The Home Front in the ‘Westminster Village': women staff in Parliament during the Second World War

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe experience of women staff in the Houses of Parliament during the Second World War, although an unusual example of the Home Front in action, was perhaps surprisingly typical in how parts of its male workforce came to be replaced by women. Parliament was a particular target for bombing, and more than 40 women worked in a munitions factory underneath Central Lobby at the very heart of Parliament. Six women auxiliaries also participated in the Palace of Westminster Home Guard. Women took on new administrative jobs for the first time, including Kay Midwinter, appointed the first female Clerk in the House of Commons in 1940, who had a successful career at the League of Nations before the war and the United Nations afterwards; and Jean Winder, the first female Hansard reporter, appointed in 1944, who fought a long battle for equal pay.