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Politics and the Devil’s Porridge: Winston Churchill

By Collections blog

Researched and written by Mohammed Binghulaita Alghfeli.

 

Introduction

 

Winston Churchill is famous for being the British Prime Minister during the Second World War. As a wartime Prime Minister, Churchill is credited for galvanising Britain and her allies to defeat Nazi Germany. However, some people do not know that Churchill was also heavily involved in the First World War as a Minister of Munitions. This article focuses on the role of Churchill as a Minister of Munitions from 1917 to 1919. As a Minister of Munitions, Churchill was responsible for, among other things, the oversight of Factory Gretna. Churchill enjoyed success as Minister of Munitions, which saw him being promoted to Secretary of State for Air and War at the end of the First World War in 1919. The article also examines the influences of Factory Gretna on Churchill’s views on gender equality.

 

Background: 1915-1917

 

At the beginning of World War One, Churchill served as the First Lord of the Admiralty. According to Greenhalgh (2007), in 1915, Churchill planned and orchestrated the Dardanelles naval campaign and the military landings on Gallipoli. However, the Dardanelles naval campaign and the military landings on Gallipoli were both a failure that led to the demotion of Churchill and his resignation from the government. The ministerial appointment as Minister of Munitions was Churchill’s first role on his return to government.

Churchill also saw active service during WW1. He is pictured here with the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers at Ploegsteert on the French-Belgian border. Photo is in public domain.

The appointment of Churchill as Minister of Munitions was greeted with hostile comments from newspapers and members of parliament. The Dardanelles and the Gallipoli failures had tainted Churchill’s reputation to the extent that he was viewed by several MP’s as incompetent (Pelling, 1989). Pelling (1989) notes that the Secretary of War in 1917, Lord Derby, threatened to resign when he heard that Churchill had been appointed Minister of Munitions. The Colonial Secretary, Walter Long, wrote to the Prime Minister expressing grave concerns regarding the appointment of Churchill as Minister of Munitions (Pelling, 1989). The prime minister, Lloyd George, later wrote that his decision to appoint Churchill as the munitions minister nearly collapsed the government (Pelling, 1989).

 

Churchill was shocked by the negative reaction to his appointment as Minister of Munitions. According to Pelling (1989), Churchill had not realised how unpopular he was. However, Churchill did not allow his unpopularity to affect his job performance. The Cabinet Secretary in 1917 noted that a few days after Churchill’s appointment back in government, he looked like a different man (Pelling, 1989). He used his previous failures in government in 1915 as motivation to succeed on his second attempt in government (Greenhalgh, 2007).

 

Ministry of Munitions: 1917-19

The Minister of Munitions Winston Churchill meets women workers at Georgetown’s filling works near Glasgow during a visit in October 1918. Photo credit: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205022351

Greenhalgh (2007) notes that the Ministry of Munitions was created in 1915 in response to the Shell Crisis of that same year. In 1915 there was a strong newspaper criticism of the government because the army was experiencing a shortage of artillery shells at the war front. On 2 July 1915, the Liberal government passed the Munitions of War Act (1915) to ensure an adequate supply of artillery munitions (Greenhalgh, 2007). The Munitions of War Act (1915) paved the way for creating the Ministry of Munitions, with David Lloyd George being the first person to lead the ministry.

 

Although Churchill was Minister of Munitions in the closing stages of World War One, he played a huge role in ensuring that Britain and her allies had enough ammunition to win the war (Maurer, 2012). One can argue that the experience that Churchill amassed as the Minister of Munitions helped him in his later role as a wartime Prime Minister. As Minister of Munitions, Churchill had seen the importance of having local ammunitions manufacturing capacity and how that could be used to win a war. When the Second World War started, Churchill quickly ramped up local production of ammunition and other equipment for the war effort using the experience acquired as Minister of Munitions at the tail end of World War One.

 

Factory Gretna and Gender Inequality

 

Churchill became the Minister of Munitions on 17 July 1917 (Dockter, 2011). As a Minister of Munitions, Churchill was responsible for overseeing and coordinating the production and distribution of munitions for the successful execution of the war effort. One of the ammunitions factories set up during World War II was Factory Gretna. Therefore, as Minister of Munitions, Churchill was responsible for ensuring that Factory Gretna was operating as planned. Churchill was also responsible for managing labour issues at Factory Gretna, as evidenced by a letter written on 14 November 1918 by the Women Police Service asking for a salary raise. The Women Police Service requested Churchill increase their salaries by at least 10 shillings per week in the letter.

 

The Women Police Service at Factory Gretna argued that they deserved a salary increase because men doing the same job had been given a wage increase. In addition, those men were also paid more than the women. Therefore, the Women Police argued that it was unfair that men were being paid more than women. Moreover, the women pointed out that men were given equipment for free while women had to pay for it, which further reduced their wages.

A photo of the women’s police unit at HM Factory Gretna during WW1. Photo held in The Devil’s Porridge Museum’s archive collection.

The letter by the Women Police Service should be seen in the context of the early 20th century when women were expected by society to stay at home or if they chose to work to accept the conditions as offered. On the other hand, the women suffragette movement in Britain was getting strong and challenging gender inequality in all spheres of life. Therefore, when Churchill received the letter from the Women Police Service asking for a salary increase and similar conditions of service with that of men, that will have challenged Churchill’s beliefs.

 

According to Roberts (2012), Churchill is often portrayed as a male chauvinist because of his opposition to women’s right to vote when he was the Home Secretary between 1910-1911. As a result, Churchill was a frequent target of protest by suffragettes (Roberts, 2012). Churchill did vote for female enfranchisement in 1917, but that did not change how suffragettes viewed him. However, that did not stop the Women Police at Factory Gretna from petitioning him to solve gender inequality issues. Perhaps the Women Police at Factory Gretna saw Churchill’s vote for female enfranchisement as a sign that he might have some sympathy towards gender equality. However, it is also possible that Women Police at Factory Gretna petitioned Churchill not because of his expressed views on gender inequality but because he was the government minister responsible.

 

However, what is without question is that Churchill’s views on gender equality softened when he became a wartime Prime Minister. Lee and Strong (2018) note that Churchill’s views on gender equality had changed significantly by the time the Second World War began. Perhaps the petition by the Women Police at Factory Gretna in 1918 played a part in changing Churchill’s views on gender equality.

Photo credit: Yousuf Karsh. Library and Archives Canada, e010751643. 1941 portrait taken by Yousuf Karsh.

Conclusion

 

The article discussed the life of Winston Churchill as Minister of Munitions at the tail end of World War One. Churchill’s appointment back to the government in 1917 came after his dismissal after the military failures at Dardanelles and Gallipoli. The appointment of Churchill as Minister of Munitions was greeted with hostile comments from newspapers and members of parliament. However, Churchill showed great character to accept the appointment despite strong opposition and performed exceptionally well. His exceptional performance was rewarded by being appointed Secretary of State for Air and War at the end of the First World War in 1919. One can argue that Churchill’s good performance as Minister of Munitions relaunched his political career, setting him up to be the wartime Prime Minister.

 

The article also discussed the challenges Churchill faced as Minister of Munitions. Churchill was faced with addressing the gender inequality issue at Factory Gretna. Churchill’s views on gender inequality were well known when he became Munitions Minister. However, his views on gender equality greatly evolved over time. There is a possibility that the petition by the Women Police Service at Factory Gretna could have played a role in changing his views on gender equality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference List

 

Dockter, W., 2011. The Tale of Two Winstons. The Historian, Autumn, pp. 10-14.

Greenhalgh, E., 2007. Errors and Omissions in Franco–British Co-operation over Munitions Production, 1914–1918. War in History, 14(2), pp. 179-218.

 

Lee, C. & Strong, P., 2018. Women in War: From Home Front to Front Line. London: Pen and Sword.

 

Maurer, J., 2012. Winston has gone mad’: Churchill, the British Admiralty, and the Rise of Japanese Naval Power. Journal of Strategic Studies, 35(6), pp. 775-797.

 

Pelling, H., 1989. Munitions. In: Winston Churchill. London: Mcmillan, pp. 229-248.

 

Roberts, A., 2012. Churchill The Wartime Feminist. [Online]

Available at: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/churchill-bulletin/bulletin-048-jun-2012/churchill-the-wartime-feminist/

[Accessed 1 March 2022].

 

Toye, R., 2020. This famous island is the home of freedom’: Winston Churchill and the battle for ‘European civilisation. History of European Ideas, 46(5), pp. 666-680.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Women Working in Cutting Workshop. Photo from Devil’s Porridge Museum Archive

The Dangers of Working in A Munitions Factory During the First World War

By Collections blog

Researched and written by Laura Marley.

