Women and War Work — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Women and War Work
John Stuart Mill · en
The Exhibitions consist of two main sections, one of which shows
actual samples of munitions made by women, and the other of
photographs of women doing work on apparatus or processes that could
not be shown. A complete Clerget engine, for instance, was lent by the
Air Board to illustrate the final assembly of the numerous parts of
these engines being made wholly or partly by women. In the same way,
many parts of complete Stokes Guns, Vickers Machine Guns and Service
Rifles were exhibited. The exhibits were divided into fifteen groups.
The first group dealing with engines for aircraft. The second group
showed engines for motor cars, tanks, tractors, motor buses, motor
lorries and motor vehicles.
A separate group consisted of a variety of accessories for internal
combustion engines, including air pump for the Clerget engine, which
is completely manufactured and assembled by women, largely under women
supervision; and magnetos, a very important and accurate industry,
before the war largely in German hands, of which women now undertake
the entire manufacture.
The fourth group dealt with steam engines, including details of
locomotives, high speed engines, steam winches, and steam turbines.
The next two groups dealt respectively with guns and components and
with small arms.
The next three groups included gauges, drills, cutters, punches and
dies, trucks, jigs, tap pieces and general tool-room work. The gauges
included plug, ring, cylinder and screw gauges to the closest degrees
of accuracy, which in practice are verified by the rigid inspection of
the National Physical Laboratory.
A fair illustration of the accuracy that is habitually required in a
large volume of work is to be seen in the final gauging and inspection
of a screw gauge for a fuse, in which the women inspectors were
described in the catalogue as examining these screws by an optical
projection apparatus, magnifying fifty times, with the help of which
the inspector notes the defects in size and form, and the necessary
corrections.
The cutting tools included sets of cutters for the manufacture of
shells, as well as twist drills, reamers, milling cutters, gear
cutters, screwing dies, taps and lathe tools. Some of this work is
of high accuracy, and a set of solid screwing dies has the particular
interest that almost all the operations are carried out by women after
they have been in the shop for a fortnight. The general tool-room
work included an exhibit of seventy-one punches and dies for cartridge
making. Another set of dies was shown for small-arms ammunition, and
specimens were also exhibited of chucks, die-heads and other work.