Scotland and the Impact of
the Great War
The Role of
Women
Lesson Starter
What do you already know about women
and WW1?
Women
and WW1
What we will look at:
• Background to
the War effort
• Examples of war
work
• Dilution
• Outcome of the
war
Before the War
• Attitudes were beginning to change
• Some women had access to better
education, jobs and professions
• They had more legal rights and male
attitudes were changing
• BUT they still had not vote which they saw
as pivotal for improving the lives of women
• By 1914 1,000 suffragettes were in prison
Declaration of War
• 4th August 1914 Britain
declared war on
Germany
• 6th August 1914
NUWSS suspended
campaign for the vote
• Govt agreed to release
all WSPU prisoners if
campaign ended
• Govt gave £2000 for
WSPU campaign to get
men to fight and
women to serve.
• WSPU renamed their
newspaper ‘Britannia’
Mairi Chisholm
• August 1914 aged 18,
left Scotland and rode
her motorbike to
London to look for war
work
• Dr Hector Munro saw
her and was organising
a medical team going to
Belgium
• She said that it was a
rescue and an
emergency as Belgium
had not expected war.
Mairi Chisholm
• Realised 1/6 men
survived journey to
hospital
• Munro wanted to
create a first aid post
just behind the front
line
• Nurses worked there
for 18 months
• Worked for 48 hrs at
a time
• Under shell fire
• Rescued pilots from
no man’s land
• Jan 1915 awarded
the Order of Leopold
by Belgium (Belgian
VC)
• March 1918 she was
part of a gas attack,
she lived but was not
fit for duty
Elsie Inglis
• Studied at Edinburgh
University and trained at
GRI
• Member NUWSS
• Set up Scottish
Women’s Hospitals
Committee
• Sent 1000 female
doctors, nurses,
orderlies and drivers to
war zones across
Europe and the Balkans
Elsie Inglis
• Set up 4 Scottish
women’s hospitals
• Lower disease rates
than other military
hospitals
• She put up with
terrible conditions,
fighting, capture and
repatriation
• Died from cancer
November 1917
Dilution of Labour
• By 1916 it was evident that women were a
vital part of the war effort
• 30,000 women in Scotland were employed
in munitions compared to 4000 in heavy
industry before the war
• Trade Unions were concerned with dilution
of labour
• Male workers had to serve as apprentices
for several years yet women only trained
for a few weeks
• TUs thought that the higher wages of
skilled male workers were under threat or
that women would be employed as they
were cheaper.
• As demand for weapons grew there had to
be a solution to the problem.
• Solution by the Ministry of Munitions was
to break down skilled work into smaller
tasks which women could be trained in.
• Munitions Act 1915 said women should
have same wages but employers found
ways round this.
Munitions
• Main centres were
Glasgow,
Clydebank and
Gretna
• Gretna ‘new town’
to house 9000
women and 5000
men
• Dangerous
conditions.
Explosives
nicknamed ‘the
Devil’s porridge’.
• 61 workers died
from poisoning and
71 from explosions
Photograph of Munitions workers 1914
Glasgow
The Vote
• Reward idea too
simplistic
• Women were ‘removed’
from their wartime jobs
• Changes pre 1914
must be considered
• It wasn’t those who
risked their lives that
got the vote.
• Fear of Revolution and
social disorder? (Rent
Strikes/renewed
suffrage campaign)
• Need for franchise
reform
• War was temporary
change -Long term
very little actual
change.