 

The First World War broke out in 1914 and as the war progressed, the demand for ammunition increased significantly. Due to this, in 1915 David Lloyd George, who was the Minister of Munitions, commissioned the building of HM Factory Gretna in order to increase the production of ammunition being sent to British troops in France. Production started in April 1916 and due to the sheer size of the factory, many workers were employed there, including over 11,000 female workers[1]. HM Factory Gretna was the largest munitions factory in operation during the First World War and due to this there was a large workforce of which many would suffer from injuries caused by the dangerous work they did. There was a works hospital on site at HM Factory Gretna which had space for 16 patients. However, a larger hospital was later built which could accommodate a further 84 patients. Between mid-1916 and late-1918, the Gretna Works Hospital had treated 273 male patients and 516 female patients, all of whom were employed in the factory[2].

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: Gretna Work’s Hospital. Photo from Devil’s Porridge Museum Archive

During the First World War, there was not the same health and safety standards that we have in place today so it was more likely that workers would suffer from injury. In terms of injury, we also need to remember that a vast majority of the people working in munitions factories during the First World War had never worked in a factory before so were often severely undertrained for the jobs that they were doing[3]. However, there were government initiatives in place to try and allow more skilled jobs to be broken down step by step, with one worker on each step, so that they were easier to complete[4]. Despite the government’s attempts to reduce the need for skilled workers and make jobs easier for the untrained workers they so desperately needed, many munitions’ workers still suffered from severe injuries at work. These injuries could include losing limbs when using dangerous machinery or suffering from burns due to the high risk of fires and explosions caused by the chemicals and acids that were used in the factory. Working with chemicals and acids also increased the risk of workers inhaling toxic fumes. Additionally, working in a munitions factory could cause long term health problems such as lung problems and skin discolouration.

 

Serious injuries: 

There were various types of serious injury that factory workers could sustain. We can see from Workmen’s Compensation Claims, that at HM Factory Gretna in 1917 there were a number of serious injuries sustained at work. These consist of 11 workers losing limbs such as fingers or even their arms. 30 suffering from less serious injuries such as bruising, sprains, breaks, or fractures of the hip, knee, or ribs. 15 workers suffered from burns and poisoning due to the acid they worked with and 5 suffered from eye, face, or head injuries[5]

One young woman, Victoria May McIver, lost the lower part of her left arm whilst working with machinery in the cordite section of HM Factory Gretna. This accident happened when she was only 17 and she was one of the youngest patients to stay in the factory’s hospital in 1917[6]. This accident highlights the dangerous nature of the work that many young women took on during the First World War in order to aid the war effort and do what they saw as the right thing to do.

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2: Women Working in Cutting Workshop. Photo from Devil’s Porridge Museum Archive

In total, there were 145 recorded fatalities in the factory area, with 115 being male workers and 30 being female workers[7]. This demonstrates the dangerous nature of work in munitions factories and shows that not just those actively involved in combat during the war were willing to put their lives at risk in order to ensure that Britain won the war.

Fire and acid injuries:

Due to the large amounts of chemicals and acids in use at HM Factory Gretna, there was an increased chance of explosions and fires breaking out. Due to this, HM Factory Gretna had their own fire brigade so that they would be able to get to the fire and put it out quickly[8]. HM Factory Gretna had its fair share of both fires and explosions. On November 15th, 1916, there was an explosion at the factory. Witnesses all reported hearing a gunshot like noise before they saw a fire start. Seven workers were injured in this incident. On December 8th, 1916, one worker was killed instantly due to an explosion, six other workers suffered from bad burns, and some later passed away because of their injuries. Michael Taylor had been working in the acid plant when an explosion happened, he was burned and also fractured his leg. Thankfully he survived but his leg did need to be shortened by 2 inches[9].

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3: HM Factory Gretna Fire Brigade. Photo from Devil’s Porridge Museum Archive

Working with chemicals and acid also meant that there was a high risk of workers sustaining injuries from them. These injuries ranged from being sprayed with acid from burst pipes, which could cause burns and even the loss of eyes, to inhaling the toxic fumes given off by the acid which could cause death[10].

 

Long-term impact on health:

There is evidence that the extended exposure to chemicals through working in a munitions factory had long term impacts on the worker’s health. Many of the women who worked at HM Factory Gretna suffered from long term health impacts due to the work that they carried out in the factory. Alice Morton was left with a yellow tint to her skin and as she got older, the yellowness became more noticeable. It could be seen mostly around and in the whites of her eyes. Ellen Stamper suffered from lung problems and sadly died of emphysema in 1955. Margaret Jane Sutherland sadly passed away due to the inhalation of poisonous fumes during her work at HM Factory Gretna[11]. This shows that the work being carried out in munitions factories during the First World War was not just dangerous at the time, but also left many with long term health impacts which were the cause of death in many cases.

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 4: Medical Card Given to Workers on Leaving the Factory. Photo from Devil’s Porridge Museum Archive

A medical card (pictured above) was given to HM Factory Gretna workers upon leaving the factory ‘for more than 3 months’[12]. The card tells people to choose a doctor as soon as possible after leaving the factory and not to wait until they fall ill. This is essentially warning them that they may experience long term ill health as a side effect of working in a munitions factory. It instructs the ex-worker to present the card to the doctors they are registering with in order to let them know that they have previously worked in a munitions factory. This is significant as it shows that the factory owners were fully aware that the workers were likely to suffer from long term illnesses which were caused by their work in the factory. However, it is unknown how many munitions workers suffered long term illnesses caused by the work they did during the war but there have been a number of reports of people across Britain suffering similar fates to the Gretna workers above, so one has to believe that this was a common after effect of munitions work.

 

Conclusion:

Overall, this article should help you to understand just some of the dangers people faced working in HM Factory Gretna during the First World War. They were willing to work in dangerous conditions with unsafe machinery and chemicals in order to aid in the war effort and do their bit in ensuring that Britain and the Allies were successful in winning the war. Munitions work was a highly important job and without it the war would have been much more difficult.

[1] E. Ritchie, The Gretna Girls. Devil’s Porridge Museum Google Drive

[2] Medical Provisions at HMF Gretna, Devil’s Porridge Museum Google Drive

[3] G. Braybon, and P. Summerfield, Out of the Cage: Women’s Experiences in Two World Wars. (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012.)

[4] Ibid.

[5] Accidents at Work Panel’s, Devil’s Porridge Museum Google Drive

[6] G. L. Routledge, Gretna’s Secret War, (Carlisle: Bookcase, 1999)

[7] Medical Provisions at HMF Gretna, Google Drive

[8] Accidents at Work Panel’s, Devil’s Porridge Museum Google Drive

[9] Accidents at Work Panel’s, Devil’s Porridge Museum Google Drive

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Medical Card given to workers on leaving the factory, Devil’s Porridge Museum Google Drive

Ivy Herbert taking part in a CEMA organised concert in 1942

Ivy Herbert – Gretna’s Music Teacher

By Collections blog

Written and researched by Stuart Gibbs

In 1994 an article by P L Scowcroft highlighting the knowledge gap of British women composers was published on Music Web. On figure highlighted by the article was Ivy Herbert, a composer from the early to mid 20th century. At her height was a prolific composer and performer making numerous stage and radio appearance, she was secretary to the Surrey County Music Committee and had a close connection to the prominent composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Despite this little was known about Herbert with almost no biographical detail. However, the key to unlocking the mystery was Ivy Herbert’s connection to HM Gretna and a brief reference in a Carlisle newspaper.

Early life in Newport and Studying at the Royal Academy

Ivy Herbert’s birth record christened in 1893 as Genevieve Natalie Estelle Herbert

Ivy Herbert was born on June 7th, 1893, in Newport, Wales, and christened as Genevieve Natalie Estelle Herbert. Her father Alfred was a ship’s engineer and Ivy spent her early years at 107 Duckpool Road. Music education was an important part of life in Newport, but Ivy also had natural talent inherited it seems from her mother’s side, Lilla Flint. The Flints of Northampton were rather musical and the Welsh branch of the family, were no different. Ivy however was something of a child prodigy with her proficiency on the keyboard earning her the nickname “Ivy”. In the 1901 census she is recorded as ‘Ivy GNE Herbert’ and she used the name ‘Ivy Herbert’ for the bulk of her career as a musician and composer.

Ivy Herbert picture taken from an article published in the Western Mail in 1928

The 1911 census records Ivy as a music student, and the January 1912 issue of Musical Times lists Ivy among the students that passed the Royal Academy of Music’s Metropolitan Exam held during December 1911. The Royal Academy of Music was founded in London in 1822, when Ivy attended in the late 1900s the institution had just moved to its present location on Marylebone Road. During her time there she specialised in Pianoforte and on June 27th, 1916, Ivy took part in a student’s concert at the Royal Academy her last it seems as a student. Within a few months Ivy was part of the war effort when she was employed as a music teacher at the massive cordite production centre at HM Gretna.

