Wilfrid René Wood (1888-1976) was an engraver and watercolourist. He typically painted landscapes of towns such as Stamford where he settled, in nearby Barnack, in 1937. During WW1, he enlisted in the Artists' Rifles and was commissioned in the Machine Gun Corps, serving in France and Flanders and Italy.

This is a collection of 11 sketches illustrating the landscape of the front line.

This further selection of artefacts from the collection includes photographs, sheet music, drawings, greeting cards, and other personal artefacts and mementoes which powerfully illustrate the pride and despair, the love and sorrow, and even humour shared by the fighting men at the Front and their loved ones at home.

Photographs show the soldiers’ view of the scenes of war torn landscapes, the desolation and horror of the battlefield under fire, and the banality, boredom and even humour of life between the fighting.

Most moving however are the greeting cards which the soldiers sent home to their families. Many of them were made by the soldiers themselves and bring home the tenderness and love felt, even among or perhaps because of all the horrors and uncertainties, for each other by the men in the trenches and their loved ones back home.

It also includes photographs and artefacts from the return of the soldiers, including the Stamford certificates for the returning and the fallen and a photograph of the unveiling of the Stamford War Memorial.