The Munitionettes exhibition boards

The Munitionettes 1914 -1918

www.shapingvoices.org

The project During World War One many thousands of women worked in Britain’s munitions factories, an environment that was fraught with the constant risk of ill health and explosions. Despite the dangers, it brought a new sense of independence and a greater potential for change in women’s social status. Our aim was to research the role of these women, their contribution to the war effort, their stories, friendships and hardships alongside the social implications.

Shaping Voices recruited a team of volunteer researchers who were keen to explore the subject matter to help us achieve our aim. In return we offered them a research training day, a visit to the National Archives alongside on-going group support, online and in a feedback session. Each chose areas of research based on a list of topics drawn up by the group on the training day.

Contributors’ complete research may be seen online www.munitionettesww1svhlf.wordpress.com

I went to the National Archive and found this amazing letter Creative Reminiscence - Prime Minister Asquith to Lloyd George.

What a huge logistical nightmare it must have been when we were being overrun by the Germans to set all this up very quickly, so all these men suddenly get shot out to the front, all these women get shot into the factories.

I did realise that the picture that has come out from what we have unearthed is one of cheerful girls willingly doing the most ghastly things for over three years. Some of them must have been miserable – some must have been homesick, for instance.

There was a bomb factory in Eastbourne. It made Christmas pudding bombs – look like mines to me!

When I saw in the Beeston Express that Shaping Voices in Sussex were looking for volunteers with or without experience, who would like to take part in a Heritage Lottery funded project about women who worked in the munitions factories in World War One, my interest was aroused.

She worked seven days a week 6am to 5pm and on night shifts every two weeks.

I found a photo of the tiniest munitions factory, The Granary at Clayton Windmills, Sussex. eleven men and women all sitting round doing something or other with coils of wire.

Men at the front were shocked that not only had they been replaced by women workers but that they had sometimes secured better pay than they had.

A-Z – topics discussed and researched A Accidents, acorns, acid, Asquith, archives B Billeting, bombs, British munitions industry C Conkers, canteens, children, class, canary girls, Chilwell D Dilution, dance, dress, danger E Exposure to chemicals, entertainment F Factories, food, football G Gretna, grit in the eye, garden cities H Housing, health, hazards, Hayes I Illegitimate babies J Jaundice K Keeping morale L Lists of instructions for making munitions, loss of jobs after war M Munitionette, munitions, memories, men, milk N National factories, nurseries, “Never Mind” song O Optional work, overalls, Oatine P Protective clothing, police, paternalism, Pankhurst, poison Q Queen Mary visit R Recreation, respectable homes, recipes S Sex, shells, Silvertown, suffragettes, status, singing T T.N.T U Uniform, union V Very strict safety rules, volunteers, vocational training W Wages, water, welfare, Workers Union X Explosions Y Yellow, young women Z Zeppelins

Some of the munitionettes were incredibly young; I mean 14-20 and 14 year olds lying about their age!

Another aspect of safety I found interesting was the fact that so many munitions and explosives were being shunted around the country on trains.

I went to an exhibition in the Hastings Museum and a museum down in Somerset and I was just utterly inspired by the posters on the wall asking you to do your bit for your country, including the women, and you know I was thinking: if I was around then I would really want to do my bit for the war.

I think there’s no doubt that this whole experience had a massive impact on women.

Ladies of ill repute who found themselves in the courts were given the opportunity to either go to work for their country or go to prison.

After the war national factories dismissed 64% women immediately.

The men taught the women the job and then she could do it but got half the pay.

I started off with one thing and ended up with a lot of other things.

I found some documents at the National Archive that may relate to this book I saw about protective clothing.

The Prime Minister said that what converted him to women’s suffrage was the way that they had worked during World War One. I hope to document those elements which I have found to be of particular interest, from a time which saw radical and dramatic changes which touched upon my grandmother‘s life, long before we knew her.

The Munitionettes 1914 -1918

www.shapingvoices.org

Extracts from research Research Strands

Chemical Hazards

Creative Reminiscence o 1.600.000 women were involved in aiding the war effort between1914-1918. o 950.000 women were involved in munitions by the time of Armistice Day. o The women worked 10-12 hours a day. o Prior to munitions work. Most women were servants/domestic. o Many had TNT poisoning. o They knew the work was dangerous but they carried on because of the people they loved who were at war. o Even if they were pregnant they would carry on. o They would develop yellow, burnt-like skin. o The munitions factory workers had rule books to follow.

The Training of Female o Created the Healthy Act booklet – This booklet suggested Munitions Workers in the other activities to stop people from drinking alcohol as drinking Great War and a Message to was seen as being as bad as the German enemy. Buying rounds the Future in the pub, “treating”, was banned. o Rest huts were built to help the women relax.

On the 25th of May 1915 o “Munitions Mary” – unionist Mary MacArthur - was an icon.

Asquith, who was prime minister, o People had various roles. It seems that the different levels of staff sent an extraordinary letter of did not mix with each other. support to his colleague Lloyd o The average ages of the women would be 21-40.

George who was then setting up the Ministry of Munitions and about to drastically transform British society. When he uses the phrase ‘self-forgetfulness’ Ladies Football Teams one can’t help but feel that this is what an entire generation of The first recorded female men were experiencing during Munitions team match was the war; not just a forgetting but during Christmas 1916 when a self-annihilation so that an the Ulverston Munitions Girls entirely new order could be played. By 1917 they were born. Asquith knew this, which is playing in leagues, with Blyth why his letter to Lloyd George beating Blocklow in the 1917 was so impassioned. He also Tyne Wear and Tees Alfred Background to munitions knew that the young women Wood Munitions Girls Cup. After a year of warfare on the who had volunteered for work What is great is the huge variety Western Front, Prime Minister in the munitions factories of kit the teams wore for their Lloyd George announced that represented the future and that team photos. Some retained the “The Germans could send over the old patriarchal authority, bonnets, or smock tops, longer 100 shells to our one!” which had existed since the time shorts, thick stockings etc.

