On This Day, 11 March 1918

Birmingham Mail

Monday 11 March 1918

DISCHARGE OF WOMEN WAR-WORKERS

MRS. PANKHURST’S PROTEST

Addressing a meeting of the Women’s Party in Birmingham, yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Pankhurst said for the first time women had known what it was to earn decent wages, and she was sure they would not consent to go back to their old position of dependence. Eight thousand women had been dismissed from Woolwich Arsenal, and all over the country they were being sent back to their homes. Yet there were thousands of young men of military age, and physically fit, kept in munition factories. With votes behind them women must assert themselves, and make it clear that they would not be dismissed while men eligible for the army were retained in industrial life.

A resolution protesting against the dismissal of women while men needed for the army were kept on, and also condemning the efforts of the minority seeking to force an inconclusive and shameful peace by means of strikes and industrial unrest was carried.