Description:This photograph shows women manufacturing grenade base plugs at the Mills Munitions factory in Birmingham. Soon after the outbreak of war it had become common for ‘an engineering shop to be staffed almost entirely by women "hands", and it is no uncommon sight to find in the centre of the shop women tool-setters, and at another women guagers who test the product of this combined women’s labour’.<small><sup>1</sup></small>
War work was changing employment for women, who ‘proved that their entry into the munitions world has increased the output’.<small><sup>2</sup></small> There were new opportunities particularly for teenage girls, as ‘in the case of a large Birmingham firm employing a considerable number of girls under sixteen; their labour was essential to the older women because their fingers were nimble and specially adapted for the light work required’.<small><sup>3</sup></small> Production often continued round the clock and factory inspectors found that teenagers suffered less by night work than their elders, because ‘these young girls were always bright and alert at their work. The difference between them and their older hands between 5 and 6 a.m. was remarkable. Older girls suffered most from night work because they spent too much of their free time in shopping and recreation rather than rest’.<small><sup>4</sup></small>
Daily life in a Birmingham munitions factory is vividly recounted in the memoirs of Peggy Hamilton,<small><sup>5</sup></small> who was sent to the city for further training by the Woolwich Arsenal in preparation for joining the Government Rolling Mills in Southampton. Her hours were seven in the morning to seven in the evening (a ten and a half hour day), six days a week, and ‘everyone was frightfully poor’ earning £1.00 per week. There were no travelling allowances, although Woolwich trainees had an additional 10/- to cover accommodation expenses away from home. Migrant munitions workers found that reasonable accommodation was harder to find in Birmingham than elsewhere in the country. Hamilton ‘cycled round Birmingham in search of landladies for these girls, but they all said the same thing, that for 17s. 6d a week they could not give the girls butter or milk. It was obvious that these girls would be seriously undernourished.’
Hamilton also recalls being pelted with horse dung by women from a rival firm and the practical jokes played on newcomers. And her lunch-break fight with another woman was cheered on by fellow workers in the cobblestone yard, as men crowded on to the fire escape to watch. Although she perceived Birmingham women as uncouth, they were also ‘splendid types, full of humour, warm hearted, afraid of nobody, and with more pride and courage when in trouble than their sisters in the South.’ She most admired ‘their innate kindness, their generosity, loyalty, courage, and toughness in such an unfair world.’
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> History of the Ministry of Munitions, Vol.5 Wages and Welfare, Pt.3 Welfare: The Control of Working Conditions, (London: H.M.S.O., 1920-22) p.129
<sup>2</sup> Naomi Loughnan, ‘Munition Work’, in Women War Workers, edited by Gilbert Stone, (London: Harrap, 1917)
<sup>3</sup> History of the Ministry of Munitions, Vol.5 Wages and Welfare, Pt.5 Provision for the Housing of Munition Workers, (London: H.M.S.O., 1920-22) p.30
<sup>4</sup> L.K. Yates, The Woman’s Part: A Record of Munitions Work, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918) p.12
<sup>5</sup> Peggy Hamilton, Three Years or the Duration: the Memoirs of a Munition Worker, 1914-1918, (London: Owen, 1978)</small></font>