Welsh Women of World War One

# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile... #

As every schoolchild knows,

Britain won the First World War thanks to the millions of men

who packed up their kit bags and went off to fight.

# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag... #

But it wasn't just the men who won the war.

Women were vital, too.

As a historian, I've worked on Welsh women's history for 40 years.

Now I'm meeting today's workers,

Welsh women doing jobs that had been closed to them until the war changed

the game. Women started feeding the nation with the Women's Land Army,

arming the nation as munition workers...

-Awful, isn't it?

-Disturbing stuff, isn't it?

Yeah.

..and keeping the peace as the first women police officers.

-Directing people...

-Yeah.

-If I don't know where I am... BOTH:

-Ask a policeman.

-Yeah.

-A police officer.

Yeah, exactly.

I want them to understand how World War I threw open the gates

of opportunity for women in Wales today.

In the First World War,

women in every street in Wales had to say goodbye to a man she loved.

The British Government recruited

huge numbers of men, up and down the country.

Government propaganda stressed that mothers,

wives and sweethearts should send their men off to war.

# Go, for your King and your country... #

5.5 million British troops fought in the war.

And, therefore, there was a great demand for weapons.

And that's exactly where the women came in.

Women moved into the munitions factories

producing the weapons, and they made a tremendous contribution

to the war effort.

The Government commandeered many types of factory to produce weapons

and called for women to work in them.

The man driving the recruitment was David Lloyd George,

who was Minister of Munitions from May 1915.

Within 18 months, he became Prime Minister,

steering Britain eventually to victory.

Welsh women helped the British win the war.

The Germans didn't mobilise women to anything like the extent

the British did, so they produced less weapons

and that's one of the reasons the Germans lost the war.

A large proportion of Britain's weapons were made in Wales

in 11 factories making shells and explosives.

By the end of the war, 80% of the workforce was female.

Welsh women happily signed up to work in the munitions factories,

like this group at Pembrey near Llanelli.

And here at the Queensferry factory in Flintshire.

British weapons are still made in Wales today,

and women are still important.

At BAE Systems near Usk, the chief executive is a woman,

as are half the workers on the assembly lines.

I met two of these modern munitions workers, Ruth and Joan.

So, bearing in mind this piece of film we're looking at

is 100 years old, anything familiar about it?

Some of the women wear boiler suits now, don't they?

-I was thinking of the rubber shoes.

-No, we don't wear rubber shoes.

-No. We have got a bit more trendy shoes!

-Ah, right!

Where did the women come from before they joined the munitions factory?

They came from other people's houses, for the most part.

-They were domestic servants.

-Oh, right.

And they were so glad to fling off their frilly white apron,

because they might be working in somebody's house

for a few shillings a week, and they were there every day, every night.

And that's what they hated about it.

So going to the munitions factory was so liberating.

People were very glad.

The best wages would have been explosives and filling factories.

-Yes, yes.

-Because of the dangers.

And our money is pretty good compared to other factories.

Yes, it is.

-It's very good, I would say.

-You're still paid well, aren't you?

Yeah. Again, there's the element of the danger.

Yes, the nature of what we do, as well.

What did they do with their money when they finished work?

They spent money on having a good time and they were so

buoyant and happy, people used to complain!

They filled the pavements, going ten in a row, arm in arm.

Some of them even went into public houses,

which then the police start going on, "What's the world coming to?

"Women are having half a pint of bitter,

-"or something, in a public house."

-A woman going into a pub!

-Yeah.

-Exactly! Exactly.

-They had the money, too.

-Yeah.

-They had a lot of freedom then, didn't they?

They had the freedom, they had the company.

Definite hours.

They could go off after work, they could get dressed up nicely.

The favourite outfit munition workers bought was a fur coat.

Oh, right!

And they also... It was really fashionable

to buy boots that went right up to their knees.

So, knee-high leather boots, fur coats, and a big hat.

I remember reading in a London magazine,

a very posh lady who wrote,

"Don't go out in a fur coat and boots.

