Women in the Great War

Stephen Wynn, Tanya Wynn

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781473834149
• eBook ISBN: 9781473865419
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

A "superlative social history" of British women's efforts in WWI and how they led to the women's suffrage movement—includes photos ( Books Monthly).
 
In this fascinating history, husband and wife coauthors Stephen and Tanya Wynn chronicle the effects of the Great War on the lives of women, and how those experiences shaped the women's suffrage movement. Before the war, women were employed as domestic servants, clerical workers, shop assistants, teachers, or barmaids. But after the outbreak of World War I, women began working in munitions factories, as nurses in military hospitals, bus drivers, mechanics, and taxi drivers. They began filling jobs and social roles that had previously been reserved only for men.
 
When the war finally came to a close, there was no going back for these determined women. Many were experiencing financial freedom for the first time and were reluctant to give up their independence. At the same time, tens of thousands of women were widowed with young children and already navigating new lives as heads of household. Chronicling the collective and individual stories of British women during the war, Women in the Great War demonstrates the profound and lasting impact the female war effort had on women's social history.

CHAPTER ONE

WOMEN IN GENERAL

The First World War, or the Great War as it was initially referred to, was undoubtedly responsible for a big change in the lives of British women, but it was not the sole reason behind their eventual emancipation. There had been many moves made by women to change and improve their lot in life, at all levels of society, as far back as the 1880s.

The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), had been founded in 1903 by mother and daughter, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, eleven years before the war started.

Better known as the Suffragettes, they fought for a better life and a better world for women, which was no easy thing to achieve in a time when they were seen by male dominated British society as nothing more than radical campaigners. The politicians of the day, who were all men, had not yet grasped the advantages of embracing women on equal terms and the benefits that would come with such an approach. Instead they used as their excuse for not engaging with or supporting them, the sometimes violent methods employed by the suffragettes to further their cause.

Women’s Social and Political Union logo.

In essence, at the time of the First World War, women were generally regarded as second class citizens, who should know their place in life and, so far as politicians were concerned, were hardly worthy of negotiations or concessions.

With few exceptions, work deemed suitable for women, was associated with domestic service, shop work or the teaching of primary age children. Once a woman had married, not only was she seen as being the property of her husband, but she was expected to stop working, bear him children, look after the home and be a dutiful and obedient wife. At the time the word ‘obey’ was part of a woman’s wedding vows and taken more literally than it is today.

Emmeline Pankhurst.

History records that the First World War was a massive stepping stone in the long and sometime arduous journey towards equality for women, in all aspects of social and domestic life. The suffrage movement was undoubtedly the catalyst which originally lit the beacon of hope for a better tomorrow for all women, but it was the varied demands of the First World War, which provided women with the platform and opportunity to be able to showcase their new found plethora of skills and attributes, which largely layed the foundation of where they are today. Even politicians managed to grasp the importance of what women had achieved for their country during the war, and how beneficial their presence in a post war Great Britain, would be.

Christabel Pankhurst.

With the outbreak of the war a deal was struck between the government and the leadership of the Women’s Social and Political Union, which saw all incarcerated suffragettes released from prison, as well as a sum of £2,000 paid to the movement in exchange for their support of the war and their encouragement of men to enlist in the army. To this end Emmeline and Christabel organised a rally in London, attended by an estimated 30,000 women.

Some of the organisation’s members saw this as a total betrayal of everything which they collectively stood for, but the Pankhursts saw a wider picture of more jobs being available for women in the short term as well as a better tomorrow in the long term. There was the added advantage that if women showed the value of their support for the war both on the Home Front as well as on the battlefields of Europe and beyond, then there was every possibility that the time when they would finally have the right to vote, would come earlier than it otherwise might have been. It has been estimated that between 1914 and 1918, some 2 million women replaced men in the workplace, thus making those men available to serve in the armed forces.

In August 1914, men from all walks of life and from all parts of the country, left their jobs and families to go and fight. Some did it for their king and country, others did it out of honour and a heartfelt desire to do their duty, whilst there were those who saw the war as an adventure, one that saved them from a life of eternal drudgery. No matter what their reasons, the jobs they left behind still needed to be done. It was as a result of this environment that women’s lives would be changed for ever.

