4th August 1914 - Women's Emergency Corps

This article from WOMEN’S WAR WORK EDITED BY LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, 1916, is about the Women’s Emergency Corps and the part they played at the start of the war.

"The Women’s Emergency Corps is perhaps the largest of all the Women’s Organizations for the relief of war distress. It was started within two days of the declaration of war by some members the Actresses’ Franchise League, and was at first worked from the offices of this Society. In one week, however, it became too big for the rooms of the A.F.L. and migrated to the Little Theatre lent by Miss Gertrude Kingston. Here, however, it soon outgrew its accommodation and has now; through the generosity of the Duchess of Marlborough found permanent head-quarters in Baker Street.

The work, the membership, and the ramifications of the Women’s Emergency Corps are so extensive that it cannot, in fact, be identified with Suffragist organization. Some of its most ardent workers are non-Suffragists, and it works in association with other great bodies, such as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association, the National Union of Women Workers, the Charity Organization Society, the Young Women’s Christian Association War Clubs, the Children’s Care Committees, and the Women’s League of Service and Schools for Mothers.

The Kitchen Department, aided by supplies from the National Food Fund, distributed in four months 28,378 meals, and 1065 lbs. of plum puddings were made before Christmas. In co-operation with the National Guild of Housecraft, unemployed girls have been given training in domestic work; thousands of handy women have been sent as helpers to various benevolent agencies, and paid employment has been found for women in almost every professional trade and industry.

The Women’s Emergency Corps Toy-Making industry soon outgrew the accommodation at head-quarters, and Lord Postman came to the help, lending them a disused chapel on his estate where the girls are now at work. Ten branches of this big undertaking are establishing in different parts of the country, and some of the largest London firms, besides two in Natal and Cape Town, have given important orders for toys.

The interpreting department of the W. E. C. was the first organized body to assist those from Belgium. Hundreds of interpreters were enrolled; they met the continental trains at all the stations, and ships at the various docks; they provided carefully compiled lists of hotels, boarding houses, and lodgings of all kinds, and investigated and arranged accommodation. In those early days before the Belgian Relief centre in Kingsway was opened, many hundreds of refugees would have fared very badly without the help of this able band.

The Women’s Emergency Corps were the first to start teaching elementary French and German to the soldiers in training, and held classes in nearly fifty military centres. Their hospitality department has also done colossal work for Belgian and French refugees in supplying both homes and clothing to those who were homeless and destitute. Some hundreds of women motor-cyclists and motorists who run their own cars and are capable of doing running repairs, have registered in the Motor Department. These cars rendered invaluable service in the early days of the war, meeting trains of refugees, and they have also led the War Refugee Committee, private hospitals officers, and various societies.

There are branches of the Women’s Emergency Corps all over Great Britain; Edinburgh and Glasgow now have done yeoman service in every direction, and each branch throughout the country is managed independently by its own committee raises its own funds.

Space prevents a recital in this chapter of the manifold activities of all women’s societies, but as with many others which are engaged in benevolent work of various kinds, may be mentioned the National Political League, which has initiated an agricultural movement for women, the Women Writer’s Suffrage League, the Forward [illegible] Union, the National Industrial and Pro[illegible]tonal Women’s Suffrage Society, the Catholic Men’s Suffrage Society, the Liberal Women’s Suffrage Union, the Church League fur Women’s Suffrage, the Free Church League, the Dublin Suffragists’ Emergency Council, and the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage."