110 Years On: Remembering the Hatfield Park Tank Trials
Hatfield Park, with its scenic parkland and stunning natural beauty, was transformed 110 years ago, into a concealed experimental battleground where one of the First World War’s most daring innovations was tested.
The world’s first tank trials, carried out in January and February 1916, represent a memorable chapter in both military and Estate history, with newly reviewed Air Ministry correspondence from 1920 now providing fresh detail on the trials that took place here.
On 2nd January 1916, Hatfield Park was selected as the site for a recreated frontline. The Estate’s varied terrain and relative privacy made it an ideal location to test a new kind of machine, H.M.L.S. Centipede. Affectionately referred to as “Mother” or “Big Willie”, the first trial tank arrived at Hatfield Park in the small hours of 26th January 1916.
A preliminary, unofficial inspection took place on 29th January 1916, but it was on 2nd February 1916 that the first official trials began.
These were attended by several of the most influential British political and military leaders of the era, including Lord Kitchener, Arthur Balfour and David Lloyd George, each keen to witness what this new tracked technology might offer the war effort.
Just six days later, on 8th February 1916, King George V visited Hatfield Park to observe the trials. He watched the tank navigate the mock battlefield, crossing parapets, trenches, waterlogged ground and barbed wire, and even spent time inside it, reportedly commenting positively on its potential value to the Army.
For the first time, it was proven that a tracked armoured vehicle could traverse the landscape of modern trench warfare. The success at Hatfield Park directly shaped the decision to begin tank production. In doing so, the Estate played a vital role in the development of the tank and the future of armoured warfare.
Image of the plan for the tank trial on 8th February 1916.
Following the First World War, Winston Churchill acknowledged Hatfield’s contribution by presenting the 4th Marquess of Salisbury with a Mark I tank. For decades, this tank stood proudly at Hatfield Park, until it was gifted in 1969 to the Bovington Tank Museum, where it was later fully restored.
Archival correspondence from 1942 reveals that during the Second World War, there was a national demand for heavy steel, and the tank displayed at Hatfield Park was at risk of being requisitioned for scrap. Although its historical significance was recognised, wartime pressures meant its removal was still a possibility.
After appeals were made which highlighted its crucial connection to the First World War trials at Hatfield, instructions were issued to spare it, ensuring that this piece of national heritage survived.
Image of the Mark I tank presented to the 4th Marquess of Salisbury in 1919 for display at Hatfield Park.
Today, 110 years after the tank trials, Hatfield Park continues to commemorate the part it played in the development of the first tank.
