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August 14, 1914, Britain declared war on Germany. Four days later, Newfoundland, the oldest colony of the British Empire, telegraphed London committing the colony to raise one thousand men for the naval service and several hundred for land service abroad. A Volunteer Patriotic Association was quickly formed and began reforming the Newfoundland Regiment, continuing to do so until 1917 when a Department of Militia was established. The Patriotic Association recruited, equipped, provided training and transportation for the land contingents dispatched from Newfoundland.
From the Trinity Area, 233 volunteers enlisted for service, mostly with the Newfoundland Regiment or the Newfoundland Royal Naval Reserve. Some also joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force or the Royal Navy. The letters of one of these men, Private Arthur Ernest White Maidment, survive. For the most part, this Community Stories exhibit relies on the direct references to people and places that Pte. Maidment records. Quotations from the letters he sent his mother, brothers and sisters between 1916 and 1917 guide the viewer through this exhibit. For the years 1914 to 1916, archival material from the Trinity Historical Society Archives, particularly the list of volunteers compiled by Sarah Dewling, Secretary/Treasurer of the Society, trace the involvement of other men and women from this area in the four years of the First World War-the war to end all wars.
