On the 10th November 2023, Nottingham High School fell silent in remembrance of those who lost their lives at war.

The service was held in front of the war memorial to remember the men on it who lost their lives having attended Nottingham High School.

Miss Gritti then read an address about the impact the first world war had on the millions of women in Britain.

Between 1914 and 1918, the lives of millions of women in Britain were overturned by the first world war. Its impact reached into every aspect of existence, from the dramatic to the humdrum. Former domestic servants became window cleaners, gas fitters and crane drivers. They moved into the munition’s factories, where their faces turned yellow and their hair green from the chemicals. They braved explosions and poisonous substances to serve their country, and campaigned for fairer wages.

Well over 100,000 women served in Britain’s armed forces during the Great War. However, the contribution of these women has long been obscured by the sheer number of men who fought in the conflict. In Britain alone around five million men joined the army and nearly one million of these men were killed. In this new, modern and highly-mechanised war, with alarmingly high death tolls, there was a desperate shortage of manpower. What these women, along with those on the Home Front, demonstrated was that when it mattered, women were quite capable of taking on war work and more responsibility. 

The British Army tried various schemes to swell the army’s ranks and encourage more men to enlist, but in 1916 the government was forced to introduce conscription. Even then the shortage of men in combat roles was acute and discussions began about replacing men in auxiliary roles with women, releasing them for frontline duties. Pressure from women for their own uniformed service to assist the war effort began in August 1914. Britain decided to employ working-class women, who were able to step straight into jobs ranging from waitresses and cooks, to despatch riders and code-breakers with minimal training. The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and Women’s Royal Naval Service were established in 1917 followed by the Women’s Royal Air Force in 1918. In total, over 100,000 women joined Britain’s armed forces during the war.

Alongside the WAAC and Women’s Royal Naval Service, women served in roles such as nursing, which aligned more clearly with contemporary attitudes towards their gendered role within society. More than 22,000 trained nurses served with the British military nursing services during WWI. But it is estimated that around 120,000 other women served in some form of nursing capacity during the Great War.

Dame Maud McCarthy was the most senior nurse on the Western Front during the First World War. She sailed on the first ship to leave England with members of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914 and was made Matron-in-Chief of the B.E.F. in France and Flanders. She began the war with 516 nurses in her charge, but by 1918 she had over 6,000. Nurses working on the front faced unprecedented challenges from the horrors of mechanised warfare, and dealt with injuries caused by shells, machine gun bullets, trench foot, gas attacks and land mines.

Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisolm were two such nurses who had to tackle the impact of modern warfare. They set up their own First Aid Post close to the Belgian front line at Pervyse in November 1914. Elsie, a trained nurse, believed that lives could be saved if wounded soldiers were treated close to the front line. The two women put their own safety at risk to save lives - they often worked under fire and left Pervyse only after being badly gassed in 1918. Both were awarded the Belgian Order of Leopold in 1915 and the British Military Medal in 1917 for their bravery.

Most notably, Elsie Inglis, who was a qualified surgeon and supporter of the women's suffrage campaign, attempted to support the war effort with her medical training. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, she offered her services to the Royal Army Medical Corps but was told 'My good lady, go home and sit still'. Undeterred, Elsie set up her own organisation, the Scottish Women's Hospitals, which treated troops in Serbia and Russia. She became the first woman to be awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the highest honour given by Serbia. Elsie and her medical team were evacuated following the Russian Revolution in November 1917. Tragically, she died from cancer the day after returning to England. 

Women did however fulfil roles outside of nursing on the Western and Eastern Front. When war broke out, Marguerite McArthur was visiting family in Canada. She returned to Britain in October 1914 and immediately volunteered. Due to her language skills in French and German Marguerite worked in the War Office Translation Bureau for two years. From March 1918 onwards, Marguerite was part of the Army Educational Service of the YMCA at Etaples in France. She contracted pneumonia and died on 13 February 1919, aged 26. Marguerite is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery.

Although women were kept away from the trenches, the accelerated development of long-range artillery and air power, meant that in the latter years of the war, even the base camps and hospital cities were no longer safe as the war zone rapidly expanded. 

Women not only contributed and sacrificed their lives in the theatre of war on the European continent. The war also affected the lives of and made demands of women on the Home Front. Women in paid employment was not a new phenomenon in 1914. They made up a substantial part of the industrial workforce even before the First World War, although they were mainly concentrated in textile manufacture. Between 1914 and 1918, an estimated two million women took on jobs which had been previously been filled by men, an increase from 24 per cent of women in employment in July 1914 to 37 per cent by November 1918. After supplies of shells ran low in 1915, The Ministry of Munitions was founded and encouraged women to sign up to work in the factories. Nearly a million women were working in munitions factories by the end of the war and by mid-1917, it is estimated that women produced around eighty per cent of all munitions. Known as ‘munitionettes’, Britain could not have fought the war without them.

Conditions were poor in the factories. Loud noises, long hours, short breaks and tough manual labour were one thing, but the women were at risk from harmful materials like poison gas, TNT and asbestos. Many munitions girls suffered ill health from the chemicals with which they worked. They were often nicknamed ‘canaries’ because of their yellow skin, caused by exposure to TNT. Around 400 women died from overexposure to TNT during World War One. In addition, workplace accidents were common. In 1917, 73 people were killed and 400 injured at a factory in the East End of London. Indeed, one of the worst explosions in a munitions factory during the war happened here in Nottinghamshire. 134 people were killed following an explosion on the 1st July 1918 in the Amatol Mixing House at the National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell.

To top it off, the munitionettes were paid less than their male counterparts. But one woman in particular tried to change that. Mary MacArthur campaigned tirelessly for workers’ rights and equal pay throughout her life. During the war she campaigned skilfully and forced the government to improve the wages and miserable conditions of the munition’s factory workers.

The war undoubtedly led to the social advancement of women and also to the political reward of the vote being granted to women over the age of 30 who owned property in the UK in 1918. Through their war work, women in Britain were beginning to overcome prejudice and break down social taboos.

Wreaths were placed by the Chair of Governors, Steve Banks,  Head Boy, William and Head Girl, Gauri and Geri Thomas (former staff) who laid a wreath on behalf of the Old Nottinghamian community. This was followed by The Last Post which was played by Year 12 student Seth.