Woodbridge During the First World War

The Home Front

Four days after Britain entered the war the Defence of the Realm Act was passed.  It allowed the Government to take control of all the major industries, to requisition buildings, homes and land and to tell people what they could not do. Many aspects of ordinary life were changed but many remained as before – for example children still went to school.

When the war started the general impression was that it would be all over by Christmas and thus there would be no need for women to fill the vacancies created by the men recruited into the armed forces. But when the war dragged on, and German submarines began to sink ships importing essential supplies into to Britain, the government realized that women had an important role to play on the Home Front.

The Women's Land Army

To replace farm workers recruited by the armed forces and hopefully increase the countries food production the government created the Women's Land Army.  Some farmers resisted this measure so, in 1916, the Board of Trade began sending out agricultural organizing officers to persuade farmers to accept women workers.  This strategy worked and by 1917 there were over 300,000 women working as farm labourers.

At times during the year up to a hundred women, the majority of who were with the Women’s Land Army, were involved in market gardening in the Woodbridge area.

The “Land Girls” in Woodbridge came from all over the country. Some lived with the farmer’s family, and others in hostels under the care of a warden. There were hostels around Woodbridge at Little Manor Hasketon, Sutton Rectory, Sutton Hoo House and Grundisburgh Hall.

They could expect to do a wide range of agricultural work for a wage of 1 guinea a week and holidays at Christmas and Easter. One recruit said, “being a Land Girl meant always being hungry, having sore blistery feet and a sore back”. Despite all the hard work, many former Land Girls have happy memories of the days in the Women’s Land Army.

At a “Women on the Land” meeting in Melton during April 1916, women were encouraged to volunteer to work on farms, but it was made clear that those who gave their names were not pledging themselves.  They were merely giving farmers the opportunity of approaching them when the need arose, and they could choose to go or not as they pleased.

The extent to which the scheme eventually evolved is made clear by the following the notice on the right. It was published in the Woodbridge Parish Magazine on the March 1918.

The only other information in the local press of women volunteering to work on the land are, sadly, the occasional coroner’s report on the death of a member of the “Women’s Land Army”.

Prisoners of war were also put to work on farms and there was a local source – the Prisoners of war camp which was established in the Ridley Car Works which was on the site on which the Duke of York public houses now stands.

        WOMEN'S WAR AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE.

The Committee will be very much obliged if all who are willing to assist in the Production of Food in Woodbridge, by working on the Land, or by assisting in any Department of Agricultural Work or by Gardening, either as Part or Whole Time Workers, will kindly give in their names to:- Mrs. John Arnott, Deputy Parish Registrar for Woodbridge.

By so doing, workers can more easily be obtained by those requiring Women Labour-through the Register of Names. Women are urgently needed for Land Work. Those who can sign on for 12 months are entitled to receive:-

    A Short Course of Instruction & maintenance.

    Two complete working outfits in the year.

    A minimum wage of 18/- a week.

    Free Railway Warrants upon taking up and changing employment.

Those who can sign on for six months receive:-

     One free outfit.

     A minimum wage of 18/- a week.

     Free Railway Warrants.

Mrs. Arnott will also be glad to receive names and addresses of women who not being able to sign on for six months' or twelve months might yet be able to leave home for a. shorter period of a month or six weeks to work in gangs in the summer, on farms away from Woodbridge.

Food Shortages and Rationing

Despite the creation of the Women’s Land Army, potatoes and meat were often in short supply and sugar was often difficult to get. At the end of 1917 people began to fear that the country was running out of food. Panic buying led to shortages and so, in January 1918, the Ministry of Food decided to introduce rationing. Sugar was the first to be rationed and this was later followed by butchers' meat. The idea of rationing food was to guarantee supplies, not to reduce consumption.

Food supply was a key issue for The Woodbridge & Wickham Market Reporter. It frequently raised concerns over the prices and availability of food, about profiteering and the way rationing was eventually implemented.

Many Woodbridge women remained at home during the war but the local paper makes it clear that they were busy producing comforts, such as mufflers, socks, mittens and waistcoats, for the troops serving in the Suffolk Regiment and various items for the injured soldiers at Foxboro Hall.   Woodbridge women were also fund raising for Suffolk prisoners of war, the Red Cross and the War Hospital Supply Workroom.   

Some women without family commitments would have left the town in order to contribute to the war effort but there is scant information on them.

By 1917 three out of every four workers in the munitions factories were women. The newspaper called them ‘munitionettes’. Most were young, single working class women and for the first time they had money and independence - they were no longer under the authority of a father or an elder brother. There was concern about their drinking, smoking and short skirts and of the possible threat this posed to the moral order. But rather bizarrely one of the outcomes of women having more money was that piano sales boomed.

Nationally the number of women in paid employment increased by 50% during the war and the number in domestic service fell. Apart for the occupations already mentioned women also served as clerks in banks, post offices, and government offices, and, for the first time ever, as auxiliary soldiers and sailors, as police officers, as omnibus and railway conductors, and in a host of other traditionally masculine preserves.

Women with young children were far less likely to join the paid work force and, by 1916, the national government was paying a monthly allowance to the wives and children of more than a million soldiers in the British army.  Such allowances, collected by the wife at the local post office, often provided many families with a larger and more dependable source of income than had unskilled or unreliable husbands in peace time and there is evidence that fewer children were poorly nourished.

If you any have any verbal or written accounts of what Woodbridge or Melton women did during the war please make them available.

                                                                         EXIT

Last edited 15 Sept 21