Part 2

Miss Barker makes frequent tours round the women’s shops (it is said to take a week to go over the whole Arsenal), and all the time she is on the watch for possible improvements--perhaps the better ventilation of a factory, or some needed alteration in a cloakroom--stopping ever and again for a word with a girl on some matter relating to her well-being. It is rare to see a sickly face, even among the workers in the danger zone, and visitors are struck by the high proportion of good looks, even of beauty. The workers are drawn from every grade of society, but the democracy of the overall and cap levels all distinctions.

Recently much trouble was experienced by the Arsenal management owing to bad timekeeping in the shops. Able to earn considerable sums of money by working only three or four days weekly, the girls were apt to stay away for the rest of the week. Miss Barker was approached and asked to take over the responsibility for the timekeeping, never before part of her work, and the results were astonishing. “If you leave 200 fuse-rings incomplete,” she would say, in making personal appeals to small groups of girls, “they delay 200 fuses. 200 fuses delay 200 shells from being sent out to the front. Think what 200 shells might mean to Tommy in a tight corner!” Miss Barker knows the wisdom of instilling into each worker the sense of her personal responsibility, and under her inspiration the timekeeping difficulty is no longer an acute problem.

Miss Mabel Cotterell is another welfare worker who has accomplished a stupendous task. Little more than a year ago the first buildings of the greatest Filling Factory in the country began to rise from a desolate bog on the borders of England and Scotland. During the year a town has grown to house the thousands of women employees who came to work in answer to the national appeal for their help. Miss Cotterell engaged and took to Gretna the first fifty fisher-girls from the Aberdeen coast. “I had one assistant in those days,” Miss Cotterell recalls, “and we met the new-comers at the countryside station and took them over the fields to the hostel and the bungalow which had been furnished for their use. It was well they came first in the summer days, for there were then no proper roads, no lights, no shops, no halls or clubrooms, while at the factory the canteens were not ready for use. However, it was warm and sunny, and there were flowers and the birds sang. The girls carried sandwich lunches with them, had a good meat meal on returning to the hostel, and a pleasant country walk in the evening.”

To-day there are 64 hostels and 30 bungalows at Gretna, and Miss Cotterell has an army of assistants, clerks, matrons, and factory supervisors. The former wilderness is now inhabited by a well-housed community, organised in all details with a thoroughness and practical care which speak volumes for the genius of its moving spirit.

When the workers came to inhabit the convenient and attractive homes prepared for them, they found that equally enlightened plans had been formulated for their welfare. Miss Cotterell has kept careful watch of the leisure hours of those under her charge, and she has seen that every opportunity for rest, recreation, and improvement is open to them, and facilities for reading, writing, playing games, and attending classes. Periodic entertainments are given--sometimes by the “Gretna Ramblers,” a troupe of munition girls who have been trained in singing, dancing, and recitation.

The added responsibility of having the girls entirely resident, as at Gretna, entails serious problems. The whole work of catering, and the domestic arrangements of the hostels fall on the Welfare Department. Another of its duties is to file the record of every girl in the factory; and the procedure for discharges, leave of absence, transfers, or sick leave, all passes through this Department--a considerable task when, at the rate at which the factory is increasing, as many as 200 new girls arrive in one day. Inevitably, difficulties of administration are not unknown, even in a model community. There has been occasional shortage of furniture, dampness of new houses, or girl workers unaccustomed to discipline who decline to obey orders. But difficulties seem to vanish under Miss Cotterell’s experienced touch. Her wise administration is already responsible for a marked improvement, not only in health and physique, which good food, clean housing, and regular employment have brought to the workers. Her influence is also noticeable in a greater regard for truth, honesty, and duty.

This outcome of women’s munition work will mean much in the future developments of their industrial life. Women like Miss Barker and Miss Cotterell, in attempting a great achievement, have accomplished an immeasurable one.

IV

MISS C. E. MATHESON AND THE VILLAGE LAND WORKERS

Early in 1915, when recruiting for the Army was beginning to draw men away from agriculture as from all other work, a first effort was made to substitute women for men on the land. Although she knew nothing of agriculture, or the management of live stock, and was unaccustomed to hard manual work, Miss Matheson determined to offer herself as one of the pioneers. Before the war she was known in a very different sphere, for as a promising authoress of the younger school she had already attracted wide popularity. On volunteering, Miss Matheson was sent for a four weeks’ agricultural training course to a Farm Institute to learn to milk; to make butter; to harness and drive a team; to clean, dress, and prepare land; to plant and hoe; to clean stables and cow-houses; to feed cattle; to disregard backaches, weariness and blistered hands; and to live a new, hard life.