 

Acting as Music Tutor at HM Gretna and the Royal Academy

The Social and Recreation Committee at the Gretna factory was set up with the express purpose of providing activities for the workers and keeping them on site as much as possible. Among the social events organised by the Social Department was an Orchestral Society which was established to support the productions of the Choral and Operatic society. Ivy worked with the Orchestral Society holding classes in an upper floor room of the Gretna Institute which was often used as a classroom. Initially the orchestra was supplemented by professional musicians but as 1916 came to an end the need for outside help diminished and Ivy’s services were dispensed with in the early spring of 1917.

Gretna Institute where Ivy may have taught music during the later half of 1916 and the early months of 1917

A farewell concert was organised for her at the Border Hall on Saturday March 10th, 1917. Ivy performed some of her music and star turns by the “Three Macs” and the “Gretna Pierrots” helped ensure a large audience. On leaving Gretna, Ivy returned to London residing at 20 Alexander Street, Bayswater and took up a position as tutor at the Royal Academy. During the summer of 1918 Six Miniatures for Piano, Ivy’s first published work, was issued. It is highly likely that pieces from this collection were written or even performed at HM Gretna. More work followed with Six Short Pieces for Piano in 1919 Danse de Piano in 1920 and Two Short Pieces for Piano in 1921. Ivy’s academic career at the Royal Academy also progressed and by 31 she was professor of pianoforte and bestowed the title Associate of the Royal Academy.

Ivy Herbert Carlisle Journal account of her farewell concert at the Border Hall in March 1917

On the Concert Circuit and in Radio Broadcasts

As a result, Ivy was in constant demand on the concert circuit. In 1928 she appeared in Cardiff with the newly formed National Orchestra of Wales. Conducted by Warwick Braithwaite Ivy gave the standout performance, a rendition of Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov’s Piano Concerto in C Sharp Minor. Besides live performances she also featured regularly on radio in concerts and recitals. She even had a weekly educational broadcast for schools which went out on the Cardiff channel. A particular highlight was a broadcast on the World Service in 1937 performing a series of short recitals which went out on All India Radio.

An Orchestra practice at the Royal Academy of Music during 1922 Ivy was a tutor at the college at this time

The 1930 Post Office directory still lists Ivy as living at 20 Alexander Street, also at this address is a ‘Miss Potto’. This was Florence Potto born in 1884 at Weeping Cross, Staffordshire. The daughter of Arthur Potto, a Police Inspector, she was brought up in the village of Great Heywood and by the late 1920s she had left village life behind to settle in London. Florence worked as welfare organiser and may also have acted as an ad hoc private secretary to deal with Ivy’s burgeoning diary, which included organising live and radio appearances as well as private tuition. For the next four decades Florence would be ever present.

The Outbreak of War Relocating to Dorking and working with Vaughan Williams

Ivy Herbert taking part in a CEMA organised concert in 1942

With Florence’s retirement in the late 1930s the decision was made to relocate to the suburbs, taking up residence in Dorking at Westcott Street. Ivy was quickly involved in the local music scene acting as the honorary secretary for the Surrey County Music Committee. Formed in late 1941 the body was chaired by the eminent composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was brought up in Wotton during the 1870s and 80s. Owing to his wife Adeline chronic arthritis, Vaughan Williams had returned to the area in 1929 taking up residence at ‘The White Gates’ in Dorking.

 

Ivy was also involved with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Arts (CEMA). With the outbreak of a new conflict in 1939 the need to try and preserve cultural life was recognised with CEMA being established in January 1940. The body was chaired by the prominent economist John Maynard Keynes with the aim of ‘bringing art to the masses’ by organising arts events and concerts within the community. Ivy was involved in numerous CEMA events and even made a brief appearance in a promotional film for the body released in 1942. One CEMA organised event was held close to Ivy’s Westcott home at the Abinger Village Hall in May 1942. The event attracted a good turn out with Ralph Vaughan Williams amongst the audience. On January 31st, 1943, Ivy was back at Abinger Village Hall along with Margery Cullen, secretary of the Leith Hill Music Festival. They were performing a practice run of Vaughan William’s Fifth Symphony on two pianos while Vaughan Williams busily took notes. The Fifth Symphony had its first orchestral performance at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios on May 25th, 1943, and Ivy was among the invited guests attending the session.

 

In a raid over Bayswater on October 7th, 1940, several bombs landed on Newton Road, close to Ivy and Florence’s former home at Alexander Street but by 1943 the war increasingly moved to the suburbs. In January 1944 Westcott was bombed with four houses on the Watson Road destroyed, killing a total of nine people. Then on February 24th a Dornier was brought down on Parsonage Lane close to Fir Crest Cottage. Two of the crew managed to bail out and were arrested in nearby Wotton. As a result, Ivy Herbert and Florence Potto moved into Vaughan William’s residence ‘The White Gate’ staying in one a room set out for them. In the early spring of 1944 Dorking was hit by a new menace the V1. On June 19th, 1944, this crude version

of today’s drone landed on the Elm Cottage on Sandy Lane close to ‘The White Gates’, killing two women and a boy. A few days later a V1 landed on Ockley causing a local woman to later die from shock. On August 3rd, 1944, another V 1 came down in Abinger Common, close to where the Fifth Symphony was rehearsed, destroying a local church.

 

The Immediate Post War and Later Life

Ivy Herbert and Florence Potto remained at ‘The White Gates’ until 1946 when they relocated to 16 Church Street in Dorking. Ivy went back to composing, providing music to the words of Robert Bridges for The Linnet Song and A Window Bird Sat Mourning by Percy Bysshe Shelley. These were published in 1947. While researchers have failed to uncover Ivy Herbert’s background, Florence Potto, also tried to research her own family history with the same level of success. She told the press that, ‘she had searched in vain for years for other Pottos. It must be one of the most uncommon of English names’. This changed when a Douglas Chapman of Witham, discovered scratched on a window of his shop, ‘Jane Potto July 7, 1776’, and contacted the Daily Herald newspaper. In April 1954 Florence along with ten other members of the Potto ‘clan’ were invited to Witham to witness Mr Chapman’s example of 18th Century graffiti.

 

By the 1950s Ivy Herbert was less active on the concert circuit and her last recorded work was in 1949. CEMA became the Arts Council and with the new body and new chair -Maynard Keynes died in 1946 – many of the opportunities Ivy had previously received dried up. She returned to the Academy to sit an LARAM exam (Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music) and poured her energies into teaching. Ivy and Florence resided in Dorking for the next twenty years. Florence Potto died in the early months of 1969 while Ivy Herbert, remained at 16 Church Street until the mid 1970s. She spent her remaining years in Bromley where she died on November 4th, 1993, a few months after her 100th birthday; little notice was taken of her passing.

 

As with other art forms women composers have been excluded from general music history and their work is often missing from ‘the standard concert repertoire’. This process has been intrenched at academic level with the use of standardized references which emphasize the composers and genres considered most relevant and are not designed to be inclusive. But there is some good news for the would-be researcher, the apparent amnesia regarding women’s history is a contemporary phenomenon and what Ivy Herbert’s story shows us is that with the appropriate due diligence, these ‘lost histories’ can be readily recovered.

 

Record of marriage for Jules Michael Filament.

Black History Month: Dr Flament

By Collections blog

Black History Month is a month-long event that celebrates and commemorates the culture and achievements of Black Britons throughout history. It’s been marked in the UK for over thirty years, and seeks to somewhat address the historical neglect of the vast contributions of the African and Caribbean community to our nation. This blog contains historic use of outdated, offensive and discriminatory language.

The Devil’s Porridge Museum commemorates the munitions workers of HM Factory Gretna, and the wider contributions of munitions workers across the UK during World War One. Not surprisingly the traditional image we have of the munitions workers is that of “Tommy’s Sister”, a plucky working-class white girl who risked life and limb to make shells and bullets. Whilst the majority of munition girls were young, working-class white women, we also have evidence that women of colour also worked in munitions. Angela Woollacott quotes from the diary of Miss G. M. West, a woman police officer who was working at a cordite factory in Pembrey, Wales. Miss West writes that black women were amongst the workers at the factory.

This important aspect of the story of World War One in Britain is woefully unknown, and further research into the story of Black munitions workers is sorely needed. Whilst Miss G M West’s diary relates to a munitions factory in Wales, there were Black Briton’s connected with HM Factory Gretna. Workers at the factory came from near and far, with the majority coming from or living in nearby towns and villages like Dumfries and Carlisle.

Many of the reports in the local press about Gretna centered on worker’s tribunals, which were set up during the War to resolve complaints and issues facing employees in war industries. These issues usually revolved around alleged thefts, slacking at work, and/or having time off for illness. It was in reading one of these many reports in The Annandale Observer that we came across a mention of Doctor Flament, who had provided a medical certificate for a worker to say that he was suffering from influenza. The attitude of the representative of the firm is racist.

