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What did women in Britain do during World War One?

Part of HistoryWorld War OneYear 3Year 4

Watch: What jobs did women do at home?

By 1918 there were five million women working in Britain.

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Watch our video to find out more about women's work on the home front.

What jobs did women do in towns?

Many women took jobs in shops, or typing in offices.

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Image caption,
Clerks dealt with letters, filing and typing
As more women started to work in offices, they were trained in tasks like bookkeeping (keeping a log of money) and working a switchboard (a telephone control centre).
Image caption,
Shop workers packed groceries and dressed shop windows
Their jobs involved serving customers, so women had to be neat for work and were usually not allowed to wear jewellery.
Image caption,
Training schools helped to prepare women for shop work
New recruits would learn skills such as cutting meat, balancing scales and testing the freshness of eggs. They attended lessons about the products being sold.

What jobs did women do in the countryside?

Women worked in all areas of farming, including ploughing the soil.

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Image source, © IWM Q 30687
Image caption,
Women's Land Army Forage Corps
By 1917 more and more women were working on farms as 'Land Girls'. In the Forage Corps women fed and stacked hay bales on British farms.
Image source, © IWM Q 30718
Image caption,
Women's Land Army Forestry Corps
Members chopped, sawed and transported wood. They were sometimes known as 'Lumber Jills.' The wood was used for building ships and supporting mine roofs.
Image source, © IWM Q 30662
Image caption,
Women looked after animals
They also grew vegetables to provide food for the nation.

What weapons did women build?

The war created lots of new jobs.
Many women were brought in to build weapons.
They worked with explosives which made some workers ill or their skin turn yellow.

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Image source, © IWM Q 108408
Image caption,
Women worked in munition factories all over the country
One of their jobs was cutting copper bands on shell cases and oiling the machinery.
Image source, © IWM Q 108429
Image caption,
They worked long days and did the same tasks over and over
The work was extremely dangerous. Tasks included making hand grenades as shown in this photograph taken in around 1917.

How did life change for women?

A large carriage full of suffragettes campaigning in London in 1910 — Image caption,
The Suffragettes were one of many groups asking for better rights.

Despite doing the same jobs as men, women were paid less.
Women working in shops were paid around half as much as men.
Only British men were allowed to vote to choose a government.
This was unfair and lots of women protested to demand better rights.
In 1918 women with property over the age of 30 were given the right to vote.

A large carriage full of suffragettes campaigning in London in 1910 — Image caption,
The Suffragettes were one of many groups asking for better rights.

Activities

Activity 1: Quiz – Women on the home front

Activity 2: History Explorer game

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