More on Women's Volunteer Reserve:
Women's organisations
It is a well-documented fact the the Great War brought many new opportunities for women. They moved into areas of public, commercial and industrial life that had previously been out of bounds. Womens efforts in the war also embraced many different voluntary activities, in raising funds and providing materials for the forces. As the economies of Great Britain and the Empire geared up towards a total war footing, these activities proved to be insufficient. Towards the end of 1916 the British Government began organising women's auxiliary military services, to replace men in non-combatant roles and so release more men for fighting. Unprepared by pre-war life for the conditions that many now faced, they bore it with great fortitude and laid a foundation for undreamed-of levels of emancipation that came in the post-war generations. This page is little more than a passing tribute to the important women's organisations; the subject would benefit from a broader study.
The Women's Volunteer Reserve
This organisation developed from a very early one, the Women's Emergency Corps, which came into existence in August 1914. It was the initiative of Decima Moore and the Hon. Evelina Haverfield - a militant and influential suffragette - who seized the opportunity provided by the crisis to organise a role for women. It was soon joined by many women from the higher classes and was in the early days an unlikely mix of feminists and women who would not normally have mixed with such dangerous types. They became involved in several ventures, not least of which was in providing until 1918 a uniformed group called the Lady Instructors Signals Company, who trained Aldershot army recruits in signalling. However the work was largely of a domestic, fund-raising nature. The WVR was however rather expensive to join - one had to pay for ones own uniform which at more than £2 could not be afforded by lower classes. This was an influence in the establishment of the Women's Legion, which had a more widespread appeal.
& photo of Margaret Ellen Douglass:
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