Photo taken of the Annandale Observer, January 1917

We were intrigued by Doctor Flament. How had he ended up practicing medicine in Carlisle during World War One? What was his experiences of being a Black doctor in this time and area? And where did he end up?

The search to answer these questions brought to light a very interesting man. The first clue to Doctor Flament’s life story, and his full name, was provided in the above article, which stated that he trained at the University of Edinburgh. A quick search of the UK’s medical registers, held by Ancestry, yielded immediate results. A Jules Michael Ralph Flament, who resided at 30 Spencer Street, Carlisle, was on the register in 1907. It stated that he’d graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1904, with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery.

UK Medical Register of 1907, courtesy of Ancestry

During this time in Britain, Black medical professionals faced rife discrimination. In 1910, Harold Moody graduated top of his class with a degree in medicine. Despite this, he was denied work because of his race, and eventually established his own medical practice. During World War One, Doctor John Alcindor, who (like Flament) had graduated from the University of Edinburgh, was ‘rejected outright by the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914 because of his ‘colonial origin’’

In 1901, Flament was living in Edinburgh, and going by his middle name, Ralph. He was a border in a house belonging to Ann Henderson, a widow living on her own means, and was a surgical student. In 1904, Flament married Leonora Murray in Edinburgh.

The marriage register of Doctor Flament and Leonora Murray

However, shortly after his marriage, he appears to have moved to Carlisle. In 1904, Doctor Flament appeared in the Maryport Advertiser. He dressed the wounds of a lady who had been the victim of an alleged attempted murder. The next year he was the victim of a crime–a man had obtained £1 from him by false pretences. This man, who was named Charles Wm. Seaton, had told Dr Flament that he represented an agency who wished to appoint a medical officer, but the appointee had to take out insurance. In the 1911 census, Doctor Flament is described as 32 years old, married and he was born in ‘The Port of Spain, Trinidad.’ He is also described as being a ‘British subject by birth and parentage.’ He is living with two domestic servants, Annie and Annabella Graham, both 19. His wife, Leonara, isn’t living with him.

In my search for Doctor Flament, I kept coming across oblique references to him being struck off by the British Medical Council, at the instigation of the Ministry of Munitions in 1919, and his name being reinstated in 1931. I couldn’t find out why he’d been struck off though, until I came across a record in the South African Medical Journal:

Doctor Flament was struck off for providing a woman with access to an abortion, decades before it was legal to do so in the UK. The fact that The Ministry of Munitions was a complainant could indicate that the woman to whom this medicine was given was a munitions worker.

I haven’t found any records for Doctor Flament during the 1920s, but it appears that he moved to Mexico. On 17th February 1931, Doctor Flament married Concepción González, and later that year they had a child, Maria. I haven’t been able to pin down what happened to his first wife, Leonora, so it’s possible that they divorced or Doctor Flament was a widower. Doctor Flament died in Mexico on 23rd January 1950. He left effects of £1749 3s 3d. He was working at Doctor Falcon’s Mental Institute at the time of his death.

Doctor Flament’s life and career is important to highlight, because he showcases that Black people are and have always been a crucial part of our collective cultural heritage. However, it is also clear that in the course of his life, Doctor Flament was subject to racism and discrimination. With Remembrance Day fast approaching, when we think of those who worked so hard during the global conflicts of the 20th century it is important to remember and commemorate the Black and Brown people who were soldiers, nurses, munitions workers and in any other job who contributed to the war effort.

Record from August 1913 of travel to Canada

Worker of the Week: Charlotte Marcella Forbes

By Collections blog

Worker of the Week is a weekly blogpost series which will highlight one of the workers at H.M. Gretna our volunteers have researched for The Miracle Workers Project. This is an exciting project that aims to centralise all of the 30,000 people who worked at Gretna during World War One. If you want to find out more, or if you’d like to get involved in the project, please email laura@devilsporridge.org.uk. This week volunteer Marilyn shares her research into Marcella Charlotte Forbes.

Marcella Charlotte Forbes was born in Malta in 1875 to John Forbes , Quartermaster major in the 1st Battallion 42nd Highlanders, Black Watch and Louisa Marcella nee Couch, daughter of a builder.

Marcella was the third of seven children born to John and Louisa between 1869 and 1886 and was named after her maternal grandmother Marcella Charloltte . Louisa was born in Madras , India which is where we can assume she met John, 14 years her senior. They married in Bengal on 4th February 1867 when Louisa was just 17 and John 36. John hailed from Moulin, Perth. Census return for 1861 give his early career as a bank clerk.

Their first child, Annie Emily was born in India in 1868 . They must have moved to Edinburgh within the year as Eleanor Maude Marcella Forbes arrived on 5th July 1869, her birth registration stating that she was born at Edinburgh Castle. This 19 year old young mother had 2 daughters. Contradictory information tells us that John enlisted in September 1873 , maybe he was in a different regiment or military position prior to that.

His posting took the family to Malta where Marcella Charlotte was born in 1875 followed by a fourth daughter Gertrude H in 1879.

On return from Malta, the 1881 census has the family living at Aldershot Barracks, John’s role is Quartermaster. By 22nd November 1882 they were in Edinburgh when Henry Maurice was born at 21 Scotland Street ( birth registration )

1884 saw the arrival of Gilbert Athole and finally in 1886 Beatrice Georgina Frederica was born, both at 18 Belle Vue Crescent, Edinburgh. Their father is shown as retired on both registrations. He possibly retired at 50.

The 1891 census return places the Forbes family at yet another Edinburgh residence- 69 Morningside Drive. John is 54, Louisa 40, Anne E 23, Eleanor 21, Marcella 16, Gertrude 12, Henry 9, Gilbert 7 and Beatrice 5. They also afford a young female servant. Anne and Eleanor are both listed as Pupil Governess.

It is unclear when John died but it must have been between the 1891 census and 1898 when Louisa is listed in the electoral register as the only eligible voter in yet another Edinburgh residence – 45 Merchiston Crescent.

We learn from ship’s passenger lists that Marcella travelled the world and was a teacher like her older sisters Annie and Eleanor. She sailed to Cape Town from Southampton on 13th October 1897, aged 24 on SS Goth as a teacher. Later evidence in electoral registers tells us that Gertrude also followed this calling and became a governess. There were female teaching agencies available for young ladies who wished to teach across the British overseas territories , evidenced in previous research into Alice Sherwen.

Marcella is back in Scotland in 1901 , both she and sister Eleanor listed as her companion are visiting 7 Melville Terrace Stirling at the time of the census.

Gertrude, 22, is listed at The Manse, Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire as a governess for an 8 year old child

Louisa moved again showing on the 1903-04 electoral register at 13 Forbes Rd, Edinburgh and the 1904-05 register at 1 Granville Terrace, showing both times as the tenant and occupier.

Marcella sailed again on 19th October 1905 , London to Bombay 1st class on SS Egypt. She was now 30.

In 1906, aged 24, Henry Maurice enlisted and his war service records show that he was in South Africa- Cape Colony, Transvaal and Orange Free State. The same record shows that he resigned his commission on 26th February 1908. He returned to his career in banking which he certainly was engaged in in 1938/39 at Castlebank , Craig Eric, Edinburgh ( Electoral register)

5th July 1913 finds Marcella sailing from Sydney to London on SS Commonwealth, a teacher aged 38. It is unclear when she sailed out to Sydney.

She stayed home a short while before sailing from Glasgow to Montreal on SS Hesperian, teacher on 1st August 1913.

Marcella took up war work at HM Factory Gretna some time between 1916 and 1918. Like many other female teachers from middle class backgrounds she became a Matron at Grace Darling House. She is listed on the valuation roll for 1918-19. She is also listed under staff addresses in the Dornock Farewell Magazine giving an address of 8 Hope Crescent, Edinburgh. The roles of welfare supervisors, matrons, WPS all appealed to women with similar backgrounds to Marcella. She would have been 43.

The only sister who did not follow a teaching career was Beatrice who sadly died in Birmingham on 12th May 1918 aged 32. Her probate lists her as a nurse of 8 Hope Crescent , the same address as Marcella. Probate granted to sister Anne Emily Forbes, teacher also of 8 Hope Crescent. The 1918-1919 electoral register for Edinburgh has Anne listed at 20 Laden Street.

The only sibling not yet accounted for is Gilbert who joined the Black Watch like his father ( Forces war records). We know that he became a clergyman – he is listed in January 1947 sailing from Southampton to New York aged 62, on the Queen Elizabeth. His address is 51 Bishop’s Gate London EC2. There is no evidence that any of the 7 siblings married.

Marcella appears on the electoral register for 1926 and subsequent years at 13 Forbes Road but her mother died at 8 Hope Crescent aged 82 in 1936.

Marcella died aged 72 on 5th June 1948 at 1, Elliott Road Edinburgh.

Perhaps she kept a diary of her travels.

Graduation photo of HM Lowe.

