Why were women needed?

As more and more men either volunteered or were conscripted to the front line women were employed to fill the gaps.

They were especially important in the munitions industry. In 1915 there was a munitions crisis. It was Lloyd George's responsibility to solve this crisis. He encouraged factories to take on more women workers.

Workers Trade Unions were not happy abou this as they knew women would be paid less than men and therefore would be employed over men. They were also concerned about what would happen when men returned from the trenches to find their job was now being done by a woman.

Lloyd George passed a law which meant women and men had to paid the same and promised that when the men returned from the trenches they could have their jobs back. Lloyd George also opened a number of government factories that employed high numbers of women to kick start this process.

By 1918 there were also 1 million women working in munitions factories.

What sort of jobs did women do during the war?

Individual women wanted to do their bit for the war effort and began working as early as 1915 as drivers, bus conductors, police and railway staff. However it was not until the introduction of conscription that women started to be play a major part in the workforce of Britain. During the war a total of 5 million men joined the amred forces. To keep British industry going it was vital to replace these men. Women worked in factories, steel mills, driving buses, building ships, working on the railways, or even as agricultural workers as part of the 'Women's Land Army'.

Some women even went to the war zones as nurses to look after the injured and dying in the hospitals of Northern France.

How important was women's war work in gaining the vote?

'The wartime business girl is to be seen any night dinin gout alone or with a friend, in the moderate priced resturants in London. Formerly she never would have had her meal in town unless in the company of a man friend. But now with money and without men she is more and more beginning to dine out.'

The Daily Mail April 1916

As is evident from the source above the opportunity of employment during the war was the first time many middle class women had recieved their own wage packet and been financially independent from their husbands. For working-class women while working was nothing new, but the war provided all women with a greater sense of their value to their own society. Although many lost their jobs when the war ended attitudes had changed permanently and there was never again such clear divisions between men's and women's work.

'They appear more alert, more critical of the conditions under which they work, more ready to make a stand against injustice than their pre-war selves, They have a keener appetite for experience and pleasure, and a tendency quite new to their class to protest against the wrongs even before they become intolerable'

Report of a Chief Factory Inspector, 1916

When the men returned many women had to give up there jobs however, with so many men being injured or killed during the war many women were able to keep their jobs. In recognition of their efforts an Act was passed following the war which allowed women to vote if they were over 30. Many historians see the work done by women during the first world war as more significant in gaining the vote than the efforts of the suffragists and suffragettes. What do you think?