WOMEN IN MUNITIONS
"Hats off to the Women of Britain!"--Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in
_The Times_, November 28, 1916.
When war broke out the Government had three National workshops
producing munitions--today it has 100, and it controls over 5,000
establishments through the Ministry of Munitions, many of which are
continually growing in size.
The total output has increased over thirty-fold but in many cases
increase in production has been far greater. In guns, the production
of 4.5 field howitzers is over fifty times as large; of machine guns
and howitzers over seventy times and of heavy howitzers (over 6 inch)
over 420 times as large.
More small shell is now made in a fortnight than formerly in a year,
and the increase in output of heavy shell has been still larger.
Equally striking results have been attained in the production of
machine guns, aeroplanes motor bodies, and the other war supplies, for
which demand and replacement have necessarily grown with the demand
for guns and shells. To these have to be added the ships and the
anti-submarine and anti-aircraft machines and devices that have been
demanded by the enemy's method of warfare.
This work has only been possible in a country that has raised five
million men, 75 per cent from our own islands, because of what women
have done.
Today there are between 800,000 and 1,000,000 women in munitions works
in our country, and the history of their entry and work is a wonderful
one. Women themselves were quicker than the Government to realize how
much they would be needed in munitions, and started to train before
openings were ready.
Women realized vividly what Lloyd George's speech of June, 1915, made
clear, the urgent, terrible need of our men for more munitions--the
Germans could send over ten shells to our one--and women volunteered
in thousands for munition work.
The London Society for Women's Suffrage, which was running "Women's
Service," had women volunteers for munitions in enormous numbers and
tried to secure openings for them. It investigated and found that
acetylene welders were badly needed. There were very few in Britain,
and welding is essential for aircraft and other work, so they started
to find out if there were classes for training women, and found none
in Technical Schools were open to women. They found welders were
needed very much in certain aircraft factories in the neighborhood of
London and the manager of one assured them that if women were trained
satisfactorily for oxy-acetylene welding, he would give them a trial.
So "Women's Service" decided to open a small workshop and secured Miss
E.C. Woodward, a metal worker of long standing, as instructor. The
school was started in a small way with six pupils. Oxy-acetylene
welding is the most effective way of securing a perfect weld without
any deleterious effect upon the metal.
The great heat needed for the purpose of uniting two or more pieces of
metal so as to make of them an autogenous whole is obtained, in this
process, by the burning of acetylene gas in conjunction with oxygen.
Carbide, looking like little lumps of granite, is placed in a tray at
the bottom of the generator for acetylene gas, which is of the form
of a small portable gasometer. The tap, admitting water to the carbide
trays, is turned on, and gas at once generates, and forces up the
generator in the way so familiar to those who often see a gasometer.
This gas passes through a tube to the blow-pipe of the welder, or to
any other use for which it is destined.
[Illustration: TRAINING WOMEN AS AEROPLANE BUILDERS]
In oxy-acetylene welding, the process employs the flame produced by
the combustion in a suitable blow-pipe of oxygen and acetylene. When
a light is applied to the nozzle of the pipe a yellow flame, a foot
long, flares up, and in the centre of it, close to the nozzle, appears
a very small, dazzling, bluish flame, which can only safely be gazed
upon by eyes protected by coloured glasses. The temperature of this
flame at the apex is about 6,300 degrees Fahr., and it is with this
that the metals to be welded together are brought to a suitable degree
of heat.
The workers' eyes are protected by black goggles, their hair confined
by caps or handkerchiefs, and overalls or leather-aprons protect their
clothes from the sparks and also from the smuts which naturally
accrue on surrounding objects. Each welder holds in her right hand the
blow-pipe of the craft, from which depends two long flexible tubes,
one conducting oxygen from the tall cylinder in the corner, and the
other acetylene from the generator. In her left hand she holds the
welding-stick of soft Swedish iron, from which tiny molten drops fall
upon the glowing edges of the metal to be welded together. The work
is fascinating even to the onlooker, and to see the result, metal so
welded you feel it is impossible it ever could have been two pieces,
is still more fascinating.
The first welders triumphantly passed their tests and gave every
satisfaction in the factory, and the training went on and the School
was enlarged.
The oxy-acetylene welders turned out by this School have gone all
over the country and 220 were trained and placed in the first year.
Those selected were, with few exceptions, educated women, which was
undoubtedly a material factor in the success of their work. This
School opened training to women and welding is now taught to women in
many of our Technical Schools. A class in Elementary Engineering has
also been carried on by Women's Service with great success and the
women placed in workshops.
The Ministry of Munitions has also arranged, in conjunction with the
London County Council and other Educational Authorities, to have
free munition training for women at every centre in the Kingdom. The
courses vary from six to nine weeks and maintenance grants are paid
during the period of training.
In October, 1915, the Central Labour Supply Committee which dealt
with women's and men's conditions, issued certain recommendations
in Circular L.2. These dealt with the conditions and rates of pay
of women and fully skilled and unskilled men. The provision of this
much-discussed circular that affected women doing skilled work was
in Clause 1, which provides that "Women employed on work customarily
done by fully skilled tradesmen shall be paid the time rates of the
tradesman whose work they undertake."
