50+ Historic Photos Of British Women At Work During World War I

#1 950,000 female workers were employed in British factories, including this worker, pictured making shell cases in a Vickers factory in January 1915 .

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#2 Women employed in the transport industry increased by 555 per cent during the war, and included this pair of female porters at Marylebone Station in 1915.

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#3 Women even took on tough, physical roles such as moving rubble, as seen in this photograph taken in Coventry during 1917.

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#4 Women operating radial drilling machines, drilling holes in girders

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#5 View of canteen at munitions factory

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#6 Women stacking wood

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#7 W.R.N.S. fitting a mine

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#8 Women testing a mine with air presssure

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#9 British woman winding cotton from spools on to rollers at lace factory in Nottingham

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#10 British women in Nottingham tannery drawing skins from the lime pit

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#11 British women painting planes at aeroplane factory near Birmingham

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#12 British women working in chemical laboratory near Manchester

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#13 British women rubber workers in Lancashire making mouth-pieces for gas masks

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#14 British women rubber workers in Lancashire forming the foundation for the tread

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#15 Women war workers, including the distinctively white-capped and aproned VAD nurses, parade outside Buckingham Palace in 1918.

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#16 Members of the Women’s Royal Air Force arrive at Buckingham Palace, London, to attend a party for war workers in 1919.

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#17 Female ambulance workers, such as this group photographed in November 1915, served both at home and on the front line.

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#18 While some women became nurses, others worked in hospital workshops, such as this one at the Kensington War Hospital, making prosthetic limbs.

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#19 400 women died in munitions factories, between 1914 (when this image was taken) and 1918, when the war ended.

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#20 Exposure to toxic sulphur left many workers with yellowed skin, while others were killed in explosions. One 1917 incident killed 73 and flattened 900 homes.

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#21 Despite being paid less than their male counterparts, many of the female munitionettes undertook dangerous and fiddly work.

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#22 Members of the Women’s Fire Brigade with their Chief Officer photographed in their uniforms beside an extinguished fire in March 1916.

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#23 Members of the Women’s Fire Brigade are put through their paces during a fire drill with hoses and extinguishers at full force in March 1916.

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#24 A member of the Women Porters At Marylebone Station Group, pictured in 1914 giving a Great Central Railways carriage a thorough clean.

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#25 As this 1917 photograph shows, female war workers didn’t just run trains and buses – they fixed and maintained them too.

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#26 As part of the war effort, old paper had to be reused. These women are pulling apart old ledgers belonging to the London & South West Railway.

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#27 The paper, as this photo taken on the 16th April 1917 shows, then had to be sorted into piles and stored.

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#28 General view of brass fittings shop

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#29 Women inspecting motor engine parts

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#30 Women loading nitrate of soda into a skip

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#31 Women straightening and bending steel girder

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#32 Women painting steel work

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#33 Women copper banding t60 pdr shrapnel

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#34 Women taping planes

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#35 Women in charge of electric motor

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#36 Women wheeling away earth excavated for the installation of hydraulic pumps

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#37 Woman driving O.E.T. crane

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#38 Women operating radial drills, drilling valve covers and strainer plates for weed boxes for marine engines

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#39 Women stacking wood

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#40 Women cleaning windows

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#41 Woman acting as helper at punching and shearing machine

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#42 Women transporting rough castings to the General Store

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#43 Women engaged in labouring work in dressing shop

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#44 Woman are with cores for ingot mould

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#45 Woman at battery drills, drilling angles and T bars for ribs of airship sheds

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#46 Woman operating vertical drilling machines, drilling angles for connections to ribs of airship sheds

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#47 Women operating circular saw, cutting steel bar

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#48 Woman operating a Sunderland gear planer, gear cutting

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#49 Woman driving 20 ton O.E.T. crane

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#50 Women inserting and packing tubes in condensors for marine engines

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#51 Women machining Admiralty electrical fittings

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#52 General view of women engaged on small parts for boilers and condensors

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#53 Workers preparing for the construction of concrete ships

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#54 Railway workers cleaning carriages

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#55 Railway workers unloading goods from train

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#56 Women railway workers painting and decorating

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#57 Mine net workers wiring the floats together

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#58 W.R.N.S. instructor at respirator and mask drill for military recruits

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#59 Railway worker pulling signal box levers

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#60 Window cleaners

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#61 Girl operating stitching machine in Leicestershire boot factory

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#62 British women moulding and finishing stoneware taps at terra cotta works in Leicestershire

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#63 British women working in lace factory in Nottingham

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#64 British women working in tannery in Nottingham

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#65 British women cleaning locomotive in Midlands

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#66 British women in glass factory cutting shop near Birmingham

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#67 British women in glass factory near Birmingham

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#68 British woman splicing airplane joints in aeroplane factory near Birmingham

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#69 British women aeroplane workers near Birmingham welding frame tugs for planes

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#70 Chemical works near Manchester – British women chemical workers in the Midlands

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#71 British women chemical workers in the Midlands taking limestone from stock, loading and wheeling barrows of lime to wagons

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#72 British rubber workers in Lancashire spreading machine for coaling canvas for tire making

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#73 British women rubber workers in Lancashire fixing studded tires

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#74 British women asbestos workers in factory in Lancashire

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#75 British women oil workers in Lancashire moulding cakes

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