On the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Lord Kitchener issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You'.

The flood of volunteers overwhelmed the ability of the Army to absorb them, and units began to be raised by local initiative from men who wished to serve together: these were known as 'Pals battalions'.

The 'Pals' phenomenon quickly spread across the country, and Kitchener approached the mayors of the 28 Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London to raise units of local men.

On 24 April 1917 the battalion distinguished itself in an attack on the fortified village of Villers-Plouich, in which Corporal Edward 'Tiny' Foster, a Wandsworth Council dustman in civilian life, won the Victoria Cross.

[13][14][15][16][17] The former wharf area of the river-front is now lined with new apartment blocks, with several bars and restaurants including near the Wandsworth Bridge.

Wandsworth Common is set back from the river, at the top of East Hill, and is adjoined by an area known locally as "the Toast Rack" that has some of the most expensive townhouses in London,[5] as well as the restaurant Chez Bruce, formerly Harveys, where chef Gordon Ramsay learned his trade, and for which co-owner Bruce Poole gained a Michelin star in 1999.

The Tonsleys/Old York Road is a residential area of old Wandsworth close to the river and town centre, so called because many of the street names have the word "Tonsley" included.

East Hill is an area of large Victorian houses bordered by the west side of Wandsworth Common.

Behind the shopping centre, and following the River Wandle upstream towards Earlsfield and further south to Wimbledon, is King George's Park.

A green plaque to commemorate aviation pioneer Alliott Verdon Roe was unveiled by Wandsworth Council and members of the Verdon-Roe family beside the A3 close to Wandsworth Fire Station on the site of Roe's first workshop in the stables of his brother's house at 47 West Hill.

The underpass beneath the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout was the location for the scene in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in which a tramp is attacked.

[21] The nearest railway stations are Wandsworth Town; Wandsworth Common (one stop from Clapham Junction, and 12 minutes' train ride from London Victoria); and Earlsfield, (one stop from Clapham Junction, and 12 minutes' train ride from London Waterloo).