"You'll be mistaken for a munitions worker."

Oh, right!

LAUGHTER

So, we're now filling...

-Filling the shells.

-Do you fill shells like that?

-With a jug?

-No, not with a jug.

-Not with a jug, no.

-Yeah.

We don't manhandle the shell like that any more.

Obviously, it's all done by machinery, which is a lot better.

Health and safety - well, it was an unknown concept.

They always had nursing staff.

Yeah, we've got a nurse.

Obviously, if there's any problems, we phone up, and go up and see him.

-Having your...

-Check-ups.

-..annual medicals.

That's really good.

Did you see more accidents

at these sites because of the lack of health and safety?

Without doubt, without doubt.

There were some appalling and terrible accidents

and health and safety was non-existent.

We are fortunate, really, we know about this,

because there was a policewoman - Gabrielle West, her name was -

who was working in Pembrey and she kept a diary.

Some of the things she wrote deeply disturbed me.

"The ether in the cordite affects some of the girls.

"It gives them headaches, hysteria, and sometimes

"it makes them unconscious.

"If a worker has the least tendency to epilepsy,

"even if it's never shown itself before, the ether will bring it on."

Disturbing stuff, isn't it?

-Yes, yes.

-It really is awful.

And, of course, in a place where you make explosives,

there's a great danger of just one big bang.

-Yes.

-And there was a funeral...

Right, wait a minute. I'm not being very good... There we are.

Oh, yeah.

Where was this taken and when?

This is in Swansea, but the bodies had come up from Pembrey by train.

It's 1917.

I had never seen the coffin of a woman

draped in the Union Jack before.

I'd never seen women pallbearers before.

But for those few years of the First World War,

women were treated both badly, in some cases,

but also with great dignity.

-Yeah. And respect, by the looks of that photograph, as well.

-Yeah.

The bomb helped Britain to win the war, but, of course,

victory came at a devastating price.

This exhibition at the National Museum in Cardiff

is appropriately called War's Hell!

This painting is overwhelming.

It is packed with the horrors of war -

fire, blood, offensive, sharp, killing weapons.

It's the Battle of Mametz Wood -

a battle on the Somme in which so many Welsh lives were lost.

Commissioned by Lloyd George,

it was a constant reminder to him

of all the Welsh men who had died or been severely injured.

It hung in 10 Downing Street until he left office.

Nurses were needed to treat the wounded.

This is a painting of professional nurses caring for wounded men

at Cardiff Royal Infirmary.

The painter was Margaret Lindsay Williams -

a Welsh artist who applied to go overseas and to be a war artist,

but she was turned down because women weren't allowed at the Front.

Women marched through London

demanding that their brains and energy should be better used.

Working-class women joined industry and transport in their droves.

Middle-class women did their bit, too.

Margaret Lloyd George, the Prime Minister's wife, led the way.

There was a huge amount of charity work,

tea parties to raise money for refugees,

and apparently to give bunches of flowers to wounded soldiers.

In Wales, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies

were keen to help the war effort, too.

The Davies sisters are famous as art collectors and philanthropists.

They collected these wonderful impressionist paintings,

and helped to found the National Museum Of Wales.

What is less well-known is what they did in the First World War.

Then in their 30s,

Gwendoline and Margaret volunteered to work with the French Red Cross,

which operated canteens at railway stations,

convalescent hospitals and transit camps.

And, like all volunteers, they paid their own way.

Even using their own funds to buy coffee,

snacks and cigarettes to give to the troops.

Margaret, on the right, kept a journal.

It's unusual and it's valuable to have an account from the Front

by a woman in war, especially by a Welsh woman.

It's a moving account, in many ways.

Here's one example.

"Every day, every hour - yes, every minute, fresh faces come and go.

"For more than three years, they've struggled on,

"living in hourly peril of their lives.

"From shots, from shell, from bombs or poisonous gas.

"Do you wonder that they are grown old before their time

"and that they have such a sad and solemn expression?"