These provisions were then only binding on the Government
establishments, and could not be enforced by the Ministry of Munitions
in controlled establishments. On December 31, 1915, a conference
was held between the Prime Minister, the Minister of Munitions and
representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, when an
agreement in regard to "dilution" was arranged. Circular L. 2 was
adopted at this conference as the basis of the undertaking given by
the Ministry in regard to dilution of labor. An employer under it can
be punished as contravening the Munitions Act if he fails to carry out
the direction of the Minister. The power of enforcing the provisions
of L. 2 were acquired in January, 1916, and it is quite obvious that
in this circular a principle of the greatest importance to men and
women is laid down. Women were wholly averse to being "blacklegs" in
industry.
The great work of "Dilution" in Munitions--and by dilution we mean
the use in industry of unskilled, semi-skilled and woman labor, so
that highly skilled men may not be used except for the most important
work--is done by the Dilution Department of the Ministry of Munitions,
which issues Dilution of Labour Bulletins and Process Sheets
periodically, showing the work women are doing. A series of
exhibitions of women's work have also been arranged by the Technical
Section of the Labour Supply Department in all the big towns
in England. In Sheffield over 16,000 people came to see the
Exhibition--the largest number of these being foremen and workmen sent
by their firms.
[Illustration: RIVETTING ON BOILERS]
[Illustration: FACING BOILER BLUE FLANGES]
The Exhibitions consist of two main sections, one of which shows
actual samples of munitions made by women, and the other of
photographs of women doing work on apparatus or processes that could
not be shown. A complete Clerget engine, for instance, was lent by the
Air Board to illustrate the final assembly of the numerous parts of
these engines being made wholly or partly by women. In the same way,
many parts of complete Stokes Guns, Vickers Machine Guns and Service
Rifles were exhibited. The exhibits were divided into fifteen groups.
The first group dealing with engines for aircraft. The second group
showed engines for motor cars, tanks, tractors, motor buses, motor
lorries and motor vehicles.
A separate group consisted of a variety of accessories for internal
combustion engines, including air pump for the Clerget engine, which
is completely manufactured and assembled by women, largely under women
supervision; and magnetos, a very important and accurate industry,
before the war largely in German hands, of which women now undertake
the entire manufacture.
The fourth group dealt with steam engines, including details of
locomotives, high speed engines, steam winches, and steam turbines.
The next two groups dealt respectively with guns and components and
with small arms.
The next three groups included gauges, drills, cutters, punches and
dies, trucks, jigs, tap pieces and general tool-room work. The gauges
included plug, ring, cylinder and screw gauges to the closest degrees
of accuracy, which in practice are verified by the rigid inspection of
the National Physical Laboratory.
A fair illustration of the accuracy that is habitually required in a
large volume of work is to be seen in the final gauging and inspection
of a screw gauge for a fuse, in which the women inspectors were
described in the catalogue as examining these screws by an optical
projection apparatus, magnifying fifty times, with the help of which
the inspector notes the defects in size and form, and the necessary
corrections.
The cutting tools included sets of cutters for the manufacture of
shells, as well as twist drills, reamers, milling cutters, gear
cutters, screwing dies, taps and lathe tools. Some of this work is
of high accuracy, and a set of solid screwing dies has the particular
interest that almost all the operations are carried out by women after
they have been in the shop for a fortnight. The general tool-room
work included an exhibit of seventy-one punches and dies for cartridge
making. Another set of dies was shown for small-arms ammunition, and
specimens were also exhibited of chucks, die-heads and other work.
Two other groups dealt with the metal fittings and wooden structural
parts of aircraft, and to see girls work on these is intensely
interesting--anything more fragile looking and more beautiful than the
long uncovered wing it would be difficult to find. A notable feature
of the metal group was a number of parts that are marked off from
drawings by women working under a woman charge-hand, and themselves
making their own scribing-templates when necessary. Many examples of
welding work were also shown.
There were Optical Munitions and medical and surgical glass and X-ray
tubes made entirely by women, and the Exhibitions record the progress
of women in Munitions in the most wonderful and striking way.
Mr. Ben. H. Morgan, Chief Officer, in a recent speech on Munitions and
Production said:
"Labor had to be found to staff the thousands of factories in
which this stupendous production was to be carried out, and it
has been possible to find it only by subdividing work closely,
and entrusting a large variety of machinery and fitting to
women, with the help of the fullest possible equipment of jigs
and all available appliances for mechanically defining and
facilitating the work, and of instruction by skilled men.
By this means an output has been obtained that will compare
favorably with that of any class of workers in any country.
Comparing, for instance, our women's figures of output on
certain sizes of shell and types of fuses with those of men in
the United States, I found recently that the women's machining
times were not only as good but in many cases better than
those of men in some of the best organized American shops.
