Clare Wightman - More than Munitions: Women, Work and the Engineering Industries, 1900-1950

More than Munitions

WOMEN AND MEN IN HISTORY

This series, published for students, scholars and interested general readers, will tackle themes in gender history from the early medieval period through to the present day. Gender issues are now an integral part of all history courses and yet many traditional texts do not reflect this change. Much exciting work is now being done to redress the gender imbalances of the past, and we hope that these books will make their own substantial contribution to that process. This is an open-ended series, which means that many new titles can be included. We hope that these will both synthesise and shape future developments in gender studies.

The General Editors of the series are Patricia Skinner (University of Southampton) for the medieval period; Pamela Sharpe (University of Bristol) for the early modern period; and Penny Summerfield (University of Lancaster) for the modern period. Margaret Walsh (University of Nottingham) was the Founding Editor of the series.

Published books:

Masculinity in Medieval Europe

DM. Hadley (ed.)

Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy

Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis (eds)

Gender, Church and State in Early Modern Germany: Essays by Merry E. Wiesner

Merry E. Wiesner

Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage

Elizabeth W. Foyster

Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London: Prostitution in the Metropolis, 17301830

Tony Henderson

Gender, Power and the Unitarians in England, 17601860

Ruth Watts

Women and Work in Russia, 18801930: A Study in Continuity through Change

Jane McDermid and Anna Hillyar

The Family Story: Blood, Contract and Intimacy, 18301960

Leonore Davidoff, Megan Doolittle, Janet Fink and Katherine Holden

More than Munitions: Women, Work and the Engineering Industries, 19001950

Clare Wightman

More than Munitions

Women, Work and the Engineering Industries, 19001950

CLARE WIGHTMAN

First published 1999 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited

Published 2014 by Routledge

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Copyright 1999, Taylor & Francis.

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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-41435-8 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue entry for this title is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalogue entry for this tide is available from the Library of Congress

Set by 35 in 10/12pt Baskerville

Contents

Some theoretical issues

It is both a relief and a pleasure to be able to acknowledge publicly those who have helped to bring a piece of research to fruition. First among my archival debts is the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, a unique and important repository whose staff were supportive in many ways. They are probably as relieved as I am at this books completion. The following archives also deserve thanks: British Motor Industry Heritage Trust Archive and Library, Coventry City Archives, Local Studies Department, Coventry City Library, Birmingham Reference Library and Birmingham City Archives, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Manchester City Archives and the Public Record Office. I am very grateful to several firms for making their records available to me, including GEG-Alsthom (Electro-mechanical) Trafford Park, Manchester and Lucas Industries, Pic, Solihull. Thanks are also due to all those former employees of GEC, Lucas and Metropolitan-Vickers who offered recollections of the engineering industry and help in locating records. The Engineering Employers Federation, The Transport and General Workers Union and the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Trades Union also allowed me access to their archives.

Jim Obelkevich has always provided kind hospitality. For their intellectual guidance and help I am especially indebted to Joanna Bourke, Michael Dintenfass and Jonathan Zeitlin. For support of the most valuable kind, however, my final debt is to my husband, Tony Mason.

The engineering industry is, and must always be, primarily an industry for men.1

The authors of a report made to the Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) in 1934 were right the industry predominantly employed men and it continued to do so. At its peacetime height in 1946, only a fifth of the workforce was female. In terms of womens employment as a whole, engineering accounted for only a minority of workers. In 1900 most women worked in either domestic service, textiles or garment making. Later they worked mainly in the white collar and service industries. No more than 3 per cent of all women in the major occupational groups worked in the engineering industry.2 Numerically small, female employment was not insignificant however. After 1919, women and girls made up an increasing share of the workforce in the industrys fastest growing and most productive sector the new industries of electrical goods, light engineering and vehicles.