nourishing obscurity

The Land Army fights in the fields. It is in the fields of Britain that the most critical battle of the war may well be fought and won. [Lady Denman, 1939]

In 1939, the farming community of Britain greeted the idea of a Women’s Land Army (WLA) with scorn. It was the view of those who worked the land that it was no place for a decent woman.

More than 100,000 Land Girls and 11 years later, it was the once-sceptical National Farmers’ Union that protested the most when the WLA was officially disbanded.

Wiki gives the background on the origins of the Women’s Land Army

The Board of Agriculture organised the Land Army during the Great War, starting activities in 1915. Towards the end of 1917 there were over 250,000 – 260,000 women working as farm labourers. 20,000 in the land army itself.

With 6 million men away to fight in the First World War Britain was struggling for labour. The government wanted women to get more involved in the production of food and do their part to support the war effort.

As the prospect of war became increasingly likely, the government wanted to increase the amount of food grown within Britain. In order to grow more food, more help was needed on the farms and so the government started the Women’s Land Army in June 1939.

In the Second World War, though under the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, it was given an honorary head – Lady Denman. At first it asked for volunteers. This was supplemented by conscription, so that by 1944 it had over 80,000 members. The WLA lasted until its official disbandment on October 21, 1950.

During World War II a Women’s Land Army was also formed in the United States, lasting from 1943 to 1947, and the Australian Women’s Land Army was formed in Australia, lasting from July 27, 1942 until 1945.  Rosie the Riveter became a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in war factories during World War II.

Becoming a Landgirl was a rude awakening for some:

The girls were interviewed to see if they were suitable, then were given a medical examination and enrolled. The official minimum age was 17, but some lied and became Land Girls at 16 or even younger.

It wasn’t hard to get into the WLA. One girl stated that she didn’t have flat feet or varicose veins when asked by a doctor and was accepted with no further examination.

Another who wore glasses, was asked to read a sheet of letters of diminishing size. As she struggled to undertake the request, the doctor said Never mind, I suspect you’d see a charging bull and passed her. Life then changed and gave many new Land Girls a rude awakening.

At the outbreak of war, the average wage for a male agricultural worker was 38 shillings a week, well below the national average wage of 80 shillings a week. Thanks to Lady Denman, Land Girls were awarded a minimum wage, but this was even less than their male counterparts would receive.

They earned just 28 shillings a week, half of which was typically deducted for board and lodgings. Once a girl had worked six months, and if she was working more than 20 miles from home, she was entitled to a free journey home, courtesy of the WLA.

However, there was no set holiday entitlement, paid or unpaid. It was left up to individual farmers to decide when a girl could take time off.

At the start of the war almost all the Land Girls lived in lodgings or billets near to, or actually on, the farms to which they’d been allocated. These could be cottages with the families of other workers, or in the farmhouse with the farmer and his wife.

Few such houses had baths or readily available hot water for washing. As the war progressed, mobile gangs of Land Girls were set up to work on different farms.

They lived in hostels which were vacant country houses and schools, where they were looked after by a warden and where conditions tended to be more comfortable than in billets. There could be anything between 6 and 100 girls in these hostels.

In 1950, at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, 500 Land Girls marched past the Queen, who addressed them:

I have always admired their courage in responding so readily to a call which they knew must bring them … hardship and sometimes loneliness. Now the time has come to say goodbye, because the job has been done, but the sadness which many feel should be outweighed by pride in the achievement.

It would be a pity if only the men received the accolades.  It would be a pity if, to serve a political agenda, only the women received the accolades.

In this blogger’s opinion, all the brave men and women in all our national conflicts should be honoured according to their deeds.

Filed under: Society & human issues