III
MISS LILIAN BARKER,C.B.E., AND MISS MABEL COTTERELL
Thefirst element in the great development of munition work during the war, which has drawn women in tens of thousands into the service of their country, has certainly been the all-powerful motive of patriotism. But second to this, the practical success of the work has been made possible largely through the recognition and development of welfare work. What we understand nowadays by “welfare” does not consist merely in the provision of canteens and other amenities for workers. It means the study of human nature, the introduction of the humanising element into work. Experience has proved that there is nothing in the world so calculated to get the best out of human nature as the human touch. Welfare work, undertaken sporadically in this country since the beginning of the nineteenth century, has been gradually introduced in our factories by the more enlightened employers, but the advent of women in such great numbers to munition works has set the seal of official approval on the system.
The result of this work cannot be better illustrated than by the example of what has been accomplished by two of the most successful welfare workers.
Miss Lilian Barker, the Lady Superintendent atthe Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, supervises the women operators employed there with the good humour and sagacity of an ideal statesman. When Miss Barker took up her work at Woolwich in December, 1915, there were 400 women and girls employed at the Arsenal. To-day there are over 25,000, every one of whom has been personally engaged by this “superwoman” of Woolwich.
Round Miss Barker’s office there gathers a constant throng of workers, and it is one of her tasks, with the assistants whom she has trained, to straighten out their difficulties, to inquire into their grievances, and to act if need be as mediator with their superior officers. She advises all who come to her for help as to their health, their meals, their recreation, and the hundred and one details which the domestic guardian of a huge works can set to rights by understanding, patience, and tact. It is hard to give an adequate impression of the wonderful atmosphere which Miss Barker has created at Woolwich, but a visitor privileged to go round the shops in her company cannot fail to be deeply struck, not only by her influence with the workers, but by the general sense of contentment and health. As one approaches a shop, one hears the girls singing at their work—a sure sign of happiness. When Miss Barker enters, their faces light up, gay greetings pass, and one feels instinctively the confidence and mutual trust with which she has inspired her great family.
Miss Barker makes frequent tours round the women’s shops (it is said to take a week to go over the whole Arsenal), and all the time she is on the watch for possible improvements—perhaps the better ventilation of a factory, or some needed alteration ina cloakroom—stopping ever and again for a word with a girl on some matter relating to her well-being. It is rare to see a sickly face, even among the workers in the danger zone, and visitors are struck by the high proportion of good looks, even of beauty. The workers are drawn from every grade of society, but the democracy of the overall and cap levels all distinctions.
Recently much trouble was experienced by the Arsenal management owing to bad timekeeping in the shops. Able to earn considerable sums of money by working only three or four days weekly, the girls were apt to stay away for the rest of the week. Miss Barker was approached and asked to take over the responsibility for the timekeeping, never before part of her work, and the results were astonishing. “If you leave 200 fuse-rings incomplete,” she would say, in making personal appeals to small groups of girls, “they delay 200 fuses. 200 fuses delay 200 shells from being sent out to the front. Think what 200 shells might mean to Tommy in a tight corner!” Miss Barker knows the wisdom of instilling into each worker the sense of her personal responsibility, and under her inspiration the timekeeping difficulty is no longer an acute problem.
Miss Mabel Cotterell is another welfare worker who has accomplished a stupendous task. Little more than a year ago the first buildings of the greatest Filling Factory in the country began to rise from a desolate bog on the borders of England and Scotland. During the year a town has grown to house the thousands of women employees who came to work in answer to the national appeal for their help. Miss Cotterell engaged and took toGretna the first fifty fisher-girls from the Aberdeen coast. “I had one assistant in those days,” Miss Cotterell recalls, “and we met the new-comers at the countryside station and took them over the fields to the hostel and the bungalow which had been furnished for their use. It was well they came first in the summer days, for there were then no proper roads, no lights, no shops, no halls or clubrooms, while at the factory the canteens were not ready for use. However, it was warm and sunny, and there were flowers and the birds sang. The girls carried sandwich lunches with them, had a good meat meal on returning to the hostel, and a pleasant country walk in the evening.”
To-day there are 64 hostels and 30 bungalows at Gretna, and Miss Cotterell has an army of assistants, clerks, matrons, and factory supervisors. The former wilderness is now inhabited by a well-housed community, organised in all details with a thoroughness and practical care which speak volumes for the genius of its moving spirit.
When the workers came to inhabit the convenient and attractive homes prepared for them, they found that equally enlightened plans had been formulated for their welfare. Miss Cotterell has kept careful watch of the leisure hours of those under her charge, and she has seen that every opportunity for rest, recreation, and improvement is open to them, and facilities for reading, writing, playing games, and attending classes. Periodic entertainments are given—sometimes by the “Gretna Ramblers,” a troupe of munition girls who have been trained in singing, dancing, and recitation.
The added responsibility of having the girls entirelyresident, as at Gretna, entails serious problems. The whole work of catering, and the domestic arrangements of the hostels fall on the Welfare Department. Another of its duties is to file the record of every girl in the factory; and the procedure for discharges, leave of absence, transfers, or sick leave, all passes through this Department—a considerable task when, at the rate at which the factory is increasing, as many as 200 new girls arrive in one day. Inevitably, difficulties of administration are not unknown, even in a model community. There has been occasional shortage of furniture, dampness of new houses, or girl workers unaccustomed to discipline who decline to obey orders. But difficulties seem to vanish under Miss Cotterell’s experienced touch. Her wise administration is already responsible for a marked improvement, not only in health and physique, which good food, clean housing, and regular employment have brought to the workers. Her influence is also noticeable in a greater regard for truth, honesty, and duty.
This outcome of women’s munition work will mean much in the future developments of their industrial life. Women like Miss Barker and Miss Cotterell, in attempting a great achievement, have accomplished an immeasurable one.