enlisted the help of the well-known Suffragette , to help advertise the need for female labour. In July 1915 she successfully organised a demonstration to march in the name of a woman's 'right to serve'
However, munitions work was highly paid and it had the effect of attracting a lot of women from jobs in domestic service, which saw a large drop in numbers during the war years. These 'Munitionettes', as they came to be called, accounted for a large proportion of women in the workplace. To the extent that by mid 1917 it is estimated that women produced around eighty per cent of all munitions.
Women at War :In what ways were women involved in the War effort?
The largest influx of women into the workplace was in the transport industry where they took on work as conductresses (and sometimes, as drivers), on buses, trams and underground trains.
'...by February 1917 the total number of bus conductresses leapt from the timorous handful of the previous year to about 2,500, some half of whom, it was said, were former domestic servants.'
A great number of women had come to work in fields as varied as commerce, administration, education, forestry and agriculture. The '' alone employed over 260,000 women as farm labourers.
