Published in Windlesora 34
© WLHG 2018
Conkers is a traditional game that has been played by many generations of school children. Towards the end of the Great War, children were urged to cease the game and instead collect conkers for the war effort.
On 15th September 1917, the Windsor and Eton Express reported on a letter from the Board of Education received by the Windsor Education Committee:
…A considerable quantity of grain is at present being used in certain industrial processes which are essential to the prosecution of the war. In order to set this grain free for human consumption, experiments have been made to discover a substitute which could be utilised for the industrial processes concerned, and a substitute suitable in every respect has been found in the horse chestnut… The horse chestnut, though itself totally unfit for food can be utilised indirectly to increase the national food supply. It is therefore urgently necessary that this year’s crop of horse chestnuts should be harvested. In present circumstances it is felt that school children could give most valuable assistance in collecting the chestnuts, and by so doing make a definite contribution to national efficiency. It is suggested, therefore, that the governing bodies, managers and teachers of schools should organise the efforts of the children for the purpose…
Groups were set up across the country to collect the horse chestnuts and send them to the Royal Navy Cordite Factory in Dorset. Although it was not stated what they would be used for, the horse chestnuts were turned into acetone which was used to make cordite a propellant for bullets and artillery shells. The manufacture of cordite required large quantities of acetone, which was usually obtained from grain by a process called bacterial fermentation. By 1917 there was a shortage of grain, chestnuts were used instead. It was reported that for every ton of horse chestnuts harvested, half a ton of grain was saved for human consumption, making it a vital contribution to the war effort.
Windsor Local History Group 