For the first time in history women became more than wives and mothers, more than domestic servants to the rich and more than lowly paid shop workers. Almost overnight they became the very backbone of the country and throughout the war years, they literally kept the nation going. With their newfound place in the social structure of society, a whole new world was opened up. Job opportunities, which had previously been the sole domain of men, were now largely dependent on women. More women than ever before now had their own money for the first time, albeit being paid less than men for doing exactly the same job. Despite this, they were not always any better off financially, as the war brought with it many issues, food shortages being one of them, but it didn’t stop there, as the lack of food stuffs, coupled with cramped living conditions, led to concerns over the health and wellbeing of the nation’s children.

Women now had a freedom, many for the first time, to socialise, to make their own decisions and become an integral part of the war effort. Married women who had no other income, were entitled to a separation allowance if their husband was away fighting in the war, one of the conditions being that the wife had to stay ‘faithful’ to her husband. The Defence of the Realm Act 1914, actually made it an offence for a woman to pass on to a man a sexually transmitted disease, regardless of whether or not a man had given it to her in the first place.

Despite this negativity, the nation as a whole and generations of women who would follow in their footsteps, were and would be eternally grateful for a job well done in the most difficult of times.

There was a certain surreal irony attached to the deal or agreement, call it what you will, between the government and the leadership of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Here was a government who had previously flatly refused to acknowledge or negotiate with the suffragettes, using the women’s sometimes violent actions as an excuse not to do so, yet when it suited them, they were quick enough to strike a deal which would ultimately end up being so much more violent, in the shape of the First World War.

The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was founded even earlier, in 1897, under the presidency of Mrs Millicent Fawcett, who retained her position until 1919. Six years later in 1925, she was made a Dame.

Unlike the WSPU, the NUWSS stood for peaceful protest and saw no benefit being gained from acts of violence. Millicent Fawcett put forward some very logical examples to further her own points. Men and women who worked, both had to pay taxes, therefore it wasn’t right or fair that men had the right to vote and women did not. An even better point was the example of wealthy women who owned large houses and employed staff, but at the outbreak of the First World War, these same women still did not have the right to vote.

In 1867 she married Henry Fawcett, who was a campaigner for women’s rights, and a Liberal Member of Parliament. It is an interesting point to note that on the topic of women’s suffrage, more is known of and spoken about Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes than of Millicent Fawcett and the NUWSS, mainly because the latter did not draw attention to itself by carrying out public acts, such as the bringing down of the king’s horse, Anmer, at the 1913 Derby at Ascot on 4 June. Emily Wilding Davison stepped out of the crowd, directly into the path of the animal, an act which resulted in her death.

Millicent Fawcett.

With the outbreak of war the focus of the NUWSS did not diminish. The organisation still campaigned for women to have the right to vote, which had always been its main purpose. Their efforts, as always remained entirely peaceful mainly due to the fact that many of their members were pacifists.

Besides being wives and mothers most, if not all women, would have had somebody close to them involved in the fighting. Despite having the constant worry of not knowing whether or not their loved ones would survive the war and return home, they had homes to look after and children to bring up.

There were officially sanctioned organisations, as well as voluntary ones, which were mainly of a nursing nature, or those that were noncombative but of a supportive role, such as driving, which still placed women close to the fighting, which to many politicians and senior military personnel, was just not acceptable.

Despite the war and its continuous need for more and more manpower for military service, the routine of everyday life back home went on as best it could. Just because there was a war on, the mechanism of normality couldn’t be allowed to come to a grinding halt. What some people might, in the circumstances, perceive to be mundane and monotonous, still had to be done. This meant that what had been referred to as ‘men’s work’ before the outbreak of war, was now in the main, women’s work. Today, the role of a ‘secretary’ is a position which is undertaken almost exclusively by women, but before the war it was a job almost entirely carried out by men.

In the Great Britain of the early 1900s, only a quarter of women of working age, were actually employed, many in the world of domestic service, although in some parts of the country there was a long tradition of working women in mills and industries such as weaving. But on the whole, middle income married women were expected by society to stay at home and look after their husband and their children by being dutiful wives and mothers. The war changed all that. By its end nearly three quarters of women were in some kind of paid employment, although it is difficult to be totally accurate with these figures as they do not include many of the women who were employed in domestic service.