From then on weapon and of ancient Greece was now Others were very up front with ammunition production was coming to an end. plain un-striped tops, or taking cranked up to a level devised to up the strongman pose of male put us on equal terms with the sportsmen. But then there is enemy. With the men away at one with a young child instead the front, women in their of a ball on the captain’s lap. thousands were called upon to Most are clearly a group produce ammunition in ever photo for their own record increasing volumes. and amusement. One or two In 1914 the Government have a pretty had three National Workshops reluctant look, producing munitions, where more like men made up more than conscripts but 90% of the workforce. others look like By 1918, women constituted an informal more than 80%. By 1916 this party having Government had 100 National a laugh.

Workshops and controlled 5,000 establishments through the Ministry of Women’s football team Munitions, employing some from the Associated 800,000 women.

Equipment Company

The women workers became known as “Canary Girls,” because of their bright yellow skin and ginger-coloured hair.

At lunch time, the Canary Girls were segregated in the cafeteria, because everything they touched turned yellow.

Munitions Factory, Beckton

The body’s reaction to the TNT usually began with sneezing fits, a bad cough, severe sore throat and profound digestive woes.

Some women said the worst of it was the constant metallic taste in their mouth.

Many women simply couldn’t tolerate the suffering produced by the super-fine explosive dust that hung in the air, and left after the first day. Others left when their health failed, days or weeks later. A few died.

Explosions

Chilwell Munitions Factory in Nottingham after the explosion, 1918.

Factories were established in built up areas and it had a devastating effect when a TNT plant exploded at Ashton-under-Lyme, Manchester, where 53 died, and later at Silvertown, East London over 70 died - both residents and workers lost their lives.

An investigation into the blast after it happened did not find a cause for the explosion, although many people had worried that it had been down to sabotage or a German bomb.

It was also concluded that it had not been safe to purify TNT in such a highly populated area, but, by then, it was too late.

There was another explosion at Faversham, Kent 108 killed, thankfully no women were killed as the explosion happened on a Sunday when they didn’t work. This was exceeded by an explosion at Chilwell, Nottingham, where there were 134 fatalities.

The Munitionettes 1914 -1918

www.shapingvoices.org

Munitionette Tales Gertrude Cursley

Gertrude Cursley Victim of the Chilwell Factory Explosion

Creative Reminiscence

Dorothy Parsons (nee Cove)

Edith is the munitionette second from the right in this studio portrait (in protective clothing with somewhat incongruous backdrop and furniture).

Edith Button I was up at my parents’ and got a bit more background as to why my Nana (Edith Button) left her home in County Durham to go to work in the munitions factory in Gretna. Apparently she and her two sisters Edith and Kate worked in their mother’s (Mary Ellen) shop (I think she was a corn merchant – the story is that as a consequence of her husband losing the family home in a game of “pitch and toss” she set herself up to be financially independent of him...). But they were not paid for doing so.

Nellie, Edith and Kate Button

Edith got fed up with this and without telling her mother upped and went to Gretna.

When Mary Ellen found out she went to find her but when she found the lodgings the landlady warned Edith who escaped from the house through the backyard.

Penny Benford

The Woolwich Arsenal factory

I have a few pictures of my Nan, Dorothy Parsons in her munitions dress with other women, outside, I think, where they worked... She lived in West Norwood Surrey, so I don’t know where the munitions factory was that she worked in, although mum used to say that one of her relatives, either her Nan, mum or dad, worked at the Tate and Lyle factory. I think it was in Silvertown...

Perhaps it was there.

Woolwich Arsenal

Chris Giles

My great Aunt, Anne Smith, worked at Woolwich. I have a postcard of the Munitions Factory and photos of her in her protective clothing and one of her with a group of other young girls in front of a board showing the details of their section.

I know that a lot of records at Woolwich were destroyed during the war so have not really followed up or researched Aunt Anne’s time.

Dorothy Parsons

Gertrude Cursley was killed in the big explosion there on July 1st 1918 and her family found 15 minutes of filming of the women at work in the factory in a garden shed which is now being restored at the Imperial War Museum.

Email from Gertrude Cursley’s great-nephews, Peter Cursley and Gerald Day: We do not have much information about our great-aunt except that we know that her husband was away at war. We also have a photo and a letter from The Ministry of Munitions of the War and a document stating that upon her death financial settlements were made to her four young children of £50 each, which I am sending and you are welcome to use in your project.

Letter to Gertrude Cursley’s relatives after the explosion at Chilwell

Jean Morgan front row first right

Sally Lymer Anne Smith (1st left back row) Protective clothing for women and girl workers employed in the factories and workshops

Football!

My grandmother Jean Morgan did work at the Blyth munitions factory and played football for Blyth Spartans women’s football team. We are extremely proud of her for her war effort and for her achievements on the football field at a time when not everyone thought their sporting activities was acceptable recreation for women despite all profits being returned to the war effort or for the benefit of injured servicemen. She did not speak about her time in the munitions factory during the First World War and she rarely spoke about her experiences of playing football for Blyth Spartans.

My grandmother had told my mam about playing football on her wedding day. When my mam spoke about it following my grandmother’s death, my dad was somewhat sceptical and it wasn’t until we came across match reports on the Internet for 17th October 1917, which was my grandmother’s wedding day, that my dad was convinced!

Christina Richards