In this paper we develop a first‐order system of conservation laws for finite deformation in solids, describe its characteristic structure, and use this analysis to develop a second‐order numerical method for problems involving finite deformation and plasticity. The equations of mass, momentum, and energy conservation in Lagrangian and Eulerian frames of reference are combined with kinetic equations of state for the stress and with caloric equations of state for the internal energy, as well as with auxiliary equations representing equality of mixed partial derivatives of the deformation gradient. Particular attention is paid to the influence of a curl constraint on the deformation gradient, so that the characteristic speeds transform properly between the two frames of reference. Next, we consider models in rate‐form for isotropic elastic‐plastic materials with work‐hardening, and examine the circumstances under which these models lead to hyperbolic systems for the equations of motion. In spite of the fact that these models violate thermodynamic principles in such a way that the acoustic tensor becomes nonsymmetric, we still find that the characteristic speeds are always real for elastic behavior, and essentially always real for plastic response. These results allow us to construct a second‐order Godunov method for the computation of three‐dimensional displacement in a one‐dimensional material viewed in the Lagrangian frame of reference. We also describe a technique for the approximate solution of Riemann problems in order to determine numerical fluxes in this algorithm. Finally, we present numerical examples of the results of the algorithm.