How life for women changed during World War One

According to Lesley Hall, an historian and research fellow at the Wellcome Library, “the biggest changes brought by the war were women moving into work, taking up jobs that men had left because they had been called up.”

Between 1914 and 1918, an estimated two million women replaced men in employment. Up until the outbreak of World War One, women had typically worked in the home - either their own or someone else's. Lesley Hall explains, “Women were earning more than they would have done in their roles before the war. And in their war work roles they were much less constrained than they would have been in jobs like domestic service.”

In Home Front, during the early days of the war, women take up voluntary roles such as caring for Belgian refugees. Meanwhile, energetic Jessie notices that opportunities that are open to her peer Adam aren’t available to her.

Home Front’s Tynemouth-based seasons focus on the Marshalls factory which becomes a munitions works. Despite initial reservations, in 1915 the factory’s owner Geoffrey Marshall starts employing women on the factory floor. And as more and more men leave to fight, the factory cannot run without its female workforce.

Dubbed munitionettes, these women worked with toxic chemicals. There were deaths from TNT poisoning as well as long-term health implications for others. Before long, the munitionettes become organised; a union representative is appointed and a football team forms. Then in 1917, with industrial unrest sweeping the country, the women go on strike.

During World War One football was encouraged among women working in munitions factories to counter the unhealthy working conditions. The women's game flourished over the course of the war, with some matches drawing tens of thousands of spectators.

By 1917 there were enough teams in the North East of England for a women’s tournament. Known as the Munitionettes Cup, the competition was open to any women's team in the Tyneside area. According to Patrick Brennan, author of The Munitionettes, it was the organisers of this contest that hit upon the idea of putting on an international women’s match.

In Season 12 of Home Front, the fictional Marshalls Munitionettes team compete for the Munitionettes Cup and some of its players go on to play in the first ever women's international fixture.

During the World War One some munitions factories were devastated by accidental explosions. These disasters were typically under-reported at the time as newspapers held back on publishing anything that suggested a weakening in the country’s war effort.

In Season 9 of Home Front an explosion at the Marshalls factory kills a large number of its workers, which by this point are predominantly female. In the days and weeks that follow, the friends and families of those who died are stunned by the lack of recognition of the loss of life. Local woman Edie and journalist Dilys both fight to change this.