The Home Front

1. The Home Front This section examines how the lives of ordinary Scottish people were affected by the war. • Attitudes to war • Conscription • Role of Women • DORA • Commemoration and Remembrance

2. Voices against the War Aims • Examine the anti-war attitudes which existed among the Scottish people.

3. Voices Against the War • Not everyone was swept away by war fever. • 5,000 people attended an anti war demonstration in Glasgow just after the war began. • In Scotland the Independent Labour Party (ILP) led the anti war movement. • The ILP argued the war would be fought by ordinary people and whatever the outcome it would not change their lives for the better. • However as a result the ILP lost support and was criticised as unpatriotic.

4. Conscription • European countries had long used conscription. • Young men were called up for two years then returned to civilian life to be called up later if needed. • Britain was the only country not to use conscription. • As recruitment rates fell and casualty rates rose it was only a matter of time before its introduction in Britain.

5. The Military Service Act 1916 • Conscription was introduced in 1916 • In January 1916 single men from 19 - 40 years were conscripted then in May 1916 married men up to the age of 50 were included.

6. Exemptions • Physically or mentally unfit. • Men engaged in work of national importance e.g. coal miners • Those whose service would cause hardship to their families • Conscientious Objectors

7. NCF • The No Conscription Fellowship was founded in England in 1914. • It spread rapidly across Scotland • The ILP and the NCF mirrored each other’s anti war campaigns. • Conscientious objectors opposed the war due to political, religious or moral beliefs.

8. Conscientious Objectors • Conscientious objectors had to face military tribunals which included one representative from the military. • As a result appeals for exemption were often rejected. • It is thought that 70% of COs in Scotland were members of the ILP. • 5970 COs were sent to prison • 73 died there. • Across the UK 16,000 men refused to fight.

9. Conchies were divided into pacifists and absolutists • Pacifists would perform non combat duties e.g. ambulance driver, stretcher bearers. • Absolutists refused any duties which would help the war effort and usually ended up in prison. • Alternativists were prepared to take on civilian work. • Around 13,000 Conscientious objectors were still in prison five months after the war ended. • Even after release they were shunned by families and former friends and found it difficult to find employment.

10. Anti-War Movement • The ILP had consistently opposed the war. • The number of branches had grown from 112 to 167. • Membership had grown to 9,000 • However the anti war movement was tiny in comparison to the vast majority who supported the war and is estimated around 0.5% of the population opposed the war in some way.

11. The Changing Role of Women • Aim: • Examine the changing role of women during the war.

12. Before the war it was widely believed that a woman’s place was in the home. • New laws, better education, new technology opened up more opportunities for women. • However it was clear that only by winning the vote would women’s lives significantly improve. • The Suffragist and Suffragette campaigns were in full swing before the outbreak of the war. • When war was declared both organisations suspended their campaigns. • The Suffragettes demanded “ the right to serve”.

13. Women were needed to fill the gaps in the home front especially after conscription was introduced. • Industries which had previously excluded women now welcomed them. • Women worked in transport, farming, munitions, on the docks and in the police. • Many women also served on the Western Front as nurses and ambulance drivers. They often faced grave danger. • The biggest increase in female employment was in engineering. • Over 30,000 Scottish women were employed in munitions in places such as Glasgow, Clydebank, Gretna.

14. Dilution • Trade unions were worried about dilution - the practice of using unskilled workers to do skilled jobs. • When men returned from war, employers might try to reduce their wages or even worse employ female workers instead. • Dilution Scheme – broke a job down into stages and women would be trained to do a stage each. • This reduced concerns that women in the workplace would undermine skilled male workers.

15. The 1915 Rent Strikes • The 1915 rent strikes are significant because they show how ordinary women can organise themselves and challenge authority to improve their lives. • Demand for housing increased dramatically during the war. • Workers searching for accommodation took whatever they could get. • Unscrupulous landlords raised rents some by 20%. • Women, whose men were away fighting, were threatened with eviction if they didn’t pay up.

16. Tactics • Helen Crawfurd, Mary Barbour, Agnes Dollan and Jessie Stephens formed the Glasgow Women’s Housing Association to fight the rent rises and evictions. • They received support from trade unions and the ILP. • Women tried to prevent evictions by crowding on the stairs. • “Bombing” sheriff officers with bags of flour.

17. Reaction to the Strikes • The Government was anxious about any disruption to the vital munitions industry of which Glasgow and the Clyde were part. • The women argued they were not disrupting the war effort. • They argued fair rents would prevent profiteering and exploitation of munitions workers • In addition it would prevent evictions of local workers for non payment of unfair rents.

18. Escalation • The landlords threatened evictions, fines and imprisonment. • The women began a rent strike in May 1915 • 25,000 tenants in Glasgow joined in. • Rent strikes spread to Aberdeen and Dundee. • A mass demonstration took place in George Square on the 17th November and thousands of men and women marched to Glasgow’s Sheriff Court. • Male workers in engineering and munitions joined the strike. • Employers were increasingly worried about the effect on wartime production.

19. The Solution • The Rent Restriction Act froze rents at the 1914 levels unless improvements were made to the property. • This resolved the rent strikes and prevented any disruption to wartime production. • Some argue that the rent strikes politicised women and gave them a political role campaigning for change. • Others would say that women were simply defending their domestic environment – poor housing was one of the biggest issues facing working class families.

