Managing risk in the ‘danger zone’: Defensive infrastructure and public safety discourses on the north-east coast of England during the First World War

Abstract

This article explores the development of nascent civil defence efforts during the First World War in Britain, through the use of urban case studies from the north-east coast of England. Whilst pre-war defence planning by central government and military authorities had been primarily concerned with the building of coastal gun batteries and strengthening the Royal Navy – in response to looming fears of invasion by a foreign foe – the war itself saw thousands of civilians on the ‘home front’ affected by war violence. Though they were many miles away from the conventional theatres of war, from late 1914, British civilians began to be killed and injured on their own soil by hostile battleships and aircraft. The largely improvised and dynamic multi-level response of central government, local authorities, the police and civilians indicated shifting relations between the national, local and individual. Fundamentally, early forms of civil defence were devised with pre-war notions of public safety in mind, while in the war context, these discourses were used to promote non-combatant resilience, particularly in urban coastal areas.