It is a well-documented fact the the Great War brought many new opportunities for women. They moved into areas of public, commercial and industrial life that had previously been out of bounds. Womens efforts in the war also embraced many different voluntary activities, in raising funds and providing materials for the forces. As the economies of Great Britain and the Empire geared up towards a total war footing, these activities proved to be insufficient. Towards the end of 1916 the British Government began organising women's auxiliary military services, to replace men in non-combatant roles and so release more men for fighting. Unprepared by pre-war life for the conditions that many now faced, they bore it with great fortitude and laid a foundation for undreamed-of levels of emancipation that came in the post-war generations. This page is little more than a passing tribute to the important women's organisations; the subject would benefit from a broader study.
Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service
QAIMNS was part of the army before the war, adopting its name in 1902 from the predecessor Army Nursing Service of 1881. Formation of a QAIMNS Reserve and the Territorial Force Nursing Service followed. In the first weeks of the war these services mobilised for duty with the BEF. Greatly expanded (from 3,000 staff in 1914 to 23,000 in 1918 including TFNS), they served throughout the war and were present in all theatres.
Territoral Force Nursing Service
The Territorial Force equivalent to the regular army's QAIMNS. Formed in 1908, and under the administrative arrangements of the County Associations. The TFNS outgrew its regular army sister.
Tip: my granny served in the QAIMNS/TFNS. How do I find out about her service? The National Archives series WO399 contains correspondence files of the Directorate of Army Medical Services and Territorial Force, containing service records of women who served in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and Territorial Force Nursing Service and other associated bodies. This is not online.
Women's Hospital Corps
A very early wartime voluntary group formed in September 1914. Dr's Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson established military hospitals for the French Army in Paris and Wimereux, their proposals having been at first rejected by the British authorities. However the latter eventually saw sense and the WHC established a military hospital in Endell Street, London staffed entirely by women, from chief surgeon to orderlies.
Scottish Women's Hospitals
Founded by the extraordinary Dr Elsie Maud Inglis, who was not only a suffragette but one of the earliest qualified female medical doctors. Her idea was for the Scottish Suffrage Societies to fund and staff a medical hospital; the military authorities told her to "Go home and sit still". Not to be held down, Inglis pressed forward. The first unit moved to northern Serbia in January 1915 and by 1918 there were 14 such units, working with each of the Allied armies except the British. Dr Inglis was taken prisoner of war in Serbia in 1915, but was repatriated. She immediately moved with another unit to Russia. Evacuated after the revolution, she died the day after her return home in November 1917, in Newcastle.
The Women's Volunteer Reserve
This organisation developed from a very early one, the Women's Emergency Corps, which came into existence in August 1914. It was the initiative of Decima Moore and the Hon. Evelina Haverfield - a militant and influential suffragette - who seized the opportunity provided by the crisis to organise a role for women. It was soon joined by many women from the higher classes and was in the early days an unlikely mix of feminists and women who would not normally have mixed with such dangerous types. They became involved in several ventures, not least of which was in providing until 1918 a uniformed group called the Lady Instructors Signals Company, who trained Aldershot army recruits in signalling. However the work was largely of a domestic, fund-raising nature. The WVR was however rather expensive to join - one had to pay for ones own uniform which at more than £2 could not be afforded by lower classes. This was an influence in the establishment of the Women's Legion, which had a more widespread appeal.
The Women's Legion
Launched in July 1915 by the Marchioness of Londonderry, the Women's Legion became the largest entirely voluntary body. Although it was not formally under Government control or part of the army, in the spirit of the times its members adopted a military-style organisation and uniform. The WL volunteers became involved in many forms of work, including cooking and catering for the army in England. The success of the WL was a definite factor in influencing the Government to organise female labour in the latter half of the war.
Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps
Announced in February 1917 and established a month later, the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps was to be made up of volunteers of whom eventually 57,000 were employed. The response was swift and the planned establishment soon achieved. The first WAACs moved to France on 31 March 1917. By early 1918, some 6,000 WAACs were there. It was officially renamed the QMAAC in April 1918 but this title was not generally adopted and the WAACs stayed WAACs. The organisation of the WAAC mirrored the military model: their officers (called Controllers and Administrators rather than Commissioned Officers, titles jealously protected) messed separately from the other ranks. The WAAC equivalent of an NCO was a Forewoman, the private a Worker. The women were largely employed on unglamorous tasks on the lines of communication: cooking and catering, storekeeping, clerical work, telephony and administration, printing, motor vehicle maintenance. A large detachment of WAACs worked for the American Expeditionary Force and was an independent body under their own Chief Controller. WAAC/QMAAC was formally under the control of the War Office and was a part of the British Army.
