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Women war workers of Birmingham

Thanks Viv - for an interesting video clip. As a little'un I could have seen that parade if my parents had taken me to 'town' that day. I remember all the posters on the town hall and other buildings. There are some interesting photos of Women War Workers on the IWM site - its not the easiest site to search !

The Prime Minister Winston Churchill observes a female riveter working on a Supermarine Spitfire at the Castle Bromwich factory in Birmingham, England, on 28 September 1941.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205196617

A Girl Joins Up: Women's Factory War Work, England, May 1941
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205198549
There are more photos at the bottom of the IWM page, one showing the outside of a factory.

There are also some interesting pics of the Wartime Childrens Nurseries needed to look after the young children of the women workers, one of them in Hunters Rd Hockley.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202892

Today's view - the wartime balconies have gone ....
https://goo.gl/maps/E6CYb
 
Thanks Phil. Be a good result if any of the women in these photos/films could be identified. Makes you realise what a wealth of untapped info we have stored on film. Just needs a lot of time and effort to dig deeper into it. Viv.
 
Can anyone help I believe my mother worked for a company called something like Perfector working on Mosquitoes does anyone have any information please
 
During the war many companies did work very different from their peacetime products, but in the 1943 Kellysthere are two companies with that name:

Perfecta Molor Equipments Ltd. motor car wind screen mfrs.; specialising in screens, coupe's & hooding, Excelsior works, Oxford st 5 (TA " Permoquip, Birmingham ; " Midland 1673, 1674 & 1675) & 29 Highgate sq 12

Perfecta Tube Co. Ltd. tube mkrs. Plume st. Aston 6. T A " Perfecta; " Aston Cross 2211 (3 lines)

Obviously the tube company might be involved in aircraft construction, but also, as Mosquitos were constructed of spruce and balsa, a firm used to constructing car hoods might have had useful expertise
 
What a great picture! Someone's mothers, grandmothers...... It's such a shame that, despite the power of social media, so many subjects of images like this never ever get spotted and identified.

Chris
 
ChrisM said:
What a great picture! Someone's mothers, grandmothers...... It's such a shame that, despite the power of social media, so many subjects of images like this never ever get spotted and identified.

Chris
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i agree chris and there are so many articles that do not put the names of people that are in the photographs...

lyn
 
Agree Chris. The only thing that I can add to this is whether the building was the later Remploy building. If so it was on the Soho Road. I remember Remploy was next to the ‘Labour Exchange’ and opposite the later multi-storey DHSS building.

So it makes me wonder were these women/girls those who’d signed up for war work at their local labour exchange ? And perhaps they were local girls. There’d have been plenty of war work relatively nearby; munitions etc.

Viv.
 
It brings to mind this iconic Dame Kaura Knight painting which I have always loved. Must have inspired many women to support the war effort.

Laura Knight was commissioned to paint Ruby Loftus, an outstanding factory worker. Loftus had mastered complex engineering skills in a very short space of time. Industrial machinery was also a new subject of Knight’s work, but she was praised, like Loftus for proving herself in a traditionally male environment. factory worker.

Viv.

5FB6F238-E7F9-440B-9548-85333681C917.jpeg
 
Vivienne14 said:
Agree Chris. The only thing that I can add to this is whether the building was the later Remploy building. If so it was on the Soho Road. I remember Remploy was next to the ‘Labour Exchange’ and opposite the later multi-storey DHSS building.

So it makes me wonder were these women/girls those who’d signed up for war work at their local labour exchange ? And perhaps they were local girls. There’d have been plenty of war work relatively nearby; munitions etc.

Viv.
Click to expand...
As far as I remember some women were from Ireland, A family we knew, who lived in Hall Green, had an Irish girl - from the Republic - as a lodger. She worked in a factory - her name was Bridie.
 
I think that, if possible, they tried to use local girls so they did not have to find accommodation.
My Mom (from Shirley) wanted to join the Land Army but was sent to the Rover (Lode Lane) for her war work as she could live at home and cycle in. Or so she was led to believe. Not sure what she made but she did 2 weeks on days and 2 weeks on nights.
 
Interesting that recuperation was considered appropriate (at least by the Birmingham Saturday Fund) for female munition workers. Doubtless the work entailed long hours and shifts, all alongside maintaining the same family responsibilities. And carried out single-handed without the support of a serving husband. Viv.

