This year it will be twenty years since the British government granted a statutory pardon to 306 soldiers executed by the British Army during the First World War. It will be 110 years since my ancestor, William Wilfred “Ted” Roberts, was executed for desertion in 1916. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that, had Ted not been court-martialled and executed, we would probably know even less about him. Many First World War service records were destroyed in September 1940,

In the early 1980s, long before the stories of the men shot at dawn were widely known, one figure played a pivotal role in bringing them back into public view. That figure was Judge Anthony Babington. Access Before the Files Were Open In 1982, Judge Babington was granted exceptional access to First World War court martial files that remained closed to the public. His research led to the publication of For the Sake of Example  in 1983. The book caused unease. Not because it na

If you’ve ever looked inside the first few pages of a book, you’ll almost certainly have seen a bar code and a long number beginning with 978 . Most readers skim past it and plenty of first-time authors barely give it a thought. But that number, the ISBN, matters far more than people realise. So, what is  an ISBN? An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique identifier for a specific edition of a book. Like a fingerprint for your book. Every format needs its own I

In September 1916, Harry Farr, a private soldier in the British Army, was executed by firing squad for desertion on the Western Front. His case is one of the most thoroughly documented among those later associated with the term “Shot at Dawn.” It has become central to discussions about how psychological trauma was understood and acted upon during the First World War. Harry Farr: A Soldier's Journey Harry Farr enlisted in 1914 and served on the Western Front during a time mar