George Pearce sent this card
to his sister Annie Christina
in Waddon.
He was fighting in Belgium
during the First World War.
He did not know
if he would ever
see his family again.
The picture on the card
expresses his hope for an end
to the war.

George Pearce describes the trenches:

"I got frozen stiff.
We were sitting in mud up to our knees
and it froze in the night.
Two mates of mine from South Norwood,
sitting in the same dug out
of the trench -
one had his legs off,
the other had his feet off.
I must have had better circulation.
But even so I must have fainted,
because when we got to hospital
they said the Germans shelled us
all the way down the Menin Road,
and all the horses bolted.
I don't remember anything about that."

George Pearce was one of 25,000
Croydon men
who went to fight in the 'Great War'.

In 3 months
half a million men died
around the area of Ypres
in Belgium.

There were protests
against war in 1914.
Thousands of people refused to fight
because of their beliefs.

After the First World War,
some of these people
struggled to find work
because of discrimination.

To find out more about the
First World War and how
it affected Croydon,
you can visit the
Research Room to look at:

Books such as
*Croydon and the Great War by
Keathley Moore and Berwick Sayers
* Ephemera material about
Croydon in the First World War
*Ephemera about the Zeppelin Raid
of 1915
* The Photographic Roll of Honour


The Research Room is on
the Lower Ground Floor of
the Croydon Clocktower and
is open Tuesday-Saturday

10.30-5