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‘Girls Who Would Fight’: Young Women and the Call to Arms Recruitment poster for WAAC © IWM

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By Voices

On 14, Jun 2017 | One Comment | In | By Voices

‘Girls Who Would Fight’: Young Women and the Call to Arms

Marcus Morris, MMU

At the outbreak of the First World War, Britain’s army compared to those on the continent was small, with hundreds of thousands of men required to successfully prosecute the war. Hoping to exploit perceived (if debated) ‘war-fever’ in the country a campaign for volunteers was launched. Read more…

The Volunteering Women of Worcestershire

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On 28, Feb 2017 | No Comments | In | By Voices

The Volunteering Women of Worcestershire

Alice Edwards, University of Worcester

When it was announced that Britain would be going to war in 1914, the lives of those on the home front changed. Communities looked to women of middle and upper class to organise charitable events, support the Red Cross, the National Egg Collection, the National Relief Fund or one of the other 18,000 charities set up during the conflict.

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Not Just Jam and Jerusalem: Pershore Women’s Institute

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Not Just Jam and Jerusalem: Pershore Women’s Institute

Professor Maggie Andrews, University of Worcester

The greatest legacy of the First World War for rural woman was the Women’s Institute Movement in Britain.

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These Dangerous Women

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These Dangerous Women

Charlotte Bill, Clapham Film Unit

“My sister needs a film”, my contact said to me in a Community Resource basement on Brixton Hill.
“What’s the story?”
“These women in 1915 got together to try to stop World War 1.”

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Women Doctors in the First World War Women Doctors in the First World War

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By Voices

On 16, Sep 2015 | 2 Comments | In | By Voices

Women Doctors in the First World War

Dr Martha Jane Moody Stewart in Worcester and Beyond
Dr Rebecca Wynter, University of Birmingham

Dr Martha Jane Moody Stewart was in 1915 the first female House Surgeon at Worcester Infirmary. Local records seemed to offer little more to the Worcestershire World War 100 (WWW100) volunteer researchers. They found she had graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast, and that she left Worcester soon after arriving. An old local history book implied (rather bluntly) that in wartime circumstances the hospital was ‘forced’ to employ a woman doctor, but made no mention as to the reasons for her swift departure.

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Mothers First! The Women’s Co-operative Guild’s Maternity Letters

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Mothers First! The Women’s Co-operative Guild’s Maternity Letters

Ruth Cohen, Independent Researcher

The Women’s Co-operative Guild is most remembered for its poignant collection, ‘Maternity: letters from working women’, first published in 1915. By then, it was a unique campaigning organisation with over 32,000 members, mostly married women from better off sections of the working class. Read more…

Women Munitions Workers and the Trade Unions

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On 25, May 2015 | No Comments | In | By Voices

Women Munitions Workers and the Trade Unions

Cathy Hunt, Coventry University

The women who went into Britain’s munitions factories during the First World War were encouraged and praised in their endeavours to ensure that the men at the Front were kept supplied with the weapons and military equipment that were so vital to the war effort.

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Labour Unrest Amongst First World War Female Workers

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Labour Unrest Amongst First World War Female Workers

Chris Day and Vicky Iglikowski, The National Archives

There is a distinct image of female munitions workers during the First World War which occupies perhaps the most prominent place in Britain’s collective memory; the patriotic women who, though jaundiced and slowly poisoned, were proud to be doing ‘their bit’ and eager to take advantage of the new world of employment offered to them by the war.

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Girl Guides: Gender and Childhood on the Home Front

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Girl Guides: Gender and Childhood on the Home Front

Professor Maggie Andrews, University of Worcester

The Girl Guides Association, having been formed in 1910, was still a fledging organisation when the war broke out. The activities that Guides became involved in over the four years of war demonstrate both that life on the Home Front was a gender specific experience and the range of contributions that children made to the war effort.

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Sophie Carey and the National Food Fund

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Sophie Carey and the National Food Fund

Dr Katherine Storr

When the First World War began new charitable funds proliferated and many were started by women. Goods-in-kind, such as clothes and food were collected and distributed as well as money. Food is a weapon of war and Britain was vulnerable due to its reliance on imports.

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The Women Left Behind

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The Women Left Behind

Soldiers’ Widows in First World War Britain
Dr Janis Lomas

The 31st of October 2014 is the centenary of the Battle of Gheluvelt, which has an almost mythical status in Worcestershire. Given the high casualty rate it is worth also considering the provisions that the British government put in place to provide for the families of men fighting in the First World War.

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Caring for the Wounded in Local Communities

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Caring for the Wounded in Local Communities

Professor Maggie Andrews, University of Worcester

The first industrial war, caused both minor and major damage to the minds and bodies of the soldiers who took part. Illness and disease such as typhoid and trench foot took soldiers also out of the front line. More than half of these soldiers who needed medical care were sent to the United Kingdom where over 3,000 convalesce or auxiliary hospitals were set up in private homes.

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Gender and the Home Front

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Gender and the Home Front

Professor Maggie Andrews, University of Worcester

Munitions workers and the Women’s Land Army are familiar images of the Home Front in the First World War when the number of women in paid employment increased by nearly 2 million. This alongside the introduction of votes for women in 1918 has led to suggestions that the conflict was a period of social change and women’s emancipation.

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Cadbury Angels and World War One Cadbury's Angels and World War One Cadbury Angels and World War One

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On 07, Mar 2014 | 2 Comments | In | By Voices

Cadbury Angels and World War One

Jo-Ann Curtis, Birmingham Museums Trust
www.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk

As soon as war broke out and troops were deployed overseas, Cadbury Bros began producing ‘chocolate for the troops’. These gifts continued to be distributed throughout the duration of the war and in total 20,000 parcels were sent out to troops on the front, as well as to those who were wounded and recovering at home or in hospital.

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Mills Munitions Workers Mills Munitions Workers

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Mills Munitions Workers

Martin Killeen, Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham
www.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk

War work was changing employment for women, who ‘proved that their entry into the munition world has increased the output’. There were new opportunities particularly for teenage girls, as ‘in the case of a large Birmingham firm employing a considerable number of girls under 16; their labour was essential to the older women because their fingers were nimble and specially adapted for the light work required’.

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