Life on the home front could be miserable, too.

There wasn't enough to eat.

Whenever food reached the shops, queues formed,

and rationing was only introduced very late in the war.

At the outbreak of war, astonishingly,

Britain imported two thirds of its food -

not just foreign crops, like tea and sugar, but even wheat.

The Germans knew this,

so they torpedoed British ships to try to starve out the population.

Helpful public pronouncements were made.

And the British had no option but to eat less and grow more.

Shoo, shoo, shoo!

Go on!

Go on, get them up.

Pat Thomas and her husband Wynn rear sheep on 180 acres

in Carmarthenshire in the shadow of Carreg Cennen Castle.

Get them up!

Get them up.

I joined her to talk about farming today and in the First World War.

It's quite easy. It's quite easy.

You hold it there, now.

I will. You'll be a big, fat boy!

-Yeah.

-'With food in short supply,

'the Government called on farmers to be more productive.

'For the first time, Britain created an army of female farm workers

'called the Women's Land Army.'

You know when we're speaking about the Land Army -

cos obviously it's before my time - how were they recruited?

Especially from the city, because, you know,

they didn't have mobile phones or anything in those days, did they?

-No.

-You know, so...

-They recruited using fabulous posters.

-I've got a great one here - have a look at that one, Pat.

-Yeah?

Oh, yes, it is, isn't it?

Beautiful, isn't it? And it says underneath,

"God speed the plough and the woman who drives it."

-Yeah.

-So they used posters.

They also had big recruitment meetings

and they were always done with loads of razzmatazz.

You'd get women riding into a town,

-some on top of great big Shire horses...

-Oh, right!

..you'd get bands playing.

So the bazooka, razzmatazz bands.

People would sing patriotic songs and they'd say, "Come on,

"your country needs you!

"Come and work in the Women's Land Army!"

So it was good stuff.

So, yes, and people felt good in going and not even realising,

I suppose, what they were going to do? To them, I suppose,

a cow was something they saw...

Well, they probably didn't see one, did they?

I've got some pictures here to show you, Pat...

-Oh, lovely.

-..on the iPad.

Milking the cows now.

And they happen to be outside, so they're obviously very docile cows!

Because you wouldn't get that today!

-You have to keep them in their stalls.

-No, you wouldn't get that.

-The three-legged...the three-legged stools.

-Yeah.

Now we're going to be threshing the corn.

-Yes.

-It takes so many people, doesn't it?

And they're all women - they're all women.

-Yes.

-And Britain was crucially short of grain,

so this was very important work they were doing.

It looks quite dangerous.

-I wonder...

-That threshing machine does look dangerous.

Yeah. I wonder where the health and safety would be today.

I don't... Yes!

Would you be happy with your husband having five or six Land Army girls?

How would they fit in with your household?

I know one thing, he'd be delighted!

-But I'd probably give up my job then and stay home!

-Yes!

And now we're onto the spreading the manure.

Even I can remember doing that.

Yeah, taking out manure and putting it in big lumps.

And then, there they are, spreading it out.

So when you look at that, the whole field has been spread.

And obviously they enjoyed it.

They're all in the uniform at the moment, aren't they?

Yes, looking very smart, aren't they?

Yeah. Was this the type of clothes that women wore at that time?

No. In the Land Army, for the first time, women wore trousers.

-Yes.

-It was a shock for lots of people.

It marks an enormous change from what went on before.

Because, still as late the 1880s,

1890s, women wore very tight corsets,

little wasp belts, which was hugely damaging to their health.

This is the Ladies' Guide To Health,

and it's written by a Mr Kellogg, and it dates from the 1890s.

-And this...

-It's a very old book, isn't it?

It is. But just one illustration,

it'll make my point, that there is a woman's body,

a normal woman's body,

but this is the woman's body that's been contorted.

They used to pull it, didn't they, to get a very thin waist.

Somebody would have to put a knee in her back and grab the two laces.

What it does to their internal organs...

It is unbelievable, isn't it, when you think

-that they were making themselves look nice...

