Women ! The Impact of the Great War,

How did the war affect the lives and work of women in Scotland The Great War is often seen as a major turning point in the role of women in British society. The war opened up jobs to women that would otherwise have been closed to them and in 1918 some women were given the vote in national elections for the first time.

How were women’s roles in society changing before 1914? Male prejudices about a ‘women’s place’ had already begun to weaken. Before 1914 some women gained access to better education and also to some jobs in the professions. New laws had improved the legal rights of women.

However Women still had no vote and those who campaigned for suffrage (the right to vote) argued that only by winning the vote could they significantly improve their lives and status in society.

In 1897, several local women’s suffrage Societies united to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

These women believed in moderate, ‘peaceful’ tactics to win the vote. It was mainly middle class property owning women. Later the NUWSS was nicknamed the suffragists in contrast to the later suffragettes, the popular name for the members of the Women’s Social and political Union.

Emmeline Pankhurst formed the WSPU in She was frustrated by the lack of progress achieved by the NUWSS. At first the suffragettes demonstrated peacefully, with rallies and processions, but by 1910 the suffragette campaign turned to more violent tactics. As a result more and more suffragettes were arrested and by the summer of 1914 over 1,000 were in prison

When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914… The government released all WSPU prisoners in order to encourage the suffragettes to end their campaign. In response, the WSPU agreed to stop their campaign. A new pro-war propaganda campaign was started to encourage men to join the armed forces and women to demand ‘the right to serve’.

How did women contribute to the war effort?

As casualty rates increased on the battlefield, and as conscription was introduced to swell the ranks, women were needed to fill the gaps in the workforce left by men who went of to fight.

Industries Industries that had previously excluded women now welcomed them. Women worked as conductors on trams and buses. As typists and secretaries in offices and factories. 200,000 women found work in government departments.

Thousands found work on farms and in the land army.

At the docks Even in the Police service. Some women, such as nurses, filled more traditional jobs. During the war nurses such as Mairi Chisholm became important models for women eager to feel they were ‘doing their bit’ for the war effort.

Scots girl Mairi Chisholm was 18 in 1914 She joined an experimental first aid post just behind the front line in Belgium. British authorities would not allow women so close to the fighting but the Belgian authorities had no such objections.

By working so close to the front line the women were in constant danger In March 1918, Chisholm and the other nurses were affected by poison gas released against troops and although Chisholm recovered and returned to her post, she was never fully fit again.

Mairi Chisholm has only become well known in Scotland in recent years.

Much better known is the work of Elsie Inglis, another Scot who used her medical skills to assist in the war effort. She was the driving force in the creation of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals Committee that sent over 1,000 women doctors, nurses, orderlies and drivers to war zones across Europe and the Balkans.

Inglis was also involved in setting up four Scottish Women’s Hospitals, which had much lower levels of death from disease than the more traditional military hospitals.

Having endured terrible conditions, capture, repatriation, and also fighting against male-dominated decision making in the UK, Elsie Inglis eventually died from cancer in November 1917.