In 2024/5 Remembering The Past received funding from the Frederick Milburn Trust to examine the experiences of women who worked in the Tyne and Wear Shipyards from the late 1940s to the 1980s.
We decided to focus this work on the postwar period as there is relatively little on the historic record about women’s shipbuilding experience during this time. Whilst British women’s wartime contributions significantly disrupted long-standing social and gender conventions, despite these advances, entrenched attitudes about gendered labour persisted after the war. Most of the women who had worked in heavy industry during the war were forced to leave the workforce shortly after the men returned home, although many women continued to be employed in administrative and cleaning roles. Later, in the 1960s, women were encouraged into roles in the drawing office and other departments.
The women we interviewed worked in a variety of roles including typists and telex operators, press officers and draftswomen and even as the head of the ‘Glove making and Engraving’ department. They describe the work that they did, their participation in the life of the shipyard, the camaraderie found and hardships endured. There are descriptions of changing cultural and social attitudes, the difficult balancing of home and working life and the painful witnessing of the closure of the yards. Read their stories below.
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If you worked in the North East shipyards, then please get in touch with us via our Contact Us page. We would love to add your story to our collection.
Header Image (C) Sally and Richard Greenhill / Alamy Stock Photo
