Work on Little Willie's predecessor began in July 1915 by the Landship Committee to meet The United Kingdom's requirement in World War I for an armoured combat vehicle able to cross an 8-foot (2.4 m) trench.

Tritton and Lieutenant Walter Gordon Wilson tried several types of alternative track design, including balatá belting and flat wire ropes.

Tritton, on 22 September, devised a robust but outwardly crude system using pressed steel plates riveted to cast links and incorporated guides to engage on the inside of the track frame.

The vehicle's 13 litre 105 bhp (78 kW) Daimler-Knight engine, gravity fed by two petrol tanks,[3] was at the back, leaving just enough room beneath the turret.

Stern suggested to Tritton that the gun could be made to slide forward on rails, giving a better field of fire, but in the event the turret idea was abandoned and the aperture for the crew plated over.

In the front of the vehicle two men sat on a narrow bench; one controlling the steering wheel, the clutch, the primary gear box and the throttle; the other holding the brakes.

[5] Wilson was unhappy with the basic concept of the Number 1 Lincoln Machine, and on 17 August suggested to Tritton the idea of using tracks that ran all around the vehicle.

The rear steering wheels were retained in an improved form, but the idea of a turret was abandoned and the main armament placed in side sponsons.

That same year the cartoonist William Kerridge Haselden had made a popular comic anti-German propaganda movie: The Adventures of Big and Little Willie.

[note 1] During the remainder of World War I, some tank crews continued to informally refer to their vehicles as "Willies" or "buses".