Landships Committee The Landships Committee was a small British war cabinet committee established in February 1915 to deal with the design and construction of what would turn out to be tank s during the First World War . Headed by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill , the Landships Committee was composed mainly of naval officers , politicians and engineers . The committee came about when Colonel Maurice Hankey took Colonel Ernest Swinton ' s proposals for an armoured trench - crossing vehicle to Churchill after they had been discounted by General French and other senior staff in the British Army . The committee was chaired by Eustace Tennyson d ’ Eyncourt , the Director of Naval Construction ( and also responsible for airships ) at the Admiralty . Among those who attended were Thomas Hetherington , Robert Francis Macfie and Colonel Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton . Many had been inspired by early ideas for from pre - war years . Among these would be the armoured " war car " built in the early 1890s in Eastern Europe . The armoured car was already in use with the Royal Naval Air Service on the continent . Another inspiration was a 1903 short story by HG Wells , " The Land Ironclads " , and all but Winston Churchill were willing to borrow Wells ' creation despite it being restricted under copyright law . The Landships Committee was responsible for creating the first tank corps . A small battery of the Motor Machine Gun Corps in Surrey was used as a cover before the Tank Corps was established in 1916 . Both battalions were replaced by the Royal Armoured Corps and the Royal Artillery after the war . Today , the tank ' s naval lineage can be traced directly back to its naval designers by some of its past and present terminology : the hull , deck , sponsons , bow , turret , and hatches . Prior to the tank , armies used horses and field guns ( cannon ) , and possessed no gun designed to fire within a confined space . Consequently , the first army tank guns were borrowed from the navy . Formation . The committee was formed at Churchill ' s request in February 1915 . It started with only three : d ’ Eyncourt , as President , Thomas Hetherington and Col Wilfred Dumble of the Naval Brigade . Hetherington had proposed a large wheeled landship ( some 300 tons ) and this was Churchill ' s initial interest . A former Royal Engineer , Dumble had managed the London Omnibus Co . and brought back to service in response to the urgent need for transport by the Brigade in Antwerp - he had been an adjutant to Colonel Crompton who was trying to develop cross - country vehicles for the Army . Dumble recommended Crompton to the committee as an expert on heavy traction . The committee ' s activities were concealed from Kitchener at the War Office , the Board of the Admiralty and the Treasury - all of whom were expected to block the project . The committee was introduced to tracked designs and Crompton was made technical adviser . Tritton of Foster ' s was introduced to the committee . Heatherington , accompanied by his assistant Albert Stern , travelled to the front to inspect German trench design . Ironically they missed meeting Swinton . The committee considered numerous designs including articulated and wheeled . A display of the Killen Strait tractor before the Ministry of Munitions and others in mid 1915 led to an Army specification for a fighting machine based on Swinton ' s earlier memorandum . See also . Little Willie