Female Munition Workers

Female munition workers 'forming up' before the Women's Right to Serve March that took place in London on Saturday 17 July 1915. This 'great procession of women' was organised by the Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst at the request of Lloyd George, Minister of Munitions to encourage women to sign up for 'war work'. The procession, that included land girls and munitions workers carrying patriotic banners formed up on the Victoria Embankment and marched, via Piccadilly, Oxford Street and Regent Street to the Ministry of Munitions in Whitehall Gardens where the women were addressed by Lloyd George who outlined future plans for female war work. The march was preceded by a ' Pageant of the Allies' comprising women dressed in the national costume of Russia, Poland, France, Belgium and Italy accompanied by representatives of the United Kingdom, Ireland and the colonies. Along the route were 50 tables where women could register for war-work.