After this breaking in, she went to a Wiltshire dairy-farmer who possessed forty to fifty cows in milk. He was prejudiced against women workers, and Miss Matheson’s first day was not a happy one. Writing of it afterwards, she said: “I arrived on a Saturday. On Sunday morning I assisted with the milking, and found I was expected to milk at least eight or ten animals. My four weeks’ training had simply taught me _how_--there had been little time for practising new accomplishments. Consequently my employer told me he would not require me after the end of the week. This announcement was a shock, and exceedingly discouraging. However, I toiled through that week, and at the end of it was asked to stay. Soon I was milking from eight to fifteen cows twice a day; had full charge of the churns and pails, took the milk to the station to meet the London train, looked after the poultry and helped on the land--harvesting, threshing, spreading manure, etc.”

Of course, such work meant rising at five, and by the time Miss Matheson returned from her evening drive to the station it was nearly seven, but the station drive was, she said, a pleasurable duty, “for the sight of the London train reminded me that I still lived in the world.”

Miss Matheson spent seven months on the Wiltshire farm, and the farmer on her departure paid her the compliment of engaging three girls to assist him. She then went to the Prince of Wales’s farm on the Duchy of Cornwall estate, where she is still working.

This farm specialises in stock-breeding, and the herd is a large and valuable one. With cows to milk, calves to rear, bulls to groom and exercise, food to prepare, bedding to change, the work is perpetual, for there are only three workers to tend the animals, and people in charge of stock must work seven days a week. During the winter the cattle claim all the time and attention, but in the summer Miss Matheson manages to help on the land in addition. When autumn came, Miss Matheson’s employers at the Duchy farm began to wonder if she would be able to stand the winter work, but she hastened unhesitatingly to reassure them. The work certainly needs pluck and endurance, both physical and mental. The handling of bulls, for instance, demands no small amount of nerve. “I have had one or two adventures with the bulls,” wrote Miss Matheson to a friend, “and though I must confess I tremble at times, I manage to hold my own. Of course, I could get help if I asked for it, but I do dislike asking. It gives one such an only-a-girl sort of feeling, and then again I am always afraid to let anyone know that sometimes I am afraid.”

It is unnecessary to state the reasons which bring an educated woman voluntarily to take up such a hard and exacting life, not merely for a few weeks of summer, but month after month. Only a deeply-rooted motive can be the impelling force, and there can be no finer form of patriotism than the unsensational performance of these strenuous tasks, far from the glamour and excitement of direct contact with the war. Not only in the fruits of her own labour, but by the force of her example, as one of the pioneers along a new road for women, Miss Matheson is performing as fine a war service as any Englishwoman to-day.

Just as the educated women have made an inspiring response to the call of the country in taking up agricultural work, so also have the women of the villages. In many country districts they have always been accustomed to work on the land, but to-day thousands who never worked before have come forward to give the most concrete proof of their patriotism. They are rightly proud to be entitled to wear the green Government armlet, given for 30 days’ work or 240 hours.

The most recent development of women’s land work is their employment on timber-felling and bark-stripping; and though this is a completely new industry for women, and has not so far been taken up on a general scale, the results of the first experiments are full of promise. Timber work has been started in Devonshire under the energetic auspices of Miss Calmady Hamlyn, the inspecting officer for the Western District of England under the Board of Agriculture. An expert woodman instructor, after watching some of the novices at work, pronounced that in barking these women already excel men, and in tree-felling they will certainly equal them.

Many of the village women whose husbands are serving have wisely taken up land work as being the best antidote to worry. From Devonshire comes the story of a soldier ordered to the front, who gave his wife the parting counsel: “My dear, you go up and work on that old field to-morrow; it will help you more than anything.” Mrs. Hockin went, and worked indomitably at any job in all weathers, and is proud that she can earn a man’s day-wage at piece-work. “Why I am a war worker is because I felt it was my duty to do my bit,” Mrs. Hockin writes. “I am a married woman with three children. My husband has joined the Army, and I have done my best to help my country. As I live in the country, there is nothing for me to do but to work on the land, which I have done for nearly two years.... I have worked on the farm doing various kinds of work, such as weeding corn, hoeing turnips, spreading manure over the fields, turning up ground, picking in apples, wheeling away coke, helping in the harvest-fields, both hay and corn, and, by what our employers have told our instructor, we have given them every satisfaction.” Mrs. Hockin has recently taken up the new timber-felling work, and is now leader of a gang of woodwomen. Though she is new to the work, Mrs. Hockin is able to fell trees at the rate of thirty in half a day, and she states that she does not find the work unduly fatiguing, though “a bit windy.”