20. The Vote At Last • It is simplistic to say that the war changed attitudes and this led to women achieving the vote. • At the end of the war, many women were forced out of jobs and society continued to have a stereotypical image of women as good wives and mothers. • A more realistic view if that the government saw advantage from further reform. • Due to industrial unrest during the war and the rent strikes there was concern that there would be a renewed Suffragette campaign once the war was over. • After the war most women were not able to keep their war time jobs as munitions factories etc closed. Around 25% of women were back working in domestic service.

21. 1918 Representation of the People Act • It was difficult to deny the vote to men who had been conscripted into the army. • Soldiers in barracks were also excluded from the vote as this was a temporary address. • The 1918 Act gave the vote to women over 30 who were householders, wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5 or university graduates. • It was middle/upper class women who really benefited. • Men over 21 (over 19 if they served in the army) were also given the vote. • Women now made up 40% of the electorate.

22. Commemoration and Remembrance • Official estimates state that 73,000 Scots died in the Great War. • All of Scotland’s regiments experienced high casualty rates – Royal Scots lost 11,000 men, Black Watch 10,000 men. • Glasgow lost 18,000 men or 1 out of every 57 men. • The loss of a whole generation of young men was particularly felt in small rural areas where the population was much smaller. • Many families had no body to bury and place to grieve. • Across the country there was a tremendous desire to remember those who had sacrificed their lives.

23. In 1917 the decision was taken to create a UK memorial and museum in London. • The Cenotaph was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and made of Portland stone. • The only inscription is ‘The Glorious Dead’ chosen by the Poet Rudyard Kipling. • Today it is used to commemorate all British servicemen and women who have died in conflict. • Every year on Remembrance Sunday the Queen and representatives from all the armed forces observe a two minutes silence and lay poppy wreaths in remembrance. "All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead." King George V, 7th Nov 1919

24. On the 14th of July 1927 the Scottish National War memorial was opened. • The architect Sir Robert Lorimer and two hundred Scottish artists and craftsmen created a serene Hall Of Honour and Shrine where the names of the dead are contained in books that are on permanent display. • It is a memorial to all Scottish servicemen and women who had died during conflicts. The casket was a gift from King George V and Queen Mary. A roll of honour from each of the Scottish regiments was paced inside.

25. The Oban War memorial was unveiled on 11th November 1923 stands at the end of the Corran Esplanade. • The architect was Messrs. Richardson & Mackay of Edinburgh and the sculptor Alexander Carrick. • It features the carved figures of two Highland Infantrymen carrying a wounded comrade.

26. The unveiling took place on 11th November 1923 by Lieutenant Colonel W.H. MacAlpine-Leny of Duror, D.S.O.. His speech was reported in the Oban Times: 'I am sure that we all feel that in our generation no monument of stone is required to keep fresh in our minds the great sacrifice made by so many of our Highland lads but at the same time we wish to leave behind us for the benefit and example of future generations a monument commemorating the patriotism and loyalty as well as the names of those brave men who gave all in the cause of freedom. While naturally today our thoughts are largely centred on the dead, we must not forget the great debt of gratitude we owe also to the living. We must bear in mind those equally brave men who gave up their civil employment and left their home and families to go and fight for their country. Many of those men, though spared from death, now find themselves in a position which makes it a hard struggle for them to live. Our dead are now in better hands than ours, but we can at least try to do what we can for the living. Anyone who has visited some of our great hospitals, where even now, five years after the War, men lie maimed and broken, must feel with me that there are worse things than death. For regular soldiers like myself, war is of course our profession, but I have the very greatest admiration for those men of the Royal Naval Reserve, Territorials and New Armies, who volunteered in the cause of freedom to fight for their King and Country.'

27. On the 11th November 1920 an unidentified British soldier who died during the war was buried in Westminister Abbey, London. • This is the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior – a symbol of all the unknown dead who died during the war. • 100 women were guests of honour at the ceremony – all had lost their husbands during the war. • The body was buried using soil from each of the main battlefields. • As the fields of France and Belgium were torn apart during the war, the poppy grew naturally in these conditions. • John McRae’s famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ was inspired by the sight of poppies on the battlefield. • In 1921 the Royal British Legion adopted the flower as a symbol for their Poppy Appeal

28. Beneath this stone rests the body Of a British warrior Unknown by name or rank Brought from France to lie among The most illustrious of the land And buried here on Armistice Day 11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of His Majesty King George V His Ministers of State The Chiefs of His Forces And a Vast Concourse of the Nation Thus are commemorated the many multitudes who during the Great War of 1914-1918 gave the most that man can give life itself. For God For King and Country For loved ones home and Empire For the sacred cause of justice and the freedom of the world. They buried him among the Kings because he had done good toward God and toward his House

29. Imperial War Graves Commission • During the war, Fabian Ware worked for the British Red Cross Society. • He set up an organisation called the Graves Registration Commission which began to mark and record the graves of those who were killed. • In 1917 it became known as the Imperial War Graves Commission. • After the end of the war, land was granted by the French and Belgium governments to establish cemeteries and memorials. • All cemeteries have a very similar design. • Those with 40 or more graves have a Cross of Sacrifice. • Those with a 1000 graves or more have an Altar of Remembrance. • All the headstones are made of Portland Stone and record the name, rank, age and date of death.