The women that helped win the war
Munitons workers of a hundred years ago
AS the centenary of the end of the First World War approaches we look back on the noble scarifices of the thousands of servicemen and women who gave their all to achieve final victory after four years of bitter conflict. Many lost their lives and few were left unscathed.
But it was not just those in uniform that played a part in winning the war 100 years ago. The entire nation’s efforts were given over to the war and millions of civilians contributed too.
Armaments
Thousands of women went to work in the munitons factories across the country, supplying the vital armaments to the armed forces and freeing many men to take their place on the front line.
Our front page picture and the one here show Black Country “munitionettes”, as the young girls who went into the factories were called. They have come to us from David Worley and his Aunt Min was one of the girls.
On the front page Min can be seen directly behind the girl on the front row, while on this page she stands third from left on the top row.
She worked at the Globe Tube Works in Holloway Bank, on the border of Wednesbury and West Bromwich. The factory had been producing gas pipes, boiler pipes and all varieties of tubing since the 1840s but in the Great War it was turned over to making artillery shells and employed hundreds of local wenches to supply the ever-increasing demand.