An agricultural demonstration by women, held recently in Surrey under the auspices of the Board of Agriculture, provided striking examples of the excellence of women’s agricultural work. A hundred and twenty women took part, the majority of whom have started the work since the war. They entered for competitions in ploughing, harrowing, milking, management of calves and horses, hoeing corn, hand weeding, etc. In spite of the difficulties occasioned by bad weather, and having to work with strange animals under unfamiliar conditions, the women succeeded in making a deep impression on the farmers who came to watch their efforts. The sensation of the afternoon was caused in the milking competition, when the first prize was won by Miss M. Soutar, aged 10½, who obtained a total of ninety-five points out of a possible hundred. Experimental demonstrations of this kind will do much to solve one of the greatest difficulties in the employment of women, namely, the conversion of the farmers; but most of those who have given the women a chance have not had cause to regret it.

When the farmers recognise the motive behind the women’s work, and are willing not only to employ them but to treat them generously, it is certain that both farmers and women, working together under the same influence of patriotism, are bound to achieve results of which both may be proud.

V

DR. ELSIE INGLIS

To Miss Inglis, M.B., C.M., belongs the honour of originating the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, one of the noblest efforts achieved by women in the war. As a medical woman, Dr. Inglis, who qualified in 1892, has specialised in surgery, and for many years she has held the posts of surgeon and gynæcologist to the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, and lecturer to the School of Medicine in Edinburgh.

At the outbreak of war Dr. Inglis felt that the medical services of women should be organised for the country, and she originated the idea of forming the Scottish Women’s Hospital Units for war service, staffed entirely by women. The idea was carried out through the organisation of the Scottish Federation of Women Suffrage Societies. In the early months the War Office, though since converted, refused to accept women’s hospitals, so Dr. Inglis and her committee offered their services to the Allies. Their record of work is truly wonderful, and presents an outstanding example of women’s industry and administrative ability. Hospitals have been established and maintained in France, Serbia, Corsica, Salonika, Rumania, and Russia, and the work has been entirely supported by the funds which the organisation has raised, mainly through the branches of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies throughout Great Britain.

Dr. Inglis has been throughout the leading spirit, and has displayed extraordinary initiative. After spending the first months of the war in starting the work at headquarters, she went to Serbia in 1915 to act as Commissioner to the Scottish Women’s Hospitals established there. One unit on its way to Serbia was detained for a few weeks in Malta for service with the British wounded at a moment of medical shortage, and Lord Methuen, the Military Governor, wrote a glowing appreciation of their work. “They leave here,” he wrote, “blessed by myself, surgeons, nurses, and patients alike, having proved themselves most capable and untiring workers.” In Serbia the Scottish women were confronted with all the hardships and difficulties experienced by workers in that unfortunate country. Undaunted, however, they established their hospitals, heroically overcoming the problems of sanitation and supplies which beset them on all sides. The hospital at Kragujevatz, over which Dr. Inglis had personal charge, was described by the military authorities as a picture of cleanliness, order, and comfort.

When the time of the Serbian retreat came, the five hospitals in charge of the Scottish women fell back towards Albania. At Krushevatz Dr. Inglis decided to remain with her staff to care for the Serbian wounded during the enemy occupation. Another unit under Dr. Alice Hutchinson also stayed, and was taken prisoner; while the remaining staffs accompanied the retreating armies across the mountains.

“These months at Krushevatz were a strange mixture of sorrow and happiness,” Dr. Inglis wrote afterwards. “There was a curious exhilaration in working for those grateful, patient men ... yet the unhappiness in the Serbian houses and the physical wretchedness of those cold, hungry prisoners lay always like a dead weight on our spirits.”

By February, 1916, the hospital was emptied and the staff sent as prisoners to Vienna. After enduring many discomforts, they were eventually released through the good offices of the American Embassy, and enabled to return to England, where their friends had heard no word of them during four months. When the veil was at last lifted, it showed Dr. Inglis coming out of all the stress and suffering the first woman to wear the decoration of the White Eagle, given to her by the Serbian Government in recognition of her services. Other members of her unit received the Order of St. Sava. “The Serbian nation,” said the Crown Prince, “will never forget what these women have done.”