Worker of the Week: Harry Marchanton Lowe

By Collections blog

Worker of the Week is a weekly blogpost series which will highlight one of the workers at H.M. Gretna our volunteers have researched for The Miracle Workers Project. This is an exciting project that aims to centralise all of the 30,000 people who worked at Gretna during World War One. If you want to find out more, or if you’d like to get involved in the project, please email laura@devilsporridge.org.uk. This week volunteer Peter shares his research into his grandfather, Harry Marchanton Lowe.

Harry was born on 5th November 1890 in Manchester. His father, Francis, was a house painter who owned his own business and employed at least one man, and his mother, Elizabeth, worked as a teacher before her marriage. In June 1908, Harry began studying at Manchester Pupil Teacher College, following in the footsteps of his mother. He also made paint from raw ores; size and distemper  for his father’s painting business.

In October 1909 Harry started to attend Manchester University, where he studied Chemistry, Physics, Maths, and German. Sometime after June 1912, Harry resigned from the College. He began working at Ironhirst Peat Works at Mouswald, before moving to Chance & Hunt H.M. Factory, Site B., Oldbury, Worcestershire in December 1915.

H M Lowe and his address mentioned in the Dornock Farewell, one of the staff magazines at HM Factory Gretna.

In August 1917, Harry married Jessie. They would have three children–Mary, Jessie and Alexander. Mary was born at Dornock, which was where Harry was working at the time–at HM Factory Gretna. Harry was in charge of explosives production, and he and his family lived on Falkland Road in Eastriggs.

Peter has a great collection of family stories relating to his grandfather.

Family stories: 

    1. responsible for fire at St Pancras that destroyed much of station.
    2. recommended showers for all explosives workers before going off shift. However, there were vociferous complaints by the women against taking showers; they were afraid they would be spied on by the men and some felt it wasn’t natural to wash all over every day.
    3. recommended all explosive workers to be checked before starting to ensure no metal.
    4. recommended all explosive workers to wear garments without pockets.
    5. recommended all workers mixing chemicals wear a mask covering face and nose.
    6. A particular problem, he said, was that women would arrive with metal hairslides and hair pins in their hair and be very indignant when told to remove them.
    7. His daughter, Jessie, ‘remembered’ that he managed the stirring of the ‘devil’s porridge’.
    8. Invented or extended the “Noughts and Crosses” cipher, which although simple to use, is difficult to decode, especially when used in drawings.
    9. At Dorman Long, he worked on tar distillation and production of artificial fibres.
    10. He taught mechanics at a local WorkingMan’s institute.
    11. Devised lots of mathematical puzzles, including knight’s tours, crossnumber, and the puzzle now known as Sudoku (I think he called it NumberFit!).
    12. On his way to a conference, he stayed overnight at the County Hotel, Selkirk. He had a disturbed night because all night, a lady in a long white Victorian dress walked past the foot of his bed and out through the wall. He mentioned this to the hotelier the next morning, who begged him not to tell anyone and cancelled his bill. The current owner is a Norwegian. He hadn’t heard this story but he did say that other guests (before he took over) had seen ghosts.
    13. Claimed to be English Draughts Champion but name doesn’t appear in English Draughts Association’s list of champions, however I never saw him lose a game of draughts.
    14. I saw an article in Boys Own Paper (the 1898 volume) about how to make a bang. I tried it and there was no bang. I told my grandfather and he told me I was very lucky to be alive. He demonstrated how to make it safely and properly. He put some on a tree stump, threw a stone and nothing happened. He threw a very heavy hammer at it and there was a loud bang. It destroyed the hammer and split the stump. “That could have been your hand or head” he said.
    15. Was intensively competitive, especially at Scrabble
    16. Spoke and read German and went to conferences in Europe.
    17. Around 1935, on the road near Foyers, while dealing with a puncture, saw Loch Ness monster carrying off a lamb.

In 1946, Peter was elected as a fellow of the Institute of Chemistry, and in 1954 he retired. He passed away in St Albans in 1979.

A horse pulled wagon with Hegla Gill on doing suffrage work.

Worker of the Week: Helga Gill

By Collections blog

Worker of the Week is a weekly blogpost series which will highlight one of the workers at H.M. Gretna our volunteers have researched for The Miracle Workers Project. This is an exciting project that aims to centralise all of the 30,000 people who worked at Gretna during World War One. If you want to find out more, or if you’d like to get involved in the project, please email laura@devilsporridge.org.uk. This week Research Assistant Laura shares volunteer Peter’s research into Helga Gill.

We only found out about Helga’s connections with HM Factory Gretna in an obituary written after her sudden and untimely death in 1928. Published in The Woman’s Leader, a publication closely associated with the National Union of Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), it is mentioned:

“She [Helga] mothered and disciplined the girl workers in the great explosive works at Gretna, and steadied them in the darkened buildings under the purr of the Zeppelin overhead.”[1]

So how did this woman who seemed at first glance to have connections the women’s suffrage movement end up at working at HM Factory Gretna? One of our volunteers, Peter, was determined to find out!

Helga Gill was born in Bergan, Norway, in 1885. Her parents were Johan Klerk Gill and Karen Marie Ottilia Gill, and Helga grew up the oldest of six siblings. Having completed her education in Norway, Helga went on holiday to Britain, and it was there that she became acquainted with the Corbett family.

The Corbett family were a prominent political family then based in East Grinstead. Marie Corbett was a poor law guardian, suffragist and supporter of the Liberal party. Her husband, Charles, was a barrister and MP elected in 1906 for the Liberal party. Their daughters, Cicely and Margery, were both feminist activists.

Cicely Corbett Fisher. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. (1913).

It was at a celebration party for Charles’ recent election to parliament in January 1906, that Helga first enters the historical picture. According to Mapping Women’s Suffrage, Helga appeared on a platform alongside the Corbett family.[2] However, it wasn’t until 1908 that Helga began to appear regularly in newspaper articles for her suffrage activism.

As a Norwegian woman, Helga had been able to vote in national elections in her own country provided she could establish that she made a minimum income or if she was married to a male voter from 1907. These requirements were abolished in 1913, when universal suffrage was established in Norway.[3]

Helga participated in the Worcester by-election in 1908, speaking to local audiences and putting pressure on candidates to declare whether or not they supported women’s suffrage.[4] She ‘made herself stiff’ chalking notices on to the pavement, and drove a ‘press cart’ that was stocked with copies of Votes for Women to be handed out upon the release of WSPU prisoners.[5] She began giving lectures, [6] and took part in local election activism in Chelmsford.[7] Mapping Women’s Suffrage states that by this point she was an NUWSS organiser, and regularly travelling the country to spread the suffrage word![8]

Helga pictured doing suffrage work

This hard work only continued in 1909 and beyond. In 1909 she was appointed organiser for Lancashire, as well as participating in by-election campaigns in Edinburgh, Stratford-Upon-Avon and Mid Derbyshire. She spent a month in Wales, and in the summer undertook a horse-drawn caravan campaign across the country with fellow NUWSS supporters.[9]

Like so many suffrage activists, Helga was dedicated to the cause, and spent the years before the outbreak of war in 1914 criss-crossing the country, giving talks and spreading the message. Her perspective as a Norwegian woman who, in her own country possessed the vote, was a valuable one and was often highlighted in promotional material.[10] By 1912 she was a paid employee of the NUWSS, as Organiser for Oxford, Berks, and Bucks. In that same year, she was sent on a tour of Ireland by the NUWSS.[11] Writing about her after her death, Helga’s colleagues gave a sense of her character:

‘Her pluck was marvellous. When the fishermen refused to listen she accepted their challenge and sailed one of their boats over a dangerous bar. She won the bet and addressed a sympathetic crowd, as the gleet lay at anchor, from one of the decks. “Women don’t know nothing,” came from a heckler. “Ask what you like,” was the quick retort, and the crowd cheered as she recited accurately the batting averages of different countries! We cherish the vision of Helga rebuffed by a ducal butler. The duke intervened, and as aplogy offered to show her round the priceless picture gallery. “No thanks, your graciousness, I haven’t time.”’[12]

Even the famous leader of the suffragists, Millicent Fawcett, noted ‘the delightful personality of the late Helga Gill.”[13]

But in 1914 war broke out, and the NUWSS pivoted to aiding the war effort. One of their war projects was the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH). Sprearheaded by pioneering doctor, Elsie Inglis, and funded by donations, the SWH was a groups of medical units staffed entirely by women. With bases established in France and Serbia during the war, the doctors, drivers, nurses and orderlies of the SWH cared for badly injured soldiers and were stationed close to the front line. They often demonstrated bravery in the most trying of cirmcumstances—many worked whilst under fire and some SWH members even died in the course of their duties.[14]

Helga pictured as part of her SWH unit.

