Honouring Our Wartime Legacy: Oaklands Remembers

As we pause to mark Remembrance Day 2025, we at Oaklands reflect with pride and solemn remembrance on our own institutions’ wartime history.

When war broke out in 1939, Oaklands quickly adapted to support the national effort. With food imports cut and agriculture vital to the country’s survival, Oaklands became a training hub for the Women’s Land Army. From September 1939, women arrived here to learn skills once seen as the preserve of men - tractor driving, animal husbandry, and field work. The first Land Army recruit to appear on our student register was Phyllis Boutell in October 1939, and soon after dedicated training places were reserved each month under the guidance of Miss Peacock. As former staff member Harry Matthews later wrote, “Taking the Country as a whole, the Land Girls have been our salvation.”

Oaklands wartime story didn’t stop there. Italian prisoners of war lived and worked alongside our students and Land Girls, building brick drainage systems that still crisscross our campus today as lasting reminders. We also remember former student James Sidney Pugh, who lost his life heroically shielding another during an air raid in 1942. His name, along with others, is proudly displayed on our Roll of Honour in the Mansion House.

This year, our Public Services students will lead a Remembrance Service at our St Albans Campus, beginning at 10:30 am with a march from the main reception to Mansion House, followed by a college-wide 2-minute silence.

At our Welwyn Garden City Campus, a 360-degree immersive Remembrance experience will run in our i-Platform from the 11th –14th November, inviting everyone to listen to veterans’ stories and reflect.

As we remember their service, we honour their legacy.

Lest we forget.