We are delighted to now be able to bring to you the results of our latest project about Women in Shipbuilding. Last year, we were engaged by Historic England to work on this project, which was part of a series sponsored by Lloyds Register Foundation. The series is aimed at Rewriting Women into Maritime History. The role women played in keeping our shipyards going during the first world war has been a largely forgotten part of maritime history. The project was inspired by the discovery of a collection of photographs held by the Imperial War Museum of these women at work in North-East shipyards.
Operating machinery at Armstrong Whitworth and Co Image: IWM (Q 20068)
The Project
Historic England took an exhibition of these photos to different venues in the region, partly to tell the story of women in shipbuilding, but also to try to find their descendants who could tell their story. Because of the passage of time the number of contributors has been small, but their contributions are extremely valuable. We also spoke to some 6th form girls who are studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects at A-level and considering careers in engineering. They told us what they thought of the exhibition and why they had decided to follow careers in this field.
Find out more about this project and listen to these contributions on our project page:
Women in Shipbuilding WW1 – Remembering the Past
Can you add to this?
We would love to add more stories to this page, so if you know of a female ancestor in your family who worked in the shipyards and can tell us about them then please get in touch. If this was during the First World War that’s great, but we have now started a follow-on project to tell the story of women working in the shipyards since then. If you can contribute then please get in touch with us via our Contact Page.