It appears Helga was involved with the SWH from its inception. In December 1914, she left for France as part of the French Hospital Unit. Her role was described as a ‘dresser’. However, once at Royamount Abbey, where the hospital was based, Helga worked as an ambulance driver, transporting injured men from the front line to the hospital. This was a particularly dangerous job, and she was often ‘in danger of being killed by shells.”[15] During one particularly fraught drive, “Between the line and the hospital her back wheels were shot away, her driving wheel was splintered between her hands.’[16]

In addition to this, essential medical tools were in short supply. In 1915 Helga wrote a letter to an NUWSS branch ’ sending greetings to the meeting and appealing for help, “the men were dying like flies from preventable causes.”[17] Helga was awarded a number of medals for her service, British War Medal, British Victory Medal, Croix de Guerre, and Medaille des Epidemies.

The stress of working so close to the front and in such a high pressure job had adverse effects on Helga’s heart, and so she came to work at HM Factory Gretna. As she is described in her obiturary as ‘mothering’ and ‘disciplining the girls’, I suspect she was part of the Welfare Department at the factory.

The Welfare Department, although Helga isn’t pictured

As described by our volunteer Virginia in her excellent article on welfare[18]:

“Lady superintendents were a vital part in the operations of a munition factory. Behind the factory walls, lady superintendents were the hidden cornerstones of support for female munition workers during the demands of the First World War. In maintaining the health and wellbeing of her workers, lady superintendents enabled factory production to continue and the demands of War to be efficiently met. Therefore, lady superintendents should be regarded as protecting the progress of munition factories during the First World War, as much as guardians of welfare.”

After the war ended, Helga adopted a child and became heavily involved in the Women’s Institute. However, her health was permanently affected from her war time service. Her death was sudden and tragic. She passed away after a car accident in 1928, aged only 43.

[1] The Women’s Leader, 30th November 1928, p. 7.

[2] https://map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/items/show/265

[3] Blom, I., 1980. The struggle for women’s suffrage in Norway, 1885–1913. Scandinavian Journal of History, 5(1-4), pp.3-22.

[4] Women’s Franchise, 6th February 1908, p. 6.

[5] Women’s Franchise, 13th February 1908, p. 6.; Votes for Women, 24th September 1908, p. 4.

[6] Women’s Franchise, 17th December 1908, p. 6.; Women’s Franchise, 24th December 1908, p. 6.

[7] Women’s Franchise, 24th December 1908, p. 6.

[8] https://map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/items/show/265

[9] https://map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/items/show/265

[10] For example see: Lisburn Standard, 3rd February 1912, p. 4.

[11] Common Cause, 9th May 1912, p. 8.

[12] Common Cause, 30th November 1928, p. 7.

[13] Common Cause, 7 December 1928. P. 2.

[14] Crofton, E., 2012. The women of Royaumont. Edinburgh: John Donald.

[15] Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 27th November 1915, p. 4.

[16] The Women’s Leader, 30th November 1928, p. 7.

[17] Common Cause 19th February 1915., p. 11.

[18] Guardians of Welfare: The Role of Female Superintendents in Munition Factories and their Contribution to Female Workers during the First World War – Devils Porridge Museum

Colourised photo of the Mossband Swifts football team from 1917.

Women’s Football at Gretna

By Collections blog

The Miracle Workers Research Project began in 2021, with research volunteers striving to find out more about the 30,000 people who worked at HM Factory Gretna in World War One. In the months since, many fascinating and previously unknown histories have been uncovered. Today, volunteer Stuart writes about his research into football at Gretna.

Women’s football is not new and was recorded in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. One reference, talks of a match between Scottish Border towns of Lennel and Coldstream, on the Ash Wedensday of 1786 (February 21st 1786). A literary magazine The Berwick Museum noted that the female teams did battle with ‘uncommon keenness’. On January 25th 1896 Mrs Graham (Helen Matthew) visited the Warwick Road Rugby Ground in Carlisle with her resident opposition, London & District to slug out an uninspired 0-0 draw. In a later fixture against a Gentlemen’s XI in Penrith, Mrs Graham’s side won 4-3 and it was noted that the ladies played better against the men’s side than they did against fellow women.

Helen Matthew appeared at the Warwick Road Rugby Ground with her side Mrs Graham’s XI in 1896

An increased need for munitions during WW1 saw centres for arms production spring up across the country. A large proportion of the work force employed were women and among the sports they played football was particularly prevalent. By the spring of 1917 few areas in the country did not have a women’s football side. HM Gretna was no different from other centres producing at least three sides. Little, however, is known about these teams with few references of their activities in the press. Sports in general received sparse coverage with hockey limited to one small article; even the Gretna and Dornock men’s leagues only received coverage for one round of fixtures on 23 November 1917. In view of this, women’s football did better than most and from the copy that was produced new details can be revealed.

In a report on the recreation department’s activities, Ernest Taylor noted that ‘one or two’ sides played on pitches supplied by the Recreation Department. He also observed that there was ‘some division of opinion as to the wisdom on encouraging them to pursue this branch of sport’. For members of the Gretna Social and Athletic committee such as Kenneth Wolfe-Barry or Mabel Cotterell, football for women would have been anthemia but it wasn’t quite so out of the ordinary for Ernest Taylor. As a newspaper man in the south east during the 1890s he was familiar with the various sides, including Mrs Graham’s XI. From his time on the committee of the London Football Association he would also have been aware of the motion put forward to the full FA Council in 1902 by Kent FA Chairman, J. Albert, to prohibit league clubs from competing against women’s sides. The Athletic Committee didn’t recognise the women’s sides and they initially weren’t part of formal events. By the same token the sides weren’t prohibited either, the core objective of keeping the workers occupied in the plant and away from outside influences remained paramount.

A Gretna side pictured in the winter of 1917 a manager from the Mossband section J.S. Parker can be seen on the far left

The first side from the works appeared during June 1917 for a match against Carlisle Munition Girls at the city’s Brunton Park. The side called the Gretna Girls seem to have been drawn from the ranks of the established hockey teams. One player that has been identified, Jessie Rome Latimer seems to appear in a team picture of the Dornock Hockey side. Born in Annan in 1891 Jessie was active in local music and drama groups taking part in fund rising concerts for war charities. At the Gretna works she performed as part of a variety concert at the Central Hall in Eastriggs on May 17 1917. There are no records of her exploits on the hockey field but there was a substantial write up of the Gretna Girls visit to Carlisle on 9 June 1917.

Possible image of Jessie Latimer from Dornock Hockey side team picture 1917 and a later picture of Jessie taken in the 1920s

During the summer of 1917 a new side formed at the Mossband section. Called the Mossband Swifts the squad was made up largely from the workers of A Shift. Mossband’s captain was A. Riddell and a possible candidate in the records is Annie Riddell, born in Galashiels in 1899.

Possible image of A. Riddell captain of the Mossband Swifts

This is yet to be confirmed but another player Mary Annie Anderson has been identified as having played for the side. Born in Scotland at Kirkpatrick Fleming, a village close to Annan, she was 16 when she started playing for the Swifts. An early match for the side was at Maryport where they took part in football competition as part of the Alexander Day Sports Fete. This was one of the early women’s football tournaments the first taking place in Woverhampton in March 1917 these small competitions led to larger events such as the Workington Cup, the Barrow Shield and most famous of all the, Alfred Wood Munition Girls Cup.

Mossband Swifts side August 1917 Mossband section manager Herbert Hawtin can be seen standing second from the right

It wasn’t a good trip to Maryport for the Swifts, however, losing 1-0 in the first round to the eventual tournament winners Cockermouth. On September 15th the Mossband Swifts visited Carlisle where they met workers of the local Cumberland works at Brunton Park home of Carlisle Utd. The Carlisle side went ahead after Miss Graham scored from a first half penalty. In the second period however Mary Anderson took the ball up field and her cross into the area, found M. McAdo to equalise. McAdo scored again but it was ruled offside and another chance just before time was missed, leaving the match tied at 1-1.

Carlisle Journal Aug 1917 Mossband at the Maryport competition

The Swifts made further trips to Carlisle in December 1917 and in January 1918 met a side consisting of wounded soldiers. Mossband players were also part of the Carlisle Munitions Girls side when they took on Blyth Spartans in the spring of 1918. Blyth were well on their way to winning Alfred Wood Munition Girls Cup and the strengthened Carlisle side were no match. Star player Bella Reay bagged a total of five goals as Blyth won handsomely over the two legs.

Carlisle Munition Girls played at Brunton Park from 1917 to 1918

However, attitudes within the Gretna plant towards the women’s teams seemed to change. Matches were included in the programme for fund raising events during May 1918 with new sides forming at Broomhills, an acid section to the far south of Eastriggs, to take part. On 17 August 1918 a women’s football tournament was organised as part of the Munitions workers carnival held at Eastriggs. The tournament included B Shift and C Shift from Broomhills, but again there are few details of the matches or an indication of the eventual winners.