-Yes.

..and, really, what they were doing was damage to themselves.

-Terrible damage.

-When they started wearing trousers,

they had that freedom then, didn't they, they didn't have to...

Life in the Women's Land Army

-was liberating in lots of ways, wasn't it?

-Oh, yes!

It gets them out working and they're wearing sensible clothes.

It must have been, to them,

something I would imagine that they would have been very proud of,

because they saw their end product, didn't they?

I remember reading one of the adverts -

it said you'll have no problems sleeping. If you do this job,

you'll be exhausted at the end of the day of work.

-It's the fresh air, you see.

-It's all that lovely fresh air.

Yeah. There's nothing like it.

LAUGHTER

As well as being a farmer,

Pat Thomas is an active member of the Women's Institute,

and a former president of her local branch in Trap, near Carmarthen.

Yeah, we've got all beans and potatoes, and things like that,

but nobody else in the street does.

The Women's Institute in Britain began in the First World War

in Wales.

The first branch was on Anglesey,

and it really was about jam and Jerusalem.

Victory and the promised land of post-war Britain would only

be achieved with good, nourishing food.

Have you noticed that they're all wearing hats?

-It looks to me like they're women of all ages.

-Yes.

It's hard to tell...

The older ones get the seats in the front row, I think.

Of course, it isn't about jam.

But it is about food and the mobilisation of a workforce,

to make sure that the whole nation was being fed.

Out on the Western Front,

more and more men were dying in the relentless shelling.

There were fewer men to support the fighters at the Front,

so the military decided to recruit women.

By early 1917,

voluntary national service was on offer to women over 20.

One of the startling innovations of the First World War is that women

joined all the services.

This was a great shock to contemporaries

to see women in uniform.

They didn't actually fight, they didn't hold guns,

but they were very close to the Front, and we know,

without a doubt, that women's lives were in danger.

They worked behind the front lines dealing with the injured,

the transport and clerical work.

To experience war was terrible,

but it was also an opportunity to travel abroad,

to live a strong independent life

away from the narrow confines of home,

to work alongside men,

maybe even to see men that they had known in Britain.

Working with the wounded was challenging,

and the risk of bombing great.

Annie Brewer, a military nurse from Newport,

spent the whole war in France

and received many medals for her courage.

One citation applauds her coolness and total disregard of danger,

lavishing her attention on the wounded under fire from the enemy.

The old ideas about women being inferior to men

were being seriously challenged.

Everyone could see that women were just as brave,

strong and as intelligent as men.

The women suffered alongside the men,

they didn't even have the vote,

and we should be aware that most of the fighting men, ordinary men,

didn't have the vote, either.

Only men with property and wealth.

Before the war, both the brand-new Labour Party and the votes for women

campaign had fought for suffrage for all men and all women.

Women didn't have a say in politics, the law or policing.

Policemen treated women harshly,

whether they were criminals or political protesters.

And, for years, feminists had campaigned

for female police officers.

In 1916, the war made that possible.

I met Gemma Wingfield at Cardiff Bay police station to talk about her job

and the female policing pioneers of World War I.

One of the most interesting innovations of the war was,

for the first time, we had women police.

What women became police officers?

Well, it is a lovely irony.

-They went to the Women's Suffrage Societies...

-Really?

..so you've got quite a lot of educated women.

So, it was the young educated women.

-Yeah, who volunteered.

-They would have already had some knowledge.

Yes. It was members of those societies

and suffragettes who'd experienced

some of the worst treatment at the hands of the police

in big demonstrations in London and other demonstrations in Wales.

So, it was sensible to go to these women,

cos here were women who wanted to do a good job

-and not manhandle and mistreat women.

-And obviously prove

that women could do the job of being a police officer.

And indeed also to prove that they could do the job.

Lots of really quite difficult tasks that they weren't trained for

had fallen on the women, and I've used that word "trained" there.

You were trained properly, you went through the whole procedure,

training as a police officer.

