There will be opportunities to learn about the role of women in the First World War, discover how people spent their leisure time and pay respects to the fallen as part of centenary events marking the conflict.

Redbridge Council has announced a series of events which will build into a “memorable programme” 100 years on from the outbreak of the First World War, 1914-18.

A centenary panel is developing ideas to commemorate the centenary and the council’s cabinet has allocated a budget of up to £50,000 for events.

The war broke out on July 28, 1914, and on August 2 this year an event will be held at the Ilford War Memorial in Eastern Avenue, Newbury Park.

The following day, a drumhead service will take place at Redbridge Town Hall in High Road, Ilford.

A council spokesman said the panel will support groups and individuals wanting to commemorate the occasion and its work “should result in a memorable programme that will both mark the centenary and provide education and information to people”.

The Ilford Art Society has its own centenary programme until July, with a focus on artists, poems, uniforms and the borough’s war memorials.

It meets at St Laurence Church Hall, Donington Avenue, Barkingside, every Wednesday from 7.30pm to 9.30pm (£3.50 members, £5 non-members).

Visitors to South Woodford Library in High Road can meet author Louise Miller on March 25.

She wrote a biography of Flora Sandes, the only Western woman to enlist as a soldier in the First World War.

Redbridge Youth Theatre Workshop will perform Frontline Heroines, telling Sandes’ story and that of volunteer nurses, in March at Redbridge Drama Centre in South Woodford and in April, there will be a Women at War exhibition at Wanstead Library.

Fairlop Heritage Group is planning a ceremony on November 11 in addition to taking part in borough events on Remembrance Sunday.