Introducing our new President, Dr Spencer Jones

It is a tremendous honour to write these lines as President of The Western Front Association. I am genuinely delighted to be taking on the role, and deeply grateful for the confidence placed in me. Like so many of you, my relationship with the First World War is not simply professional or academic. It is long-standing, personal, and bound up with a sense of duty to remember, to understand, and to explain.

My interest in the Great War began, as it does for many people, with family history. Discovering more about the my great-grandfathers and their wartime service gave the conflict a sudden intimacy. It was no longer only a vast historical event, or a roll-call of names and battles; it was something that had reached directly into my own family and shaped the lives that followed. From there, my curiosity grew into immersion. I started reading widely and, in time, found myself captivated not only by the big questions of strategy and command, but by the lived experience of the war: the texture of daily life at the front, the language of letters home, the distinctive culture of units, the moral and emotional burden borne by those who served.

A particular turning point came when I stumbled across John Terraine’s Mons: Retreat to Victory. Like many readers, I found Terraine’s work bracing: a reminder that the early campaign on the Western Front repays close attention, and that the clichés we inherit about 1914-18 are often inadequate guides to what actually happened. That book gave me a lifelong fascination with the 1914 campaign, but also opened doors to an entire literature including the great debates over Douglas Haig and the British Army's battlefield performance.

In many ways, however, the most important constant in my journey has been The Western Front Association itself. I joined the WFA at sixteen years old, through the Wolverhampton Branch. Here I was fortunate to meet members who discussed the war with seriousness, curiosity, and good humour, and find an organisation where a young member was welcomed not as an oddity, but as someone whose interest mattered. Looking back, that is not a small thing. Organisations are ultimately made of people, and what makes the WFA special is the combination of knowledge and generosity that members extend to one another; the willingness to share sources, to recommend books, to challenge assumptions kindly, and to keep learning.

From that first membership at sixteen to the present day, much of my life has been bound up with the WFA. Over the years I have been privileged to give talks to branches, to contribute to online events, and to meet members across the country and beyond. In turn, the Association has continually shaped and supported my own work. Whether one approaches the war through local history, family research, unit study, archaeology, strategy, commemoration, or the social and cultural experience of wartime Britain and Europe, the WFA provides something increasingly rare: a serious community of interest, rooted in evidence, animated by debate, and committed to respectful remembrance.

As we move through a period of 110th anniversaries, the importance of the WFA feels especially clear. Anniversaries can be double-edged: they can prompt fresh attention and new audiences, but they can also encourage simplification, reducing complex events to familiar slogans or well-worn narratives. The task, as I see it, is to use these commemorative moments to do what the WFA does best: to deepen understanding. That might mean spotlighting lesser-known actions and formations, revisiting the “big” battles with new questions, exploring the global dimensions of a war too often treated as purely Western European, or encouraging members to share the extraordinary research being done in archives, attics, and family papers.

Looking ahead, I am excited by what we can build together in this period: sustaining strong branch life while continuing to develop high-quality online programming; supporting members’ research and publication; strengthening how we welcome newcomers, especially those at the beginning of their interest; and ensuring that the Association remains a leading voice for fresh, exciting, evidence-based engagement with the First World War.

Above all, I want to say thank you, to you, the members. To those who welcomed me as a sixteen year old at Wolverhampton; to branch committees and organisers who keep local activity thriving; to those who speak, write, research, and volunteer; and to members whose quiet commitment is the true backbone of the WFA. I look forward to serving the Association in this new capacity. I am very much looking forward to what comes next.

Dr Spencer Jones FRHistS

President, The Western Front Association