The Woman's Part: A Record of Munitions WorkYates, L. K.
History
The Woman's Part: A Record of Munitions Work
Yates, L. K.
Great Britain. Army -- Ordnance facilities; Weapons industry -- Employees; World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
Again, you may visit an Instructional Factory where foundry work is
included in the curriculum, or where advanced machine work is a feature. I
have stood in one Instructional Workshop where some 600 machines were
whirring simultaneously, and where the spirit of energy and goodwill of
both students and instructors seemed as tangible as the metal objects
produced. In this institution all the accomplished work is for production;
night as well as day shifts are worked, and the needs of our armies, or
those of our Allies, are frankly discussed with the operators. There is no
occasion for other incentive: raw recruits, students from the Schools,
discharged soldiers from the Front, men unfit for active service, all
these denizens of the training-shop vie with each other to produce a
maximum output.
It speaks volumes for this workshop that in spite of the continual changes
of operators--each set of students remaining only for a course of six to
eight weeks--it is entirely maintained on a commercial basis. To reach
such a standard in these circumstances is to imply that the heroism of the
workshop has become an ingrained habit in operators and staff.
_First Steps in Industrial Life_
I remember watching in this training-ground the manufacture of small
aero-engine parts, exact in dimensions to within the smallest limits of
tolerance. I put a query as to the wastage of material in such an
operation, when handled by comparative new-comers. 'Scrapping from this
process', replied the production manager with pride, 'does not exceed a
total average of one per cent.' The women at work at the time had come
from the most varied occupations. A large proportion had never worked
outside their own home, others were domestic servants, cooks, housemaids,
and so on, others were dressmakers from small towns, and one, I recall,
was an assistant from a spa, where she had been engaged handing out
'waters' to invalids. 'It is not the rank of society from which the
student is drawn that matters,' remarked an instructor; 'it is the
personality of the individual that counts.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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