But not content with such services to Serbia, and with her courage still undaunted, Dr. Inglis again set out in September, 1916, at the head of a fresh unit, for service with the Serbian army fighting in South Russia. The unit, numbering seventy-six women, comprised a staff of women doctors, an X-ray operator, a dispenser, seventeen fully-trained nurses, sixteen orderlies, besides cooks and laundresses. The accompanying transport column, under the Hon. Mrs. Haverfield, consisted of eight ambulances, two kitchen cars, a repair car, four lorries, and three touring cars, with a large staff of women chauffeurs and cooks. The unit landed at Archangel and travelled across Russia to Odessa, where the workers met with a rousing reception. They then proceeded to join the Serbian division to which they were attached, in the Dobrudja, and another splendid chapter of Scottish Women’s Hospital work was opened. A base hospital was started at Medjidia in Rumania, with a field station nearer to the front; but after about a fortnight’s work the inevitable evacuation was ordered before the Bulgarian advance, and the unit retreated with the army. Of this first hospital in Rumania Dr. Inglis writes: “The day after the unit arrived at Medjidia, where the whole seventy-five were obliged to camp in one big room, wounded began to pour in and ambulances to ply between there and the firing line. There were no roads, just tracks across endless plains.” Of the field station Dr. Inglis says: “The destination was a place smoking from shells, and filled with a sense of destruction and desolation impossible to describe. The Scottish women set up a camp near by, and were attached to the Serbian Field Hospital. Aeroplanes bombed them daily, and on one occasion the ambulance suffered a heavy bombardment. When the orders came to move, the transport went through five appalling days of labour, which can be understood only by people who have done cross-country tracks in roadless countries ... the scenes were indescribable--of confusion, terror, misery; of blocks of carts, troops, pigs, women, children, lame horses, and exhausted animals of all sorts. The refugees were throwing out things to lighten their carts, and the Scottish women got out and picked them up to use for their own kitchen.”

Dr. Inglis and the hospital party, on evacuating Medjidia, managed to secure what is known as a “sanitary train”--a long train of horse waggons, very different from an ambulance train, and they had to do their best for the crowd of wounded on board. Eventually Dr. Inglis reached Braila, where she was able to render valuable help to a large number of Rumanian wounded, who were very short of medical assistance. Some members of the unit have since returned to England, but Dr. Inglis is still in Rumania. She is temporarily working for the Russian army, pending the re-formation of the Serbian divisions, to which she will return.

The General in command of the Russian Red Cross on the Rumanian front (Prince Dolgouroukoff) has conferred the medal of St. George on all the members of the unit now at Reni who have worked under fire.

“Wherever the odds against the Allies seem overwhelming, there one may be nearly sure of finding a unit of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals working for the wounded,” writes an admirer of their work. “You do not find them in the well-equipped hospitals surrounded by every modern appliance, with crowds of men orderlies to carry out the heavy work, but rather in back-blocks of the war, as one may say, fighting a desperate battle of their own against dirt, disease, and wounds, and winning back precious lives of men whose language is in many cases unknown to them.”

Dr. Elsie Inglis has that magnetic personality which can command efficiency, even with inadequate equipment and in hopeless environment. The inspiring work of this great woman doctor makes her indeed a worthy leader for those wonderful Scottish women, who are putting their whole soul into the work they have undertaken, without any thought of recompense, without vainglory, and without any other motive than the desire to help and heal.

VI

MISS HARRIET SPROT, THE MISSES PLAYFAIR, AND LADY BADEN-POWELL

The Young Men’s Christian Association commenced work in the camps in France as soon as war began. For many years it had been accustomed to provide huts in the summer camps at home, but since the war the organisation has increased to such an extent that it now covers a vast field of enterprise. The Y.M.C.A. huts and those of the Church Army have proved the salvation of the men, who, when off duty, had nowhere to go, while in the camps the canteens provide an opportunity for them to buy small necessaries, tobacco, or any supplementary food in addition to their Army rations. The work of the ladies in the Y.M.C.A. huts in France is largely responsible for their great success. This work is arranged by a Committee under Princess Helena Victoria, with the Countess of Bessborough as hon. secretary, and it is owing to their insight and skilful organisation that it has been so successfully managed.

The workers, whose service is entirely voluntary, sign on for four months, pay all their own expenses--travelling, board, lodging, etc.,--and provide their uniform--dark grey coats and skirts with blue facings. Many of them have been living in France for over two years, in the simplest accommodation, devoid of all luxury, and devoting themselves entirely to the work. The best illustration of what they are doing can be taken from the experiences of a few typical workers.