The Man who shot the Great War

Lance Corporal George Hackney of the 36th Ulster Division was an ordinary Belfast soldier who, contrary to military law at the time, took his camera away to war in 1915. The images he took have become an exceptional and rare collection that documents The Great War first hand.

George's images of soldiers training, travelling to France, and relaxing with friends and comrades contrast with his later images from the first day of the Battle of the Somme, life in the trenches and poignant reminders, that for many soldiers, they would never return home.

This story also reveals how one man's wartime experiences fuelled an unlikely moral quest that was to change his life forever.