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The Womanpower Problem in Britain during the Second World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Harold L. Smith
Harold L. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Houston at Victoria
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Extract

At the national women's conference convened by the government in September 1943 Winston Churchill assured the women delegates that the contribution to the war effort by British women had ‘definitely altered those social and sex balances which years of convention had established’. His belief that the war had brought about profound changes in the status of women was shared by contemporary authors attempting to evaluate the effect of the war on British women. Studies written near the end of the war by Margaret Goldsmith and Gertrude Williams refer to a wartime ‘revolution’ in the position of women. Both authors defined this revolution primarily in terms of the changed position of women workers.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 925 - 945
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Report of the proceedings of the National Conference of Women called by H.M. Government (London, 1943), p. 6Google Scholar. Institution of Electrical Engineers, Caroline Haslett papers, NAEST 33/8.6.

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7 Women paid in 9d. weekly compared to 10d. for men, but received a weekly benefit of 15s. versus 17s. for men.

8 The differentiation in rates of compensation was defended by the minister of pensions on the ground that it reflected the differentiation between men's and women's wages in industry. See the minutes of the meeting between the minister of pensions and a deputation organized by the BFBPW, 30 January 1941. Public Record Office (P.R.O.), PIN 15/2302.

9 See the memorandum entitled ‘Progress report. Restrictions on non-essential industries’ included with the minutes of the Joint Consultative Committee of the ministry of labour, 29 May 1941. P.R.O., LAB 8/843.

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13 See the memorandum on manpower presented to the war cabinet by Brown on 20 February 1940. W.C. 47 (40) 1. P.R.O., CAB 65/5 and the re-assertion of his position in a subsequent memorandum to the war cabinet on 7 March 1940. P.R.O., LAB 25/143.

14 See the Caroline Haslett papers, NAEST 33/13.

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17 Ibid. Also see The Times, 15 February 1940.

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21 Minutes of the Woman Power Committee, 11 July 1940. British Library of Political and Economic Science.

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24 Minutes of the SJCWWO General Purposes Committee, 5 June 1941. British Library.

25 Ellen Wilkinson to Ernest Bevin, 3 July 1940. P.R.O., LAB 26/59.

26 Report of the 11th annual conference of representatives of unions catering for women workers, 19 April 1941, p. 11. TUC Library.

27 See the memorandum to the lord privy seal from the WPC, 20 September 1940. P.R.O., LAB 26/59.

28 See the journal of the BFBPW, Women at work (November 1940), pp. 6–7.

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51 Inside the ministry of labour this policy was being urged by Verena Holmes. See her memorandum, ‘Women's wages on munitions work’, 12 March 1941. P.R.O., LAB 8/378.

52 Minutes of the TUC General Council, 4 February 1941. TUC archives.

53 See the testimony by Sir Thomas Phillips, secretary of the ministry of labour, on 17 December 1942 in the minutes of evidence included in the Report of the select committee on equal compensation, Parliamentary Papers, 1942–43, p. 30.

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61 See the minutes of the BBC Control Board, 12 March to 7 May 1941. BBC Written Archives Centre, R3/3/16.

62 See W. J. Haley, director general of the BBC, to the secretary of the royal commission on equal pay, 26 April 1945. BBC, File R 49/177. Another example of increased sex differentiation during the war is that of the London County Council, which had an equal pay system prior to the war, but which adopted the civil service principle of sex-differentiated war bonus when the war broke out.

63 Minutes of the Woman Power Committee, 24 February and 4 August, 1942.

64 Minutes of the Woman Power Committee, 2 March 1943.

65 C. Attlee to I. Ward, 25 May 1943. P.R.O., CAB 118/75.

66 Report of the 18th annual conference of unions catering for women workers, April 1943, p. 25.

67 Report of the proceedings of the National Conference of Women called by H.M. Government, p. 41.

68 A copy of the report exists in the G. D. H. Cole papers at Nuffield College, Oxford. See file B 3/4/c, folio 8.

69 S. Cripps to W. Jowitt, 3 September 1942. P.R.O., CAB 117/151.

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90 See the updated memorandum on the amendment to clause 23 of the Education Bill by the secretary of the board of education in P.R.O., Ed 136/480.

91 Memorandum on the amendment to Clause 23 of the Education Bill by Chuter Ede, 6 March 1944. P.R.O., Ed 136/480.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid. In his 7 March memorandum to John Anderson, Butler cites Chuter Ede's arguments in favour of ending the marriage bar, thus implying that these influenced his decision to support reform. See Butler to Anderson, 7 March 1944. P.R.O., Ed 136/467.

94 Minutes of the Woman Power Committee, 27 February 1945 and Women at work, XVIII (spring 1945), 9Google Scholar.

95 Minutes of the Woman Power Committee, 13 March 1945.

96 Report of the civil service National Whitley Council committee on the marriage bar, Parliamentary Papers, 1945–46 (Cmd. 6886).

97 Cabinet minutes, 9 September 1946. Cabinet 80 (46) 6. P.R.O., CAB 128/6.

98 Marwick, , War and social change, p. 160Google Scholar.

99 The source which Marwick cites makes no reference at all to the marriage bar. See the appendix to the Report on pensions of unestablished civil servants, Parliamentary Papers, 1945–46 (Cmnd. 6942). From his remarks it appears that he is referring to the appendīx to the Report of the civil service National Whitley Council committee on the marriage bar cited above.

100 The shortage became so severe that in 1947 the ministry of labour initiated an organized campaign to persuade women to seek employment. See Thomas, Geoffrey, Women and industry (London, 1948), p. 1Google Scholar.

101 Only 10.4 per cent of married women were employed in 1931, but by 1947 this had increased to about 18 per cent. P.E.P., ‘Employment of women’, Planning, xv (23 07 1948), 39Google Scholar. Due in part to the declining birth rate during the 1930s there were one million fewer women in the age group 14–24 in 1951 than in 1931. The post-war increase in the marriage rate further reduced the number of young single women available for work, thus increasing the pressure on employers to hire married women. See Halsey, A. H., ed., Trends in British society since 1900 (London, 1972), p. 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 A recent exception is Croucher, Richard, Engineers at war (London, 1982)Google Scholar.