This book is a study of the British Home Front of the First World War on a local level from the perspective of the Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire: the fourth Earl Fortescue. As a Lord Lieutenant during the Great War, Hugh Fortescue was a pre-eminent figure in Devon's local elite, to whom his involvement with the war effort in the county was significant. This volume considers the wartime experiences of a county's Lord Lieutenant through a presentation of records from Fortescue's private papers. It contains the original typescript that Fortescue wrote in 1924 as a retrospective account of his experiences during the conflict as well as the diaries that he kept from 1914 to 1918. Alongside the original typescript and his wartime diaries, this book also presents a selection of documents related to the Great War from the Fortescue at Castle Hill archive. This selection is organised into four sections: mobilising the county for war; recruitment; charities and voluntary aid; and food production and agriculture. By presenting these documents from Lord Fortescue, this book raises awareness of his involvement with the war effort in the county and the momentous challenges that he faced as the Lord Lieutenant of Devon during the First World War.

Hugh Fortescue, the Fourth Earl Fortescue (1854–1932)

Hugh Fortescue was born in London on 16 April 1854. He was the eldest son of the third Earl Fortescue, Hugh Fortescue, and Georgina Augusta Charlotte Caroline Dawson-Damer. The Fortescues were lauded as a highly distinguished Devonshire family, and their home was the country seat of Castle Hill near Filleigh in north Devon. The family were also well-established landowners with extensive estates in the West Country, Lincolnshire and Waterford in Ireland. As the third Earl Fortescue's eldest son, he was appointed with the courtesy title of Viscount Ebrington to indicate that he was the earl's heir apparent before his eventual succession from Viscount Ebrington to Earl Fortescue. After his education at the public school of Harrow, Ebrington attended Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he attained a first-class degree in Law. Upon finishing his BA in 1876, he continued his studies at Trinity College to complete an MA in 1879. Ebrington also participated with the University's Pitt Club, a Conservative dining club in honour of the former prime minister William Pitt. From an early age, Ebrington developed an interest in stag hunting.