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1058 not enrolled. The written agreement signed had no binding force and they could leave when they liked.

In addition to these groups of non-enrolled women in the direct employ of the War Departments, there were at the time of the Armistice 5,000 civil service clerks working on Army Records, 10,000 clerks employed by the War Office, and 17,500 miscellaneous in- dustrial workers belonging to the Hospital Labour Staff, and the A.S.C.

Women's Land Army. In Jan. 1917, a Women's Branch of the Food Production Department of the Board of Agriculture was set up under Dame Meriel Talbot as Director and Mrs. Alfred (Dame Edith) Lyttelton as Deputy Director. Two appeals were issued for the Branch by the Women's Section of the Department of National Service in March 1917; the first appeal to women to join a mobile Land Army on a year's enrolment ultimately secured 45,000 recruits, of whom half had to be rejected on medical and other grounds; the second appeal to village women for their part-time services, under the organization of group leaders and forewomen in the Land Army, gradually trebled the number of part-time workers already on the land.

Arrangements for recruitment were subsequently revised, and a scheme of cooperation between the three Departments concerned (viz. Board of Agriculture, Women's Branch, Ministry of National Service and the Employment Department, Ministry of Labour) was adopted earlyin 1918. Under this scheme women were given a choice of enrolling for a year or for six months, and arrangements were made with the Women's Forage Corps, R.A.S.C. and the Forestry Corps, Timber Supply Department, Board of Trade, for their recruits to be dealt with by the same machinery. With regard to Scotland a Scottish Women's Land Army was formed on somewhat parallel lines in which 1,816 women were enrolled. In addition 6,860 unenrolled women were placed in agricultural work. The employ- ment of women as part-time workers was also stimulated and organized, and it is estimated that there were in Sept. 1918 300,000 women part-time workers and 16,000 whole-time workers actually engaged in agricultural work in England and Wales. This triumph, in the face of innumerable difficulties and at the cost of an elaborate and expensive organization, was due to the combined efforts of the Women's Branch at Headquarters, and the Women's War Agricul- tural Committees. These Committees set up in each county by the Board of Trade in 1915 and 1916 acted as its agents and conducted the local administration of the Land Army by means of the n.ooo women who served on them in a voluntary capacity. Between March 1917 and May 1919, 23,000 women passed through the training centres. Returns relating to 12,657 women made in Aug. 1918 show the distribution of the types of work done: 5,734 milkers, 293 trac- tor drivers, 3,971 field workers, 635 carters, 260 ploughmen, 84 thatchers, 21 shepherds.

The workmanlike and becoming uniform of overall, breeches and leggings contributed largely to the success of the Corps.

Special steps were taken to supply workers for seasonal work in connexion with the fruit crops, flax weeding and pulling and potato picking; cooperation was established by the Employment Depart- ment of the Ministry of Labour with the National Land Service Corps, who by arrangement with the Board of Agriculture undertook the supply of educated women for holiday work.

The work being done for food economy in the villages by the Women's Institutes (which had been founded in England in 1915 by the Agricultural Organization Society on the model of those in Canada) was so important that a special section of the Women's Branch of the Food Production Department was formed in 1917 to undertake their propaganda. These Institutes bid fair to become a permanent feature of country life, and owe much to the increased interest in rural matters due to the widespread employment of women on the land during the war.

Women's Forestry Service. The Women's Forestry Service under Miss Rosamond Crowdy was instituted under the Timber Supply Department of the Board of Trade in 1917. In 1916 a considerable number of women had been employed by contractors in the cutting and measuring of timber, but it was not till early in 1917 that the first two Government camps for training women in the felling and preparation of timber for sleepers and pitprops were opened by the Women's Section of the Department of National Service, acting as agents for the Timber Supply Department of the Board of Trade. The first Government training camp for timber measurers was started in Aug. 1917 at Wendover under Mrs. Donald, through which 370 educated women passed. They learned to measure and mark off where a tree should be sawn and find the cubic contents of the logs, and were afterwards put in charge of timber gangs consisting of 20 to 30 cutters. In some cases women had the entire charge of a saw-mill with men working under them. The two camps for cutters were given up, as it was found that training was unnecessary when the women were put out to work in gangs under skilled forewomen. Private employers were supplied with 144 such gangs for felling, cross cutting, marking and measuring of timber between 1917 and 1919. About 3,000 women were engaged on the work, and wore an appropriate uniform with distinctive badges.