Tip: my granny served in the WAACs. How do I find out about her service? The National Archives series WO398 contains records of service. It is searchable and if you find a record you can download it (for a fee) online : search
Almeric Paget Military Massage Corps
An initially civilian organisation founded in England by Mr & Mrs Almeric Paget. 50 trained masseuses were supplied for work with wounded soldiers. Their early form of physiotherapy was found especially useful in the treatment of muscular wounds. Eventually the organisation was accepted by the War Office and gained official recognition. The APMMC began to work at medical facilities in France in 1917 and by the end of the war had grown to 2,000 staff.
First Aid Nursing Yeomanry
A rather select higher-class organisation that had existed since formation in 1907, the FANY worked with the Red Cross organisations, principally as ambulance drivers. There were just fewer than 120 members of the group in France in August 1918. FANY went on to survive another war and indeed still operates today, although the nature of its work and the make-up of its staff has changed somewhat since 1918.
The Voluntary Aid Detachments
In 1904 a Government report was submitted on the Japanese voluntary aid system, which was to prove influential. In 1905 the British Red Cross was reorganised and links established with the War Office and later with the Territorial Forces Associations. In August 1909 the War Office started its scheme of voluntary aid organisation based on male and female Voluntary Aid Detachments to the Sick and Wounded (VADs) to be organised for their local Territorial Forces Associations by the Red Cross. Basic first aid and nursing training was to be given by the St John Ambulance Brigade. Over 47,000 VADs were employed on various tasks, only the best known being nursing, in August 1914. By 1920 there were more than 82,000. Both men and women could join the VADs.
Women's Auxiliary Force
Launched in 1915 by Misses Walthall and Sparshott, the WAF was an entirely voluntary organisation for part-time workers. Uniformed, they worked in canteens and provided social clubs; they also worked on the land and in hospitals.
Women's Auxiliary Agricultural Corps
article has been referred to us. It is possible that this is a reference
to the WAF rather than a different organisation in its own right,
but we are uncertain:
19th January 1918, Yorkshire Weekly Post, page 13
"Lady Mabel Smith’s Visit to France
Ref her appointment as inspector for the whole county of Yorkshire under the newly
created organisation of the Women’s Agricultural Auxiliary Corps".
Women's Forage Corps
The British army largely ran on horse power, and demand for forage was huge and incessant. The civilian Womens Forage Corps, formed by the Government in 1915, came under the control of the Army Service Corps
Women's Forestry Corps
Controlled by the Timber Supply Department of the Board of Trade, this organisation maintained a supply of wood for industrial and paper production at home, but also for construction purposes in the theatres of war.
Women's Land Army
Much less well-known that its WW2 successor, the Women's Land Army was formed in February 1917 (in spite of male resistance in farming communities), in an attempt to provide a full-time, properly regulated workforce for agricultural industries. It was not part of the army or even under the control of the War Office - it was funded and controlled by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries - but as an organised body supporting the war effort, it deserves its place in any consideration of the fighting forces. It eventually employed 113,000 women; female labour made up some one-third of all labour on the land, the remainder being a mix of enemy prisoners, Army Service Corps, infantry labour units and agricultural workers outside military age.
... and we should not forget ...
Other organisations and persons worthy of mention include Mrs St Clair Stobart's Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps that worked with the Belgian Army, in addition to her Serbian Relief Fund that did the same in the Balkans; Flora Sandes, the only British woman known to have served officially as a soldier and to have fought against the enemy, became a Sergeant-Major in the Serbian Army. Flora was not only seriously wounded, but was awarded the high honour of the Order of Karageorge; Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker (later Baroness t'Serclaes) - best known as the Women of Pervyse - who organised a first aid post in the support lines of the Belgian army on the Yser; the many British and other women in France, Belgium and other places that provided their services for the care of the wounded, the feeding of soldiers and civilians, the hiding of soldiers caught behind lines and of escaping prioners.