大象传媒

Sitting just off Larkhill鈥檚 main road, The Packway, lies a housing estate of anonymous army homes.

But during WW1, Larkhill was a huge affair with over thirty different sub-camps. Of these, Camp 20 was just south of the Packway, on what is now Lightfoot Road.

Camp 20 was where A J Bowman was stationed during her service with the Women鈥檚 Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs). The Imperial War Museums hold an album of hers, with the message, 鈥淕reetings from Salisbury Plain鈥�, beautifully embroidered on its cover.

The WAACs were founded in 1917, according to Bianca Taubert, from the Museum of the Adjutant General鈥檚 Corps. 鈥淎fter the Somme, in 1916, the War Office decided it needed to release more men for front line service on the Western Front.鈥�

The WAACs was a civilian corp of women who took over administrative duties previously carried out by men. Clerks, typists, telegraphists and postal workers were the obvious tasks for women but they were also drivers, bakers, tailors and gardeners.

Camp 20 would have been home to women training for specific roles or awaiting assignment elsewhere, possibly overseas. In France, the women worked on maps in the ordnance survey department or working in stores, distributing supplies to the front.

The WAACs uniform represented a step-change in fashion. 鈥淭he long skirt was considered quite daring鈥�, says Bianca. 鈥淭he fashion of the day would have been for almost floor length skirts but that was considered impractical for the work required, so the WAAC skirt was short by the standards of the day.鈥�

The WAACs of WW1 were drawn from the lower middle classes, and the working classes. As such, they would have represented a real melting pot where women from differing backgrounds would have had to learn to get on with each other.

The WAAC鈥檚 were disbanded in April 1918, rebadging to become the Queen Mary鈥檚 Army Auxiliary Corp. Women were demobilised in 1919 with the last of them leaving in September 1921 as the corp wasn鈥檛 considered necessary. In 1938, the Auxiliary Territorial Service was founded, headed up the former head of the WAAC鈥檚, Helen Gwynne-Vaughn. The ATS became the Women鈥檚 Royal Army Corp in 1949, existing until 1992 when it was amalgamated into the Adjutant General鈥檚 Corp.

At its height, the Corp was 29,000 strong in the UK with another 9,000 in France. In their time, the women of Larkhill鈥檚 Camp 20 represented an early incarnation of equality for women.

Location: Larkshill, Wiltshire
Image: Women serving in the WAACs, courtesy of the AGC Museum

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