Steel-plated and copper-bottomed - the origins of the tank in 1915

Before The Great War the Lincoln engineering company, William Foster and Co, was synonymous with the very best threshing machines. By 1918, managing director Sir William Tritton, together with Major W.G. Wilson, had been credited by the Royal Commission as the inventor of an armoured fighting vehicle forever known as the tank.

The Admiralty Landship's Committee had approached Foster's to develop a small landship to cross the …

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