Famed for his work as the author of The Forsyte Saga, Galsworthy was also a social justice campaigner who fought for better treatment of serviceman injured in the First World War.

This project helped the local community use archives to learn about John Galsworthy and the history of Kingston during the war. This then developed into an exploration of the participants’ own First World War family connections.

Rose Theatre Kingston delivered the project in partnership with multi-media company Digital Drama. Individuals from local businesses and charities helped develop the project by sitting on a steering group.  

A team of five volunteers worked with a curator to display archive material loaned from the University of Birmingham and Kingston residents’ family artefacts. Another 35 volunteers of different ages helped to record the oral accounts of local families’ experience of the war using archive materials such as letters, poems and diaries. Some of these recordings and contributions from the local community can be heard on the exhibition audio trail app and seen in an online film.

The recordings featured in the exhibition alongside touch technology in order to bring the stories to life and to make it accessible to the widest audience possible. Visitors added their own personal story to the exhibition by writing on a paper leaf which could be tied to a remembrance arch.

The project reached a wide range of people via the workshops held at the exhibition, including schools and with organisations such as Refugee Action Kingston and Anstee Bridge. Extra-curricular school groups carried out research through several visits to local museums.

As an extension to the exhibition, eight short films were produced which look at the John Galsworthy story. These were distributed locally and can be viewed online.

Elements of the exhibition later toured Kingston borough libraries.

You can download the exhibition audio trail app and online films on the Digital Drama website.