WOMEN’S LAND ARMY
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allet dancers, typists and seamstresses signed up, a third came from London or large industrial cities, and their contribution to Britain’s war effort during World War I and World War II has been consistently overlooked. As the 80th anniversary of the start of WWII approaches, it is worth recalling the role of the Women’s Land Army, whose members were known informally as Land Girls. They brought much to the imperilled food supply in the country at the time, while their presence would later open up careers in horticulture for those women who sought them. The Women’s Land Army was a civilian group, established in January 1917 during WWI, when the number of men called from the fields to the trenches of Europe had resulted in an acute shortage of agricultural labour. When the Women’s Land Army disbanded in 1919, it must have been hoped that this most domestic of corps wouldn’t be needed again, yet in 1939, just 20 years later, food supplies
Above Land Girls at work in the fields. Thanks to their efforts, by the end of the war, Britain was 70% self-sufficient.
were once again compromised and the group was re-established in June that year. By September, the first women had been recruited to the organisation and in January 1940 food rationing began. The body continued to operate long after the war had ended, disbanding only in 1950. In all, over 200,000 mostly unmarried women signed up as Land Girls – or Lumber Jills if they belonged to the associated Women’s Timber Corps. The Women’s Land Army owed much of its success to Lady Gertrude Denman, who was appointed honorary director on the basis of her extensive contacts. She became the first national chairwoman of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes in 1917, had worked for the Women’s Land Army during WWI and was married to a diplomat. By 1939 she was in a position to galvanise women around the country and in rural locations especially. Later she would offer up her own home, Balcombe Place in West Sussex, as the headquarters of the army. “The Land Army fights in the fields. It is in
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