‘We have… temporarily filled their places as far as possible with efficient female labour’ Notice from The Metal Agencies Co., Bristol, January 1916

Women took on jobs left vacant by men who had joined up. Some were roles which had never been filled by women before. Their wages were often half of those paid to men doing identical jobs. By 1917, 250 women worked as tram conductors in Bristol and 14 drove lorries for the Tramways Company. The company would only employ ‘clippies’ aged between 18 and 25. Women also helped to sort and deliver the 12 million letters crossing the English Channel each week. Nationally, over 1.5 million women went to work for the first time. Before the war, ‘it was thought to be rather strange if women did paid work, without financial necessity,’ according to Frida Barclay Baron, who grew up in Bristol in the early 1900s. When the men returned after the war, women were expected to give up their jobs. In 1920 crowds in Bristol damaged tram cars and broke windows, demanding that the women conductors be sacked and replaced by men returning from the war.