Crossroads and Characters

59. ONE GIANT STEP FOR WOMANKIND.

Although the First World War resulted in terrible loss of life, there was at least one major benefit which came out of those grim war years: the new freedom which women managed to achieve.

'One of the most noticeable changes in everyday life during the war' commented one writer on this period, 'was the number of women entering many kinds of jobs for the first time, thousands of whom worked in the munitions factories.' It has been estimated that about 60% of workers making shells were women.

In this picture are three workers in Weir's munitions factory, Glasgow. Centre is a Dunning woman, Elizabeth Wilson McRae.

The factory conditions under which these and other women worked were often deplorable. In the guarded language of a report made to David Lloyd George when he became Munitions Minister in the Coalition government of 1915: 'Conditions of work are accepted without question and without complaint which, immediately detrimental to output, would if continued be ultimately disastrous to health.'

Although working in such circumstances would hardly seem to have been much of a step forward for women, they did win a major advance politically.

The Suffragettes, whose pre-war campaigning for voting rights for women had been so energetic, had called off their campaign when war broke out. But the contribution women made to the war effort in effect continued the campaign silently.

In 1918 the vote was awarded to women over the age of 30.

Elizabeth McRae (later Winton) was still too young to participate. She was just 23 when the war ended. But she and other women did finally reap the benefit when in 1928 the voting age was lowered to 21, the same age as for men.