I think with the women who were in the police in the First World War,

I think they said, "Here's a uniform."

So, what was their role? Is it the same as what I do now?

-Everything?

-They did a lot of very useful, kindly things

like saying, "Don't go down that street, it's not a good idea, Miss."

Or, "Oh, you want go to Tonypandy? Don't get on the Swansea train."

-You know, it's all sorts of those things.

-I do a lot of that today -

directing people, especially in city centres

with lots of tourists coming in. So we still have similarities.

-In my mind-set, if I don't know where I am... BOTH:

-Ask a policeman.

-A police officer. Exactly.

-Exactly.

Another reason that police were needed is that

they had to keep order in the munitions factories.

We are looking at this policewoman

-inspecting all of these munitions workers...

-Right.

..to check the women coming in, check their hair,

they'd often have - can you believe it? - cigarettes and matches

in their hair, going into a highly dangerous area.

It was more of a safety role, then...

-Yep, yeah.

-..for the officers just to double-check.

-Yeah.

One of the reasons that they suddenly appointed women police

is not just the shortage of men,

but there was so many new laws brought in under...

Let me show you this...

..the Defence Of The Realm Act.

It enabled the government to do things

without a lot of fuss and red tape.

Did that treat men and women differently in society?

Absolutely.

The new laws came down on women like a tonne of bricks

and there's no better illustration of that than here in Cardiff.

Because a curfew was introduced in Cardiff -

I know of nowhere else where this happened -

where all women had to be home, and certainly not on the streets,

between seven at night and eight o'clock the next morning.

-Really?

-When I think of the women who lived in Cardiff,

they were the schoolteachers in the new schools,

it was like Cardiff High School For Girls, they'd have been arrested

if they popped across the road to visit a friend.

They said, "This is a moral thing,

"because it's the prostitutes we're putting away."

But what about the women who were going out to work?

Cos women still had to go and work for their living.

So, who would enforce that?

It's all landed on the police force, many of whom were women.

So, really, they had to impose a law

-that was obviously against what they were, as well.

-Exactly.

When the war ended,

the women's police force was totally disbanded.

-In the country?

-It was disbanded, but some counties

wanted to take on women police.

Many English counties do it, but, in Wales,

not a single woman police officer

throughout the whole of the interwar period.

In fact, you don't start getting women police again

until the beginning of the Second World War

when Cardiganshire took them on.

And they gave them their motorbikes and off they went.

I've got to tell you this, Gemma,

but Cardiff was the slowest to appoint women police.

We don't get women police in Cardiff again until 1948.

Really? And how many was then?

It was one.

Cardiff has made up for it since.

The South Wales Constabulary is now led by a woman,

nearly a third of its police officers are female, and, in 2015,

it hosted an international conference

of female police officers.

The war finally came to an end with the Armistice

of 11th November, 1918.

But, for women, the celebrations were short-lived.

When the First World War ended,

women in Britain who had lost their jobs on the buses, and the trams,

on the railways, in the munitions works,

they were given a strong, clear message -

go back to home and duty, your place is in the home.

But a generation of young men had been wiped out.

For 2 million women, there was little hope of home and family.

They had to find work, and most were left with the old options -

being a domestic servant, a shop assistant, or a waitress.

The war did bring great political change.

In 1918, the returning soldiers,

the ordinary men, got the vote,

and, at long last, women got the vote, too.

But it was a rather mean offer for the women -

only property owners over 30,

but it was a start, and all women got the vote ten years later.

The war marked the beginning of the modern world.

Women began to see that they could do what men had traditionally done,

even in the gruelling conditions of war.

This is the terrible irony -

the First World War maimed many men in body and mind, but, for women,

it gave them the opportunity

to stand tall for the first time in their lives.

# Keep the home fires burning... #

Lest we forget,

it was our great-grandmothers

who paved the way for Welsh women to stand tall today.

# ..they dream of home

# There's a silver lining

# Through the dark clouds shining

# Turn the dark cloud inside out

# Till the boys come home! #