew and ground staff from across Britain, the Commonwealth, and allied nations like Poland. This huge influx of personnel transformed the rural society.

The skies were dominated by the roar of iconic aircraft, most notably the Avro Lancaster, the workhorse of the bombing campaign.

It was from RAF Scampton that No. 617 Squadron launched the legendary Dambusters raid in 1943, a mission of incredible daring and technical precision that cemented the county’s place in aviation history and captured the imagination of the world.

The home front: the blitz and the human cost (1939–1945)

But while missions of incredible daring were launched from Lincolnshire, the county itself was far from safe. The fishing fleets of Grimsby were requisitioned as high-risk naval minesweepers, and the port’s strategic importance made it a prime target for the Luftwaffe.

In June 1943, Grimsby was attacked with a new terror weapon: the SD2 ‘Butterfly Bomb’. This raid scattered thousands of small, delayed-action bomblets that paralysed the town for weeks and killed scores of civilians.

Beyond the threat of the Blitz, the entire county was geared for war. The coastline was fortified with pillboxes and anti-tank traps, while inland, the Women’s Land Army worked the fields to maintain food production. The greatest price, however, was paid by the aircrews. More than 25,000 who took off from Lincolnshire’s bases never returned.

For the survivors, the sight of Lincoln Cathedral, rising undamaged from the flat fenland, became a powerful navigational beacon and a welcome landmark guiding them home through the darkness—a silent witness to the nightly departures and the often-incomplete returns.

A legacy of iron and air (1945 onwards)

The end of the war in 1945 did not return Lincolnshire to its old self. The conflict left a permanent scar on the landscape, with a network of derelict control towers and crumbling runways slowly being reclaimed by nature. It also left a profound historical burden.

The county’s identity had been fundamentally reforged, creating a direct lineage from the wartime workshops and airfields to Lincolnshire's modern status as a centre for defence, engineering, and aviation heritage.

This complex legacy is now permanently commemorated by the soaring spire of the International Bomber Command Centre outside Lincoln. It looks out across the city towards the cathedral, ensuring the county’s pivotal role in modern history, and the memory of the 58,000 who gave their lives for Bomber Command, remains visible for all.