"This is an extraordinary result to have been obtained from
women who, for the most part, had never known either the work
or the discipline of factory life, and were wholly unused
to mechanical operations. More than one circumstance has
doubtless contributed to making it possible; but it is my
assured conviction that foremost among the incentives by
which women have been helped has been their constant thought
of their flesh and blood, their husbands, brothers, sons,
sweethearts, in the trenches. I know a typical example in a
Yorkshire mother, who early in the war sent her only son to
the fighting line. The lad was a skilled mechanic, and she
took his place at his lathe in the Leeds shops where he
worked. She is not only keeping this job going, but her output
on the job she is doing is a record for the whole country."
The women workers' productions has been admirable and is steady
and continues so. The _Manchester Guardian_ of November 15, 1915,
astounded women and men alike by its announcement that "figures were
produced in proof of the very startling assertion that the output of
the women munition workers is slightly more than double that of men."
In the latest Dilution of Labour Bulletin this is recorded:
"A GOOD BEGINNING
"A firm in the London and South Eastern district making
propellers for aeroplanes has recently begun the employment of
women, and the results are exceeding all expectations. As an
instance it is reported that five women are now doing the work
of scraping, formerly done by six men, with an increase of 70
per cent in output."
The way in which managers, foremen and skilled men have trained and
helped the women and work with them cannot be too highly praised--the
success of "dilution"--the ability of women to help their country in
this way, was only possible through the good will and co-operation of
our great Trade Unions and skilled men.
Women supervisors and examiners are trained at Woolwich, and the first
of these were found by "Women's Service," and we find women control
and manage large numbers of women in the big works extremely well.
One girl of twenty-three, the daughter of a famous engineer, is
controlling the work of 6,000 women who are working on submarines,
guns, aircraft, and all manner of munitions.
One great engineer who believes in women and women's future in
engineering has started what we might term an engineering college for
women.
He has built a model factory away in the hills "somewhere in Scotland"
with four tiers of ferro-cement floors. It is built with the idea of
taking 300 women students and eight months after it opened, it had
sixty women students. It is a factory entirely for women, run by,
and to a large extent managed by women, with the exception of two men
instructors. In the ground floor the girls are working at parts of
high power aeroplane engines, under their works superintendent, a
woman who took her Mathematical Tripos at Newnham College, and was
lecturer at one of our girls' public schools. The women rank as
engineer apprentices and their hours are forty-four a week. The first
six months are probationary with pay at 20/- ($5) a week, and the
students are doing extremely well.
"Women are now part and parcel of our great army," said the Earl of
Derby, on July 13, 1916, "without them it would be impossible for
progress to be made, but with them I believe victory can be assured."
[Illustration: ROUGH TURNING JACKET FORGING OF 6-POUNDER, HOTCHKISS
GUN]
Mr. Asquith, too, has paid his tribute to the woman munition maker
and to others who are doing men's work. In a memorable speech on
the Second Reading of the Special Register Bill, he admitted that
the women of this country have rendered as effective service in the
prosecution of the war as any other class of the community. "It is
true they cannot fight in the gross material sense of going out with
rifles and so forth, but they fill our munition factories, they are
doing the work which the men who are fighting had to perform before,
they have taken their places, they are the servants of the State and
they have aided in the most effective way in the prosecution of the
war."
Our munition women are in the shipyards, the engineering shops, the
aeroplane sheds, the shell shops, flocking in thousands into the
cities, leaving homes and friends to work in the munition cities we
have built since the war. When our great arsenals and factories empty,
women pour out in thousands. Night and day they have worked as the men
have and it has been no easy or light task. We know that still more
will be demanded of us, but we think, as our four million men do, that
these things are well worth doing for the freedom of the souls of the
nations.
In the munition factories that feeling and conviction burns like a
flame and the enemy who thinks to demoralize our men and our women by
bombing our homes and our workshops finds the workers, men and women,
only made more determined.
The women handle high explosives in the "danger buildings" for ten and
a half hours in a shift, making and inserting the detonating fuses,
where a slip may result in their own death and that of their comrades.
Working with T.N.T. they turn yellow--hands and face and hair--and
risk poisoning. They are called the "canary girls," and if you ask why
they do it they will tell you it isn't too much to risk when men risk
everything in the trenches--and sometimes the one they cared for most
is in a grave in France or on some other front, and they "carry on."
The Prime Minister paid a tribute to munition makers in one of his
speeches when he said:
"I remember perfectly well when I was Minister of Munitions we had
very dangerous work. It involved a special alteration in one
element of our shells. We had to effect that alteration. If we had
manufactured the whole thing anew it would have involved the loss of
hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition at a time when we could
not afford it. But the adaptation of the old element with a fuse is a
very dangerous operation, and there were several fatal accidents. It
was all amongst the women workers in the munition factories; there
was never a panic. They stuck to their work. They knew the peril. They
never ran away from it."
THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY
"Are our faces grave, and our eyes intent?
Is every ounce that is in us bent
On the uttermost pitch of accomplishment?
_Though it's long and long the day is._
Ah! we know what it means if we fool or slack;
--A rifle jammed--and one comes not back;
And we never forget--it's for us they gave.
And so we will slave, and slave, and slave,
Lest the men at the front should rue it.
Their all they gave, and their lives we'll save,
If the hardest of work can do it;--
_Though it's long and long the day is._"
--JOHN OXENHAM.