World War I Camps

At the outbreak of the First World War, two huge military camps were developed at Seaford to accommodate and train thousands of new soldiers from across the Empire. South Camp spread over a vast area of Seaford Head, South Hill and the Cuckmere Valley, while North Camp covered farmland near East Blatchington. North Camp now lies entirely underneath the modern town.

Images courtesy of Seaford Museum and Heritage Society

In September 1914, the first troops arrived at Seaford to begin their training for the Front. Initially, the men were housed in tents until November 1914 when the first wooden huts were hastily constructed - so hastily in fact that they were not suitable for habitation and the camp was abandoned until March of 1915. 

There were 20 - 25,000 soldiers stationed at Seaford at any one time -  equivalent to around a quarter of present day British Army personnel. At first, Canadian troops were housed within the South Camp whilst the North Camp held the British and Imperial soldiers. 

However, an altercation between a Canadian and an Imperial soldier in 1917 resulted in the Imperial troops being moved out of Seaford and the Canadians taking over both camps. In 1919, around 2,000 Canadian soldiers rioted in response to a comrade being beaten and arrested for walking with his hands in his pockets. This sparked a chain reaction, with the remaining troops quickly being sent home, the camps closed and the barracks being broken down and sold off.

An important part of the story of the camps is that of the British West Indian Regiment, many of whom passed through. The first recruits paid their own passage from Jamaica and arrived at Seaford in October 1915.  They had been made promises by the British Government of rewards that would follow if they volunteered for the mother country. The reality was, unsurprisingly, that they suffered poorer conditions than their white counterparts. Their accommodation was poorer, they were paid less, and were given cotton uniforms, rather than the usual, warmer, wool. Some of them died of disease at the camps, and there are 19 BWIR Commonwealth War Graves in Seaford Cemetery. When they finally made it over to France – and it's said the Battle of the Somme could be heard from South Camp – they weren’t allowed to fight as equals but were given menial jobs such as road building and cable laying. 185 of them were killed by shells nevertheless, with many more wounded or dying of illness. After the war, they were excluded from the Victory celebrations and were largely forgotten.