Broomhills Canteen

The report in the Annandale Observer seemed to be more interested in the crowd::

 

The Ladies Football matches called for a crowd of enthusiastic and amused spectators, who “played the game” in the full sprit of football patronage, cheering and encouraging their favourite team or player as occasion demanded.

 

This was the last reference to women’s football at Gretna. After the war, Jessie Latimer married a dentist William Armstrong Fyfe in 1920. They lived in Edinburgh and later in Grimsby where William worked at a dental practice on the Grimsby Road until 1929 when William died. Following her husband’s death Jessie moved back to Scotland and lived for many years in Lockerby where she died in April 1958. Mary Annie Anderson settled in Carlisle and in the spring of 1921 married Joseph Irving Lightfoot a former army veteran. By 1939 Mary was working in unpaid domestic work while Joseph was a Railway goods guard. Joseph Lightfoot died in 1964 and Mary Annie Lightfoot in 1976.

Dumfries Ladies and Dick Kerr players at Warwick Road Rugby Ground in 1923

There is no evidence that either player continued with football after leaving Gretna. Many of the old factory sides disbanded after the war but new sides formed and by the 1920s matches were taking place in the district once again. Dumfries Ladies founded in the autumn of 1921 playing against Dick Kerr Ladies at Queen of the South’s ground and in 1923 they met again in Carlisle at the Warwick Road ground. It is often stated that women’s football fizzed out after the FA’s ‘ban’ in 1921 but this is close to being a sporting myth. Although the actions of the football authorities seriously hurt the women’s game, it did continue and matches played during the 1920s and 30s could still attract between ten and fifteen thousand spectators. When a French Select and the successor side to Dick Kerr, Preston Ladies, visited Warwick Road, Carlisle in 1953, they too attracted a large crowd. A former organiser of the Carlisle Munition Girls, Alfred Punnett, was also there and welcomed the sides in his role as Carlisle’s Mayor. There are still local sides competing today, with Annan Athletic Women entering the Scottish League in 2019 and Carlisle United Women winning the Cumberland County Cup in 2015, 2017 and 2018.

Agnes Barr Auchencloss and Gosta Lundholm in a car.

Workers of the Week: Agnes Barr Auchencloss and Gosta Lundholm

By Collections blog

Worker of the Week is a weekly blogpost series which will highlight one of the workers at H.M. Gretna our volunteers have researched for The Miracle Workers Project. This is an exciting project that aims to centralise all of the 30,000 people who worked at Gretna during World War One. If you want to find out more, or if you’d like to get involved in the project, please email laura@devilsporridge.org.uk. This week Research Assistant Laura shares her research into Agnes Barr Auchencloss and Gosta Lundholm.

Agnes and Gosta were a married couple, who both worked at HM Factory Gretna during WW1. Agnes, a qualified doctor, worked as a medical officer, and Gosta, who was, before the war, an experienced chemist working at the Modderfotein Explosives Factory in South Africa, became Assistant Section Manager of the Nitro-Glycerine Section.

Gosta was born at Polmont Cottage in Stirlingshire, Scotland, in 1886. His father, Carl Olof, was a manager of a Dynamite Works and had been born in Sweden, although by 1891 he was a naturalised British subject. The Lundholm family had a long association with both the manufacture of explosives and Alfred Nobel, the famous Swedish chemist who held the patent for dynamite. Lundholm family lore tells that Gosta’s grandfather, Ola Lundholm, was the secret illegitimate son of the Swedish King–King Charles XIV John.

Agnes was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1886. Her father, James Currie Auchencloss (also spelt Auchenschloss and Auchencloss in some sources) was a starch manufacturer according to her birth record. Agnes was, for a woman of her time period, highly educated — she graduated with a medical degree from the University of Glasgow in 1911, and before she married Gosta worked in the Royal Alexandra Infirmary in her hometown. Gosta attended the Edinburgh Academy for his schooling and later studied chemistry at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum in Zürich. After graduating, he obtained a job in South Africa.

Agnes in her graduation robes

Gosta and Agnes married in Cape Town in July 1914, having their first son, Eric Olof, the following year. However, on the outbreak of war Gosta’s skills in chemistry were desperately needed back at home, and so from June 1916 he began working at HM Factory Gretna. Agnes and Eric Olof joined him, the family living at No. 9 The Ridge.

In 1917, King George V and Queen Mary toured the factory, and Agnes met Their Majesties. She said to the King: “It’s good to be in the hands of a kent face” Kent means well known, or familiar. The King appreciated Agnes’ remark!

Gordon Routledge describes Gosta as one of the ‘leading chemists’ at HM Factory Gretna, and it appears that he was well-known and well liked there! He appears in the Mossband Farewell, one of the magazines put together by staff at the end of the war. Although we know less about Agnes’ role at the factory, it is probable that as a medical officer in a munitions factory, she was kept busy attending to injuries and illnesses, and also regularly checking worker’s health given how often they came into contact with dangerous chemicals.

After the war, the family returned to South Africa, with Gosta returning to his job at the explosives factory. Agnes offered medical aid to locals, and her son Eric Olof later wrote of one particular occasion when there was: “an Afrikaner family on a farmstead out on the veldt, stricken by typhoid fever. My Mother did not drive, but my Father would drive us to the isolated farm where my Mother did all she could, and sorrowed for the Parents when alas some of the children died.” Agnes and Gosta had their second child, a son named Alan, in 1921.

Gosta Lundholm

The Lundholm family returned to Scotland in the 1920s. Gosta continued his career, working firstly Superintendent of the Lead Azide manufacture at Westquarter, Nobel’s ICI Detonator Factory, and then as Senior Superintendent at the new Detonator Department at Ardeer. Agnes joined the Women’s Citizen Association and regularly visited the poorhouse, and the boys attended local schools. In the Ardeer Employee Information, Gosta is described as:

he loved motoring, tennis for which he won several cups, and later in life, sailing. Also DIY long before the term was coined. He had a pleasant singing voice and loved opera.
Towards the end of 1967 he took part in a sound radio documentary about the factory in the sandhills…. He was in great demand for factory dinners, recollects his son, Alan. He was teetotaller and could safely transport a carload to and from!

Gosta retired in the 1940s, and passed away in 1969, with Agnes passing three years later. Their son, Eric Olof, later spoke about his parents in an oral history interview:

My father and mother were very good people…Mother’s family lived in Paisley near Glasgow, her father died young, worked in the manufactory of cornflower. Mother qualified as a medical doctor in 1911. Father was working in a Factory in South Africa, parents married in Cape Town. Father studied chemistry in Zurich, but took a British qualification in Industrial Chemistry…but when the war started he was brought back to Britain to an enormous munitions factory at Gretna in the South of Scotland, and my mother came with him, and myself also, and my mother was employed as a factory doctor there…My father was a very quiet sort of person but I think very loving of his wife and of myself and my brother Alan…An interesting coincidence here, when my mother qualified as a doctor she went for one of her early postgraduate jobs to the Royal Alexander Infirmary in Paisley, a small hospital, and in 1950 when I qualified, my first year as a doctor was in that same hospital and I may indeed have occupied the same bed sitting room, I would have certainly eaten meals in the same dining room as she did so many years before.

Gosta, Agnes, and one of their sons.

Chief Lady Superintendent Miss Lilian Barker CBE, Woolwich Arsenal.

Guardians of Welfare: The Role of Female Superintendents in Munition Factories and their Contribution to Female Workers during the First World War

By Collections blog

The Miracle Workers Research Project began in 2021, with research volunteers striving to find out more about the 30,000 people who worked at HM Factory Gretna in World War One. In the months since, many fascinating and previously unknown histories have been uncovered. Today, volunteer Virginia writes about her research into lady superintendents.

The origins of lady superintendents in munition factories originated in mid-1915.[1] As the production of shells increased during this period, the Ministry of Munition needed to maintain the welfare of female munition workers.[2] The role of the lady superintendents, also referred to as Welfare Supervisors, was to, therefore, care for female factory workers.[3] The blog explores the diverse qualities and duties of female superintendents in munition factories during the First World War. Their many responsibilities were vital to guaranteeing the health and wellbeing of munition workers and consequently supporting the War effort.

Qualities of Lady Superintendents in munition factories during the First World War

Maintaining welfare in a munition factory required lady superintendents to possess and reflect various qualities to address the different needs of individual workers. They also had to understand and effectively respond to the demands and challenges munition factories posed.

In his book, ‘The Woman’s Part: A Record of Munitions Work’, from 1918, L.K. Yates referred to lady superintendents as ‘capable.’[4] Yates suggests that they had to be skilful and effective when addressing the needs and enquiries of their female workers. To do this required lady superintendents to be adaptable towards each female worker.

The need to be astute also applies to lady superintendents in munition factories. They had to assess situations and implement suitable responses to maintain the welfare of female workers, whilst maintaining efficiency in the factory.  In the ‘Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’, employers in Britain’s munition factories praise the efficiency of lady superintendents towards work problems.[5] Lady superintendents were valued by their employees and munition factory operatives deemed their work essential in enabling the factory to run.