5D9664FC-74D5-47F1-A7F7-802B32EF0366.jpeg
Source: British Newspaper Archive
 
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During ww1and 2 woman police kept there eye on factory workers

11302969

Police-.jpg

11302971
 
I had to read that caption twice! The girls are stitching the wing of an aeroplane!
I learn something every day on the Forum. I knew the wings were fabric but I didn't know how it was done,
rosie.
 
“Birmingham is in the forefront of provincial cities in encouraging women workers. Apart from the many hundreds who have found employment in factories on war work, the Corporation Transport Department has already appointed 700 women bus and tram conductors to replace men now in the Army. These uniformed girls are being shown how to punch tickets as part of their training for bus conductresses at the School of Instruction, Birmingham.”
(Birmingham Gazette July 1940)

IMG_6383.jpeg
 
rosie said:
I had to read that caption twice! The girls are stitching the wing of an aeroplane!
I learn something every day on the Forum. I knew the wings were fabric but I didn't know how it was done,
rosie.
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Also you'd have expected them to wear soft shoes or socks while stitching. Interesting.
 
I suspect that whatever aircraft type they were working on, it would be one which was fairly quickly superseded by more modern types. We are talking here mainly about WW1 technology - obviously still around and probably used for quite a long period in some aircraft designs, for example for tail fins and tail planes. But, I would have thought, increasingly rarely on wings, apart from perhaps isolated, small areas. It would need somebody who knows a bit about 1940s aircraft design to tell us.

In the absence of that knowledge I wonder where that image was taken. A candidate would be Longbridge and, at that time, manufacture of the Fairey Battle aircraft whose production life didn't last for very long into the war.

Chris
 
ChrisM said:
I suspect that whatever aircraft type they were working on, it would be one which was fairly quickly superseded by more modern types. We are talking here mainly about WW1 technology - obviously still around and probably used for quite a long period in some aircraft designs, for example for tail fins and tail planes. But, I would have thought, increasingly rarely on wings, apart from perhaps isolated, small areas. It would need somebody who knows a bit about 1940s aircraft design to tell us.

In the absence of that knowledge I wonder where that image was taken. A candidate would be Longbridge and, at that time, manufacture of the Fairey Battle aircraft whose production life didn't last for very long into the war.

Chris
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I don't think it is a Birmingham factory. The latticework visible looks like the wing of an aircraft of geodetic construction, probably a Vickers Wellington since the earlier Wellesley had long gone out of production by 1940. The wing and fuselage of the Wellington were covered by fabric. Wellingtons were built at Weybridge, Broughton and Blackpool.

-Edit, Wellintons were repaired after damage at various sites throughout the country, the only one I can find near Birmingham was Bishop's Tachbrook, near Coventry.
 
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I have spent the last few nights browsing through the photo archive on the Imperial War Museum website www.iwm.org.uk/collections. Its only a tiddler (so far over 1 million images online it says......) but even a simple search on "Birmingham" looking only at those records with digitised media returned around 1300 images. Also try searching on "Coventry" and "Railways". All can be browsed in high detail by clicking the full screen button with only a tiny watermark in the bottom right hand corner - most can be zoomed (tip - if there is more than one thumbnail of the same image the last one can usually be zoomed in further) and because these are nearly all official propaganda images from WW1 and WW2 (and some later - ie: Falklands War) quality is generally superb! Most have detailed captions too.

Many images are on the subject of female war workers ( a good propaganda tool) and here are a few to tie in with this thread.
HOWEVER - I have to start with the poster below - dating from 1915, issued by the Greater Birmingham Licensed Committee to advise landlords on how to deal with females who may have had a port and lemon too many:-
1708467739243.png
Somehow I doubt they could get away with a poster like this in 2024 - I presume it means the gents in the pub could get into any state they wanted to, but the ladies (who were after all ENTITLED to alcoholic refreshments according to this notice) had to behave themselves. Rowdy lot these post-Edwardian ladies by the looks of it - no wonder the Peaky Blinders went around with razor blades in their caps......
 
great photos mark..went past the carnegie only the other day..wow i think photo 5 shows the rocking horse that used to be inside ...i remember it

lyn
 
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