How British Women Helped Win World War One
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2018
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the first time women were encouraged to join the workforce to help win the war. As millions of men were mobilised for military service, British women began to do many jobs that had been the preserve of men. They worked in industry, on the land, in the civil service. But tens of thousands were employed in munitions factories. It was long, hard and dangerous work. Using the BBC archive we hear from women who worked as 'Munitionettes' Photo: British recruitment posters urging women to work during World War I. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last. |
| 0:42.0 | And as part of our series to mark the centenary of the First |
| 0:45.6 | World War, we tell the story of the huge role played by women in Britain's war effort, |
| 0:51.8 | which marked a social revolution in British society. |
| 0:57.0 | We were |
| 1:05.0 | taking over men's jobs for them to be released for the army. |
| 1:10.0 | The women were on everything. |
| 1:12.0 | You see, the men all went so they were on the |
| 1:15.4 | railways and munitions and land army and post so we knew that we had to do those |
| 1:22.1 | jobs once the men went there was nobody else to do them. |
| 1:25.0 | There's nothing like that had ever happened before, and women doing men's work, it was a vast difference |
| 1:31.0 | and wonderful experience. |
| 1:33.0 | At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, many in Britain |
| 1:38.0 | believed that a woman's place was in the home, particularly if she was married. |
| 1:43.0 | Girls, girls, study a cookery book. |
| 1:47.0 | If you want man's affections, follow these directions, |
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