5th December, 2024 in Local & Family History, Military, Women in History

Women’s Land Army in Hampshire

By John K. Lander

John Lander author of new book Don’t Delay – Enrol Today highlights the importance of the women’s land army in Hampshire during both World Wars.

World War I

The Women’s Land Army was established by the British government to recruit women and girls to work in Britain’s agriculture industry in both twentieth century world wars. The necessity was prompted by large numbers of men leaving their employment to join the armed forces, and the knowledge that 60% of British food was imported with the prospect of supplies being disrupted. Numbers of women working in agricultural settings had been falling for decades. Compared with 43,946 identified in the 1861 population Census, there were just 13,245 females recorded as ‘agricultural labourers’ in the 1911 Census.

The First World War started in July 1914 and by February 1916, 250,000 men had left agricultural occupations with another 100,000 following the passing of the Military Services Act that conscripted, with few exceptions, all single men aged between eighteen and forty-one. A plea was made for 200,000 women and girls to replace them, coupled with a dire warning that labour shortages could lead to the country’s food production falling by between 15% and 25%. The prospect of food stocks reducing to just three weeks led to the urgent need for the cultivation of 2.5 million more acres of land, and for females to help supply the additional food.

In November 1917, the likelihood of food queues prompted Lloyd George, Prime Minister, to admit that ‘German submarines are trying to starve us by sinking the ships which are used to carry to our shores the abundant harvests of other lands.’ Food prices had risen by 42% in 1916, and food rationing was imposed in January 1918.

Claims were made that Hampshire was the most successful English county to recruit, train and place women and girls in local farms. As early as April 1915, two years before the Women’s Land Army was formed, a four-week course, devised by David Cowan, Hampshire’s Director of Education, was being taught at the county’s farm school at Sparsholt. Much was made of the students’ social class; ‘far above…the ordinary labouring class’, was a local newspaper comment.

Many people played a part in the recruitment of women and girls to work on farms. Hampshire’s Women’s Land Army committee had a formidable array of responsibilities to fulfil; the selection of suitable candidates, the organisation of a wide variety of training, the provision of accommodation, the allocation of farms, and pastoral care requirements, among them. Approximately one half of Women’s Land Army workers were employed in dairy associated duties, with the others spread around many farming activities.

By the end of the War, Hampshire accounted for about 3,500 of the country’s 23,000 full-time Women’s Land Army members, 12,000 working in “Agriculture”, with the remainder in the “Foraging” and “Forestry” sections. When the disbandment of the Women’s Land Army occurred in November 1919, many members remained in the agriculture sector, leading to a Hampshire farmer being delighted that he would ‘never again have a man to look after his poultry.’

World War II

If the British government was slow addressing the crucial issues following the departure of large numbers of men to serve in the armed forces in the First World War, that was not the case when the Second World War broke out in September 1939. The Women’s Land Army had been re-formed in February that year, and food rationing was imposed in January 1940, not to be completely lifted until 1954. Despite extensive advertising, numbers of females coming forward rarely matched demand for them, accommodation was in short supply, and another appeal for more land for cultivation was needed as German U boats were severely disrupting food and other supplies.

Once again Hampshire was in the forefront of the recruitment of Women’s Land Army members, known as “land girls”, with the county’s National Farmers’ Union Chairman claiming ‘that there were more land girls in Hampshire than in any other county in England.’ By January 1940, 609 land girls were already employed on Hampshire’s farms, a number that steadily grew to 2,611. The national number of employed land girls peaked at 87,000 in 1943 but had fallen to 43,125 in 1945. Most recruits were single women with an age range of 17 to about 45, and from a wide variety of previous occupations. The first week-long courses at Sparsholt’s farm school taught land girls to drive tractors, reflecting the large increase in numbers on farms compared with the First World War.

When the War in Europe ended in 1945, continued food shortages, the reemployment of fewer male workers than expected, the raising of the school leaving age, and former prisoners of war returning to their home countries, led to the continuing encouragement of females to remain in farming to support a “Food Comes First” campaign. The Women’s Land Army was finally demobilised in November 1950. Accolades were commonplace; one was that land girls ‘had obeyed the call of duty in the nation’s hour of great peril and need, and the nation owed them an everlasting debt.’

That was undoubtedly so, but not without justification was the Women’s Land Army described as a “Cinderella” operation. Land girls were not awarded the same levels of leaving gratuities that other female wartime workers received, they were not invited to march past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day until 2000, and it was October 2014 before a statue was unveiled at the National Arboretum by the Countess of Essex. Over 240,000 women and girls served on British farms in both world wars, and it must be hoped that the 75th anniversary of the disbandment of the Women’s Land Army in November 2025 will be suitably marked.