Introduction

Abstract

The role of the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in the agricultural history of the First World War has often been overlooked due to the seemingly minor role played by the organisation in maintaining domestic food production between its formation in January 1917 and its demobilisation in October 1919. The WLA, however, marked the first time that a group of women came together in a national organisation for farm work. The creation of the WLA was part of a broader effort to mobilise a domestic force of women workers, but with the specific task of replacing the male agricultural labourers who had enlisted or who had been conscripted into Britain’s armed forces. This study argues that although farm work became an imperative patriotic act, valued not just for the food produced, but also through the symbolic act of tending the land, organisers like Meriel Talbot (the Director of the Women’s Branch in charge of the WLA) and Edith Lyttelton (Deputy Director) did not envision the organisation simply in patriotic terms. The WLA was formed to help solve the real problem of the dwindling agricultural labour supply, but organisers believed that a national organisation would help convince farmers, potential recruits, and the public of the valuable role women could play in agriculture, not only in wartime, but as a viable employment opportunity beyond the years of the conflict.