Page 69 - All About History - Issue 34-16

200,000 WOMEN On the
TOOK UP JOBS front line
IN GOVERNMENT Just three of the army

Britain’s new female of British women who
workforce excelled
travelled with the men
5 themselves in the factories to ght for Britain
and out in the fields, but
they also took jobs in
government. Due to the Edith Cavell
Perhaps the most famous
lack of men, women were nurse of the entire war,
Edith Cavell is said to
given the opportunity to work in jobs they have helped more than
would have previously been excluded from. 200 Allied soldiers
High-up positions took women away from the escape from German-
occupied Belgium into
monotonous work they were used to and the neutral Netherlands.
helped them prove to politicians that they were Cavell cared for soldiers on
worthy of the vote and equal rights. Things both sides, but was captured
by German oicials and shot by
began slowly as the Liberal government only a iring squad in October 1915.
created a register for women to work in March
1915. 80,000 signed up immediately but there Flora Sandes
just wasn’t enough work available. As a result, Just being a nurse wasn’t
enough for the headstrong
many took it upon themselves to find work, Flora Sandes, who
getting jobs as ambulance drivers, bus enlisted as a Serbian
conductors and bank clerks. The female work Army soldier. Leaving
force had started to mobilise. as soon as Austria-
Hungary declared war,
Sandes volunteered to
work in an ambulance
TOP: In addition to the women working in
governmental departments, 500,000 took up clerical unit. Even when Serbia was
positions in offices invaded, she followed the new
MIDDLE: A 1914 postcard showing how the government-in-exile to Corfu as part
government wanted suffragettes, Irish Nationalists of the Iron Regiment.
and Unionists to put their political ideologies aside
Evelina Haverield
The former sufragette
THE was described by Sylvia
Pankhurst as “cold and
SUFFRAGETTES proud”. A determined
and active WSPU
CHANGED outbreak of the war
member, upon the
TACK… energy into helping in the
Haverield put all her
Emmeline Pankhurst and conlict. She founded the
Women’s Emergency Corps,
the suffragettes saw the war which became inluential in helping
6 as an opportunity. By women become doctors, nurses and
motorcycle messengers.
scaling down their own
campaigning and focusing
on helping the government, LEFT: The war changed
the outlook of the suffragist
they would prove just how movement, and for once,
capable women could be. Active campaigning Pankhurst and Fawcett were
almost treading the same path
was used once in the ‘Right to Serve’ protest,
but the remainder of the Women’s Social and
Political Union’s (WSPU) energy was geared …AND SO DID THE SUFFRAGISTS
towards a patriotic stand against the threat of Like the suffragettes, the suffragettes’ book, ensured the NUWSS helped
the Central Powers. The new direction caused a National Union of Women’s fund and set up women’s hospital units in
split in the WSPU. Emmeline and her daughter Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) France, as well as helping form the Women’s
Christabel were staunch advocates of ending 7 endured a split in its Emergency Corps and the Women’s Volunteer
militant activity and supporting the war, but organisation. In February Reserve. One action the group didn’t take part
Christabel’s sisters, Sylvia and Adela, weren’t on 1915, the NUWSS leader in, though, was the White Feather Campaign,
the same page. Both pacifists, they made efforts Millicent Fawcett realised which actively persuaded men to join the
to maintain peace, with Sylvia helping form the that talks of peace were futile and decided not armed forces. The NUWSS also carried on
Women’s Peace Army and Adela setting up the to support the Women’s Peace Congress. This campaigning peacefully. It is without doubt
Australian branch of the organisation. The 1918 divided the organisation, with many women that the hard work of the suffragettes and
Representation of the People Act proved both sticking to their pacifist guns. As the war raged suffragists during the war was integral in the
strategies had been in some way successful. on, Fawcett, taking a leaf out of the gaining of the vote for women.

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