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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



favoured the agricultural interest. The local debate 

 on this matter rumbled on throughout 1915 and 

 continued even until 1917. At one stage the Bishop 

 of Salisbury ventured an opinion. He was opposed 

 to boys working in agriculture unless the labour 

 market was totally exhausted. Then an adequate 

 wage should be offered and there should be proper 

 supervision, physical and moral, of the children. 



The Education Committee was not 

 unsympathetic to the farmers. They would not agree 

 a blanket provision for all boys to leave at 12 but 

 were prepared to consider individual applications. 

 In March 1916 this scheme was extended to girls 

 who were allowed to be absent from school to enable 

 their mothers to undertake agricultural work. 

 Altogether 1,155 boys and 76 girls were released in 

 Wiltshire during the course of the war. 



The part played by boys in agriculture at this 

 period was highlighted in a report by Mr. Pullinger, 

 the Director of Education, in August 1915. He 

 showed that very many boys in Wiltshire went into 

 agriculture when they left school but when they 

 reached adulthood there was no job for them and 

 there was a shortage of accommodation. Many then 

 left agriculture for other jobs often in the towns. 

 He concluded that of the yearly output of about 

 1,200 boys from rural schools in Wiltshire about 

 600 started agricultural work but only half of them 

 stayed in agriculture permanently. He used these 

 statistics to back his case that all children needed a 

 good education despite the view of the farmers who 

 argued that farm labourers required only a 

 minimum of educational achievement. 17 



After boys, the second important element was 

 the attempt to bring more women into agricultural 

 work. Before the First World War only a relatively 

 few women were employed in agriculture in 

 Wiltshire. It was estimated that 1027 women were 

 employed, many part-time, on 590 farms. 1K In 

 particular it seems that, although women worked 

 in the dairy, there was no tradition in Wiltshire of 

 women milking. It was in this area of agricultural 

 work that a particular shortage of labour occurred 

 as the war progressed. 



Wiltshire was a pioneer in recruiting women into 

 agriculture and its activities were one of the factors 

 which led eventually to the establishment of the 

 Women's Land Army. In January 1916 the county's 

 War Agricultural Committee formed a Ladies Sub- 

 Committee under the chairmanship of Lady 

 Pembroke with Edith Olivier as secretary for the 

 south of the county and Miss Warrender in the 

 north. The first action was to create a county register 



of village women who were willing to work on farms. 

 A voluntary correspondent was to be found in each 

 village to do a local canvass and report. By July 



1916 they reported that they had 3,154 women on 

 the register of whom 2,656 were actually employed 

 on 1,027 farms. This was double the number at the 

 beginning of the war. A further report in August 



1917 showed 2,590 employed - 863 full-time and 

 1727 part-time. 1 " 



The main problem was the shortage of trained 

 milkers. To help solve this, it was decided to establish 

 a residential training school. In March 1916 Arthur 

 Stratton had offered the use, rent free, of Shaw 

 Farmhouse at Manningford near Marlborough. 

 With a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, this 

 school was opened in May 1916. This was closely 

 followed by a second school at Woodford in a 

 furnished cottage lent by Louis Grenville and with 

 facilities for teaching on his farm. They hoped to 

 turn out 10 trained girls every three to four weeks. 



By the end of the war further schools had been 

 opened at Longford (Lady Radnor), Wilton (Lady 

 Pembroke), Patney and Berwick St. Leonard 

 (Berwick House lent by Hugh Morrison). This 

 activity seems to have been a mixed success. The 

 total numbers were never large. The Manningford 

 school, for example, had by September 1917 trained 

 38 girls; 26 of these were still on farms, 4 were 

 waiting for employment, 2 were doing other 

 National Service work, 4 had been discharged on 

 health grounds, 1 had to live at home and 1 was 

 unsatisfactory. When trained, the girls had to be 

 'placed' on farms and to achieve this it was 

 necessary to overcome the prejudices of many 

 farmers. Edith Olivier was very actively engaged in 

 running the schools and in meeting the farmers. 

 She recalled one meeting where her intention was 

 'to disarm suspicion and make 'em say what they 

 thought women could do'. She heard them whisper 

 'scare-crow' to each other. But she ends by saying 

 that 'they were really friendly and full of sensible 

 suggestions.'- 



A more positive attitude came from Mr. A. J. 

 Legg whose whole family had been long employed 

 by Arthur Stratton to run his dairy farms. He much 

 preferred women milkers: 'You can trust them better 

 . . . besides cows prefer women. They are more 

 tender in the touch, they are less prone to apply the 

 milking stool to an improper purpose and are more 

 affectionately disposed towards the cows.' Perhaps 

 surprisingly, he said he preferred town girls to 

 country girls: 'They are less timid of the cattle. 

 Strange as it may seem, country children who are 



