Before the outbreak of World War One in 1914, a woman’s role in the workplace was quite restricted. Jobs for women consisted mainly of domestic work, nursing, teaching and agriculture if their family owned a smallholding. The war changed the role of women in the workplace forever. These unsung heroes of the war kept the industrial wheels turning and the home fires burning, as well as nursing injured service personnel and serving in the forces as non-combatants – and in one remarkable case, in the trenches.

When war was declared in 1914, it was greeted with cheering in the streets and general celebration. Thousands of men were mobilised from the Army and Navy Reserves and the Territorial Force, and thousands more enlisted. Britain was swept with flag-waving jingoism befitting its great Empire. Those who had been raised in the patriotic ethos – be they men or women – wanted, indeed considered it their duty, to do something for the war effort.

The iconography of womanhood was a common feature in early war posters whereby British men were called to enlist, to defend and protect British women. By far the most iconic of all the images of this period and theme was the simplest: the beautiful mother, children around her, gazing from the window as the soldiers march by. The image was reassuring and proud; she could cope and carry on and thus the simple message of the poster was ‘Women of Britain say – Go!. Other posters asked women to consider, ‘Why is your best boy not in khaki?’ The onus was then placed on the woman to challenge her sweetheart or husband why he was not ‘doing his bit’.

The men who had left their jobs on ‘civvy street’ to serve in the forces left a huge gap in the workforce. From August 1914, women had taken over the vacancies to carry out simple clerking and ship work in local businesses, factory work (such as boot making or tinned foods) and light agricultural work (such as fruit picking or helping with the grain harvest). However, in most of these areas employers took on female staff with the strict understanding that it was only a stop gap measure and that when the man returned he would be able to have his job back; and most ladies were quite happy with that arrangement – it was ‘the patriotic thing to do’.

Women also served in various capacities in hospitals as well as providing ambulance and nursing services at home and abroad (see the article in the last issue of the Periodical). Some also served in the European armies including Flora Sandes who, after initially joining a St John Ambulance unit, went on to join the Serbian Red Cross and worked in an ambulance for the Second Infantry Regiment of the Serbian Army. Separated from her unit during the retreat to Albania, she joined a Serbian regiment rather than risk being taken as a spy. With this act, she became the only known British woman to legitimately join and serve in a fighting unit during World War One. Awarded the Order of Kara George, Flora became a legend in the Serbian Army, who dubbed her ‘Our Joan of Arc’. She published her autobiography, An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army, in 1916 to help raise funds for the Serbian Army and a full-length biography, A Fine Brother: The Life of Captain Flora Sandes, was published in 2012.

The effects of World War One on the role and status of women was profound. Some of the simplest things taken for granted today were not options for women in British society before 1914. For example, it was almost unknown for women to wear trousers before the war. Women became far more independent and after the war, could smoke and wear cosmetics in public, as well as participating in organised sport – in public.

Most significant of all was the Representation of the People Act in 1918 which granted the vote to all women over 30 who were classed as householders. This was extended ten years later to all women over 21.

Women had found a measure of freedom – though after the war, many chose to have families and to treasure the man who had returned from the fighting and free up a place for him to return to work. Even though many of these men ended up unemployed during the Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, and although much of the promised ‘Land Fit for Heroes’ did not emerge, the emancipation of women had at least tentatively begun.