Photographs of women munition workers, about 1915-19

At the start of the war, the government relied on volunteers for the army. By 1915 it was obvious that not enough men had been recruited, so the government introduced compulsory conscription. In 1916 men over 18 and under 41 years of age had to join the armed services.

Production of munitions also increased in 1915 due to the Shell Crisis (a shell is like a very large explosive bullet). The national newspapers claimed that the deadlock on the Western Front resulted from a lack of shells and that the shells that got to the Front were not of good enough quality. The newly formed Ministry of Munitions built new factories, like the one at Gretna, in response.

The increased demand for munitions and the number of men available to fill these engineering jobs decreased. This meant that munitions factories needed to employ women in large numbers. Women working in factories was not new, they had worked in cotton mills since the industrial revolution, but engineering was still seen as a job for men.

The work was often dangerous, and women died from accidental explosions and from being poisoned by the chemicals that they handled. The names of some of these women appear on the Five Sisters War Memorial in York Minster (see online resources).

The women in the posed group photograph (NRO 10146/25) are all wearing the uniform of munitions workers. Their caps kept their hair out of the machinery. Most of them are wearing a triangular badge that shows that they were doing war work (see online resources).

The sign on the float in the photograph of Berwick War Charities’ procession (BRO 02179/10) shows that these women were munitions workers. They charged 6 pence towards the war charities for a demonstration of the work that they were doing. The other Berwick photograph (BRO 02190/1) shows Florence Strang who worked at the Gretna Munitions Factory.