Women had become deliverers of the Royal Mail. They were taxi drivers, chimney sweeps, farm labourers, factory labour, mechanics, shop workers, men’s barbers, railway guards, ticket collectors, fire fighters, bank tellers and clerks and wartime munitions workers, to name but a few. Women employed in the latter role, were affectionately referred to as munitionettes or canaries. The long hours they had to endure making shells and bullets for the war effort meant that the work was exhausting as well as being extremely dangerous. It was also a major health hazard because of components such as TNT, which they had to handle and which was the reason they were referred to as canaries as it stained the skin orange-yellow. Today’s Health & Safety workers, would have undoubtedly have had a field day. It is estimated that during the course of the war some 400 munition workers died due to their almost continuous handling of TNT.

Women’s willingness to undertake this work was a plus for the government of the day, as it meant that more men were available for the armed forces. After the introduction of conscription in January 1916, more women than ever before were needed in the workplace. This was a healthy situation to have during a time of war, but when it ended, there were suddenly a lot of angry and frustrated men who had been fighting for freedom and a better tomorrow, who had returned home to discover that their job was now ‘owned’ by a woman, with employers happy to keep them on as they were paying them less than they would a man for carrying out the same role.

There was even disagreement amongst women in relation to the workplace after the war. Some single women believed that married women and mothers should quit their jobs in deference to them and those who had been left widowed as a result of the war.

The Co-operative Women’s Guild, which had been formed in 1883, by Mary Lawrenson, who was a teacher, and Alice Acland, the first editor of ‘Women’s Corner’ in the Co-operative newspaper, had a long standing depth of support, particularly amongst those women who were of a pacifist nature. In the early years of their existence, the Guild was in the main concerned with such issues as ‘home management’ and the price and quality of goods for sale in the shops. With a war on, looking after a home and children was not always straightforward for women to manage. Two thirds of all food that was consumed throughout Britain was imported from other countries around the world, which became a serious problem during the war years, made worst by the German U-boat campaign of sinking all and any shipping on its way to the island nation from 1917.

It would have come as no surprise to most, especially the mothers and the home makers, that shortages of some of the most basic foodstuffs, was going to become an issue at some time during the war. Early in 1917, the British government formed the Ministry of Food, and in the following months items such as meat, sugar and fats, were rationed in some parts of the country, mainly in and around London. Exporting food was banned and bread, a basic food item for the working classes, became so expensive, it had to be subsidised by the government and adulterated with other ingredients.

Almost everything had some kind of knock-on effect. With shortages on the food front came the drive to home grow as much as possible, such as potatoes and wheat, but with the majority of pre-war farm labourers having left Britain’s fields for the trenches of the Western Front, there was a lack of farm workers available to harvest these much needed crops. It was out of such a situation that the Women’s Land Army was formed in 1917 along with a government drive to encourage women to volunteer to serve in it.

The Co-operative Women’s Guild supported women’s suffrage and in the main campaigned for equal rights with men, as well as maternity benefits, infant welfare and a minimum wage for women.

Less than a year into the war, an International Women’s Congress took place in Paris, France, its aims being to promote world peace and freedom for all nations and their people.

Women workers on the home front had not been individual to Great Britain alone. Most of the belligerent nations who were involved in the war, utilised their women folk in a similar way out of necessity.

CHAPTER TWO

MUNITIONS WORKERS

Munitions factories and the people who worked in them, were one of the most important elements of the war. It was predominantly women who carried out the extremely dangerous and arduous work to provide the munitions that the country needed to sustain the war against Germany and her allies.

Men who were not in military service and women who were not in one of the many uniformed volunteer corps, but especially the men, were always vulnerable to the allegation of being ‘shirke...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• About the Authors
• 1. Women in General
• 2. Munitions Workers
• 3. Voluntary Aid Detachments
• 4. Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
• 5. Other Women’s Wartime Organisations
• 6. Individual Women of the Great War
• 7. Those who Lost their Lives
• 8. Queen Mary and Princess Mary
• Conclusion
• Sources