The King's Thanks. On June 29 1918, an address of homage was presented to the King and Queen on the occasion of their silver wed- ding by the Chief Woman Inspector, Employment Department,

Ministry of Labour acting on behalf of the organizations of full-time women workers engaged on work of national importance under the control of state departments, and of whole-time women workers engaged in public utility services under local authorities. A pro- cession of 2,540 women in uniform led by the V.A.D.s as the senior service, formed into six companies, eight abreast, facing the dais in the quadrangle of Buckingham Palace. Princess Mary stood by the King and Queen wearing her y.A.D. uniform. The King's reply to the address of homage contained the following words:

" When the history of our Country's share in the war is written no chapter will be more remarkable than that relating to the range and extent of women's participation. This service has been rendered only at the cost of much self-sacrifice and endurance. Women have readily worked for long hours and under trying conditions in our factories and elsewhere, to produce the supplies of munitions which were urgently needed at the front and to maintain the essential services of the country. As nurses and V.A.D. workers they have laboured in hospital for the care of the sick and wounded with even more than the accustomed devotion which has characterized our Red Cross Service since the days of the Crimean War. They have often faced cheerfully and courageously great risks both at home and overseas in carrying on their work, and the Women's Army has its own Roll of Honour of those who have lost their lives in the service of their country. Some even have fallen under the fire of the enemy. Of all these we think to-day with reverent pride."

Only the women actually belonging to the Army, Navy and Air Force took part in the Peace Procession. The W.R.N.S. marched with the Navy and Q.M.A.A.C. with the Army. The Army Nursing Services, the V.A.D.s, the F.A.N.Y., and the Military Massage Service formed part of the R.A.M.C. contingent; the Women's Legion and the Forage Corps marched with the R.A.S.C.; and the W.K.A.F., incorporated with the R.A.F., brought up the rear.

III. Voluntary Organizations. When war broke out there was an eager desire on the part of professional and non-professional women to work in France and Belgium. The passport restrictions were less stringent at first than they afterwards became, but it was never easy for women to obtain permission to work in France in connexion with the British armies. The French and Belgians, who had fewer trained women workers of their own, and were in greater need of help at the beginning of the war, accepted offers from organizations which the British authorities had rejected. Thus the privilege of undertaking the considerable amount of work actually performed by women in connexion with the Brit- ish armies, even before the formation of the Q.M.A.A.C., had been won with difficulty and was highly valued.

In 1914 Rachel, Countess of Dudley (d. 1920), Lady Sarah Wilson, the Duchess of Westminster, Lady Norman and Lady Hadficld i established hospitals for the British at the bases in ranee in which every bed was of value in the early days of stress. After a few months I the army took over Lady Dudley's hospital as No. 32 Stationary; j the Duchess of Westminster's became No. I Red Cross and Lady I Hadfield's No. 5 Red Cross. In 1916, the units of Milliccnt Duchess j of Sutherland and of Lady Murray, which had previously been open i for the French, were accepted for the British as No. 9 Red Cross and No. IO Red Cross. These voluntary units were staffed with! Red Cross and St. John's nurses, who were encouraged to enrol in the Army Nursing Services when they had obtained a knowledge of active service conditions. Nursing V.A.D.s were employed from : the beginning in addition to hospital orderlies. Princess Louise's! convalescent home for nursing sisters was opened at Hardelot in I 1914 by Sophie Lady Gifford under the British Red Cross Society, j and transferred to Cannes in 1917 as a winter home for the sisters. *

On Aug. 12 1914 Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray offered the services of a hospital unit staffed by women doctors and i nurses to the French wounded. Within a week the offer was accepted, and within a month the unit, which was the first formation to be entirely officered by medical women, had collected sufficient funds | and started for Paris, under the name of the Women's Hospital Corps. Owing to the pressure of work in the north at the end of [ Oct. Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray decided to divide their staff and establish a branch of the unit at Wimereux. This ' new hospital was accepted by the British Army Medical Service. I In Feb. 1915 Sir Alfred Keogn offered the Women's Hospital Corps the charge of a military hospital in London which opened at Endell Street in May.

In 1916 85 women doctors were attached as civil military prac- titioners to the R.A.M.C. at Malta to help care for the 27,000. wounded in the hospitals. As this experiment proved a great suc- cess, 39 others were sent with R.A.M.C. units to Salonika, and in Jan. 1918, the first medical women, of whom there were ultimately 36, went to Egypt. Four women doctors were attached to British military hospitals in France. They did not wear a distinctive uni- form, and none of the 331 medical women who served under the War Office at home and abroad held military rank.

Women belonging to the Red Cross organization worked at the British Red Cross Society headquarters in France, recruiting Red ' 