Wandsworth's links with France

The Council's link with the village of Villers-Plouich in northern France stretches back to World War I. In 1919 the new Mayor of Wandsworth was quick to forge links with the community that 13th East Surrey Battalion (Wandsworth)  had freed from German occupation and where Corporal Foster, a Tooting dustman,  had won his Victoria Cross in World War I.

1920: funding the village's restoration

The British League of Help was a scheme whereby British towns and cities could 'adopt' and help to fund the restoration of a devastated French or Belgium community. On 25 September 1920 Wandsworth Council formally adopted Villers-Plouich, which had been left utterly ruined by the war. Some £1200 was collected from private donations and sent to the French mayor to assist with rebuilding.

Several visits to the village were made by members of the council, commencing with Mayor Cooper Rawson in October 1920.

In 1920 Robert Harker, a Lieutenant in the Wandsworth Battalion, wrote an article for the Wandsworth Borough News. Part of it describes the village of Villers-Plouich and how those that fought there felt towards it:

"In the serenest spot of that once beautiful, now terribly scarred village, a piece of land has been consecrated, and here lie those gallant fellows who fell on the field of honour, their graves tended with wonderful care and pride by a venerable French fossoyeur. It is, in paraphrase of Rupert Brooke,
'A corner of a foreign field that is forever - Wandsworth.'"

1928: restoration completed

In 1928 the Mayor of Villers-Plouich gratefully wrote that reconstruction of the village had been completed and that a tablet had been set in the wall of the Mairie (Town Hall) to commemorate Wandsworth's help.

The Mairie still has files holding the correspondence with Wandsworth dating back to the 1920s.

Above and below: Wandsworth
Councillors with Villers-Plouich
schoolchildren, Sept. 2000

Commemorating the adoption

In September 2000 the Mayor and Mayoress (Councillor John Garrett and his wife), Cllr. Edward Lister - the Leader of the council, other councillors and council officers made the trip to Villers-Plouich to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Wandsworth's adoption of the village.

The party were met at the Mairie by almost the entire village. Both Mayors made speeches and exchanged gifts. Wreaths were laid at Fifteen Ravine British Military cemetery where many of the Wandsworth men are buried.

In the 1920s some of Wandsworth's money was used to rebuild the local school. Plans are now in hand for a website project linking school children in Villers-Plouich with those at a Wandsworth school.

During a private visit to the village in May 2001, Councillor John Garrett, the Mayor of Wandsworth, was invited to unveil a plaque naming the village square "Place de Wandsworth".