As 8 March 2013 is International Women’s Day I thought it is fitting to pay tribute to the women who worked in the shipyards. Are you related to any female shipyard workers? Perhaps you know about their experience.
I was aware that women were employed in Shipyards as French Polishers in Clydeside shipyards and John Brown's in Clydebank as a result of a conversation I had with a French Polisher at a Woodwork Exhibition but he did not know when women were first allowed to work in shipyards.
The Inverclyde Shipbuilding web site has information on Women employed during WWI and quotes that by the end of 1916 it was calculated that about 1800 women were employed in the Clyde yards and that about 1000 were employed as labourers.
https://www.inverclydeshipbuilding.com/ww1Post WWI women were expected to vacate shipyard work so that men returning from the war could resume employment. They must have had mixed feelings on this as on the one hand they knew that the terms of employment was to help the war effort, but on the other hand the women could have been unemployed or forced to take a lower skilled or lower paid job. My grandmother worked in the Singer’s Sewing Machine Factory in Clydebank during WWI. Her husband was killed in 1918 and she was forced to take on two jobs to ensure an acceptable standard of living for herself and my mother. I can imagine that there were women in the shipbuilding industry who were in a similar situation.
During WWII women again responded to the war effort by working in the shipyards. Shipyard work was very much seen and “men’s” work and at the time newspapers reported employers’ concerns about how women would cope with the heavy nature of the work and the harsh working condition. However women worked hard to dispel these concerns and to show that they were fitting candidates to tackle the jobs’ on offer.
The Glasgow Herald reported in August 1942 that it was not a case of women replacing skilled tradesmen. It was more a readjustment process where semi-skilled men replaced skilled men and the women took on a lower skilled job, although there may have been exceptions. There were jobs requiring strength, such as riveters where women were not employed.
Glasgow Herald article August 1942
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19420829&id=mUlAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gVkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5973,6383480I do not have any statistics on the number of women who worked in Clydeside shipyards, or in John Brown’s yard either during war or post war years. However what I do know is that these women who were employed in challenging conditions helped to change the course of history that allowed women to pursue careers today that could never have possible one hundred years ago.