Another quality that applied to the role of lady superintendents was authoritativeness. To protect workers from the dangers of working in a munition factory, they had to uphold order and discipline amongst female workers. Under her supervision, workers did not become distracted or disorderly, which supported their safety and further enabled efficiency in meeting production demands.

As Welfare Supervisors, lady superintendents had to be dependable for female workers requiring her help. They also had to be reliable in effectively addressing the needs and concerns of workers. Due to this, lady superintendents were given a great responsibility in being a constant source of support and comfort for female munition workers during the War.

 

Roles of Lady Superintendents during the First World War

Guardians of Welfare

From their establishment in 1915, the main role of lady superintendents was to ensure the welfare of female munition workers. Within this duty, they were responsible for inspecting restrooms so that they met health standards.[6] Lady superintendents also inspected workrooms to maintain a healthy working environment.[7] They would report poor ventilation and uncleanness, for example, to the manager for correction.[8]

Lady superintendents were also responsible for providing healthy living conditions for factory workers.[9] If a lady superintendents deemed these unsuitable, she had the authority to inform the factory manager.[10] Aside from maintaining the health and wellbeing of female workers in the factory, these responsibilities infiltrated into the private lives of female workers. This reflects the extensive lengths lady superintendents went to in order to protect their workers.

Due to the limited availability of the factory manager to regularly inspect the factory, lady superintendents were crucial in preventing health risks in the factory. They also advised the factory manager on the physical health of individual workers.[11] In outlining dangers to the factory manager and providing information on the health of workers, lady superintendents reflected their duty of care towards female workers. However, this also enabled factory production to meet demands.

Dame Lilian Barker was a prominent Lady Superintendent at Woolwich Arsenal and oversaw 30,000 female workers.[12] Lilian knew all of her female workers individually, enabling her to respond to their personal needs.[13] In 1944, she received a DBE for her “services in connection with the welfare of women and girl.’’[14] Her DBE signifies the extents she went to and significant impact she had, in ensuring the health and wellbeing of her female workers.

 

Chief Lady Superintendent Miss Lilian Barker CBE, Woolwich Arsenal. Courtesy of Imperial War Museums. © IWM WWC D8-4-158. [15]

Other welfare issues addressed to factory managers concerned the suitability of work for female workers.[16] Lady superintendents observed women’s work in the munition factory and reported work they deemed unfit for workers.[17] In doing so, lady superintendents incorporated their astuteness to provide their duty of care for female workers and maintain their health.

Lady superintendents also had medical responsibilities including curing illnesses, cooperating with nurses and doctors alongside managing first aid.[18] According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics in 1918, they also had the ability to make long term positive changes to women’s health. For example, they could offer appropriate diets and exercises for women.[19] They were also expected to identify fatigue in workers and advise women on how to preserve energy, such as changing their posture.[20] Through their advice, lady Superintendents further helped to maintain the health and efficiency of factories.

Addressing complaints was another responsibility of lady superintendents which contributed to the welfare of workers. Alongside knowing the wages of all workers, they had to report complaints, including wages to the manager.[21] For the female workers, lady superintendents provided a voice for their concerns within the factory. Lady superintendents, therefore, helped to relieve anxiety and stress amongst workers, reducing discontent in the factory.[22]

Through these various responsibilities, lady superintendents sought to prevent mistreatment of female workers and ensure them that she was the guardians of their welfare.[23]

Domestic responsibilities

To further support their provision of welfare, lady superintendents managed catering so that factory workers were well nourished.[24] They also guaranteed a supply of workwear, including overalls and shoes, further enabling the factory to run efficiently.[25]

A significant responsibility of female superintendents was supervising night shifts.[26] Not only did they provide continued protection for workers during the night, but her supervision prevented disorderly behaviour, which threatened production.

Moral and Social Responsibilities

In 1917, an employer of a munition factory in Britain stated:

’Generally speaking, we consider it very essential to have a lady superintendent where female workers are employed, and especially where there are men working in the same department.’’[27]

The need to have a lady superintendent amongst a male and female workforce strengthens the guardianship role of Lady Superintendents towards female munition workers. The munition manager implies how crucial lady superintendents were in instilling discipline amongst workers and in preventing distractions at work.

Whilst lady superintendents maintained morality in their female workers, they were also important in boosting morale for their female workers during the First World War.[28] Lady superintendents were to reflect positivity towards female munition workers and make sure that women understood the significance of their work during the War.[29]

Similarly to ensuring suitable living conditions for female workers, they visited female workers outside of the home.[30] Their visits emphasise how their duty of care and protection towards female workers extended beyond the munition factory. Visiting homes of workers also enabled lady superintendents to further understand the personal lives of their workers enabling them to effectively respond to their needs.

Lady superintendents also played an important role in the lives of their workers outside the factory by providing recreational activities.[31] Recreational clubs were created by lady superintendents, allowing female munition workers to rest and socialise outside the factory.[32]

Dorothée Aurélie Marianne Pullinger was a Lady Superintendent who catered for workers beyond the munition factory. During the First World War, Dorothee worked at the munition factory under the Vickers engineering company.[33] Overseeing 7000 female workers, she established an apprenticeship scheme for female munition workers.[34] Dorothee’s apprenticeships show that alongside the welfare of workers, she invested in the progression and welfare of her workers even after the War.

Lady superintendents were a vital part in the operations of a munition factory. Behind the factory walls, lady superintendents were the hidden cornerstones of support for female munition workers during the demands of the First World War. In maintaining the health and wellbeing of her workers, lady superintendents enabled factory production to continue and the demands of War to be efficiently met. Therefore, lady superintendents should be regarded as protecting the progress of munition factories during the First World War, as much as guardians of welfare.

By Virginia Quigley

Bibliography

Carr, Jessica, Women’s Work in Munitions Factories during The First World War: Gender, Class and Public Opinion (Northumbria, 2016)

Yates, L.K., The Woman’s Part: A Record of Munitions Work (Alexandria, 1918)

Health of Munition Workers, Great Britain, ‘Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’

Vol. 2, No. 5 (1916), pp. 66-70

U.S. Department of Labor United States Training Service C.T. Clayton, Industrial Training for Foundry Workers, Training Bulletin  No. 24 (Washington, 1919)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilian_Barker

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205379875

U.S. Department of  Labor Statistics, Proceedings of the Employment Managers’ Conference, Rochester, N.Y., May 9, 10, 11, 1918. January, 1919

Great Britain. Ministry of Munitions. Health of Munition Workers Committee. Welfare Work in British Munition Factories: Reprints of the Memoranda of the British Health of Munition Workers Committee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doroth%C3%A9e_Pullinger

 

 

[1] Jessica Carr, Women’s Work in Munitions Factories during The First World War: Gender, Class and Public Opinion (Northumbria, 2016), p. 14.

[2] Ibid., p. 14.

[3] Ibid., p. 14.

[4] L.K. Yates, The Woman’s Part: A Record of Munitions Work (Alexandria, 1918), p. 60.

[5] Health of Munition Workers, Great Britain, ‘Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’

Vol. 2, No. 5 (1916), p. 68.

[6] U.S. Department of Labor United States Training Service C.T. Clayton, Industrial Training for Foundry Workers, Training Bulletin  No. 24 (Washington, 1919), p. 38.

[7] Ibid., p. 38.

[8] Ibid., p. 38.

[9] Ibid., p. 38.

[10] Ibid., p. 38.

[11] Ibid., p. 38.

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilian_Barker (accessed: 19/08/2021)

[13] Carr, Women’s Work, p. 14.

[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilian_Barker (accessed: 19/08/2021)

[15] https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205379875, accessed: 25/08/2021

[16] Ibid., p. 38.

[17] Ibid., p. 38.

[18] Ibid, p. 39.

[19] U.S. Department of  Labor Statistics, Proceedings of the Employment Managers’ Conference, Rochester, N.Y., May 9, 10, 11, 1918. January, 1919 (Washington, 1919), p. 14.

[20] Ibid., p. 14.

[21] Bulletin, p. 38.

[22] Ibid., p. 38.

[23] Ibid., p. 37.

[24] Great Britain. Ministry of Munitions. Health of Munition Workers Committee. Welfare Work in British Munition Factories: Reprints of the Memoranda of the British Health of Munition Workers Committee (Washington, 1917), p. 25.

[25] Bulletin, p 38.

[26] Ibid, p. 39.

[27] Ministry of Munitions, Welfare Work, p. 25.

[28] Bulletin, p. 37.

[29] Ibid., p. 37.

[30] Carr, Women’s Work, p. 14.

[31] Ibid., p. 39.

[32] Ibid., p. 39.

[33] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doroth%C3%A9e_Pullinger, (accessed: 19/08/2021)

[34] Ibid

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