I am going to talk about the “great shell shortage” the women's police force and many other ways the women managed to get themselves some work.
Some of these women got their jobs by helping the army recruit men into the forces; this was started by Admiral Fitzgerald by founding the Order of the White Feather. The aim of the organization was to hand out white feathers to the young men who had not joined up to go fight.
Women also played an important part in the police force during the war by volunteering for the force as during the war the policemen were great fighters so they all left for war. That left no one defending the home from public disturbances the idea of police women had been mentioned before but it had been turned down numerous times by the government. But in 1914 the headmistresses association suggested that women should be introduced into the force, and this time it happened over 2000 women patrols were out patrolling the streets keeping the peace. Margaret Damer Dawson founded the WPV or Women's Police Volunteers these were primarily used to help the force in the men's absents. In 1915 Dawson renamed her organization to WPS or Women's Police Service they wore a dark blue uniform and patrolled the streets of London. In 1916 they were being used in stings as male police officers would do and by 1918 they were on patrol in all major cities in the UK.
There was a big change to the employment of the munitions factories as they were now in charge of the government under new laws. Also many of the old factories the women used to work in such as the sweat trades were now converted into munitions factories. As the men who used to work in these factories went to war they needed replacing but the problem was these were skilled workmen therefore they needed a skilled labor force to replace but these were not available so what they did instead was to bring in women but teach them to do just the jobs they were instructed to do.
Most women at the front ignored to home office's advice not to go to the front line but many went anyway. They set up first aid organizations with the help of doctors and nurses who were already there they were working alongside the British expeditionary in Ypres.
After a while of war the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith saw this was going to last along time so he went around talking to the people of Britain telling them it was business as usual. His talks were free but by ticket only ad printed on each ticket it said “this meeting is only for men” women didn't let this phases them they wanted to be apart of the war effort and kept going.
The great shell shortage of may in 1915 was to help the women get jobs rapidly as at the front line men we unable to fire their guns due to lack of rounds. Back in England David Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions he wanted it rolling of the factories fast so they needed more workers. His answer was to start employing more women. This made Asquith “business as usual” finish as the women were needed of the war was lost it was clear the country needed reorganizing, this happened at the same time as the suffragettes March “right to work”.
This set up a national register that was to take down women's names that were ready to go into work into the munitions factories for many women this was a new way of life. The women left their jobs in domestic services to go and work in the factories for the freedom that came with the wage of only £3 a week. By the end of the war over 900,000 women were working in munitions factories.
There were many other jobs that women occupied not just in the munitions factories these were the two big main that they were included in the land army which was where they worked on the farms. As all the men had gone to war the farms were empty and by the end of the war about 13,000 women had singed up for this duty. There was also the women's police force as described above.
One of the many problems with women working was that someone wasn't going to be happy with it that someone was the group of men who were unfit to go to war for whatever reason. As these were usually skilled they were worried that as women were being made to do skilled jobs when they were unskilled so they would be paid less, thus they thought the men would start to be paid less. Even unskilled jobs such as farms and the like the men when they would return were worried that they wouldn't have a job to go back to and that they would need to go a retrain to a very high level where women couldn't reach them.
