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For those of you who haven't heard of the Women's Timber Corps, this is where the term "lumberjill" came from back in WWII.
While the USA had Rosie the Riveter, other countries had Land Girls (the Women's Land Army working on farms and such) and Lumberjills (the Women's Timber Corps) who cut trees and harvested timber for telegraph poles and railroad ties... who milled lumber for manufacturing ships and aircraft... and opened land to create pastures and fields for farming and growing crops!
In a story about the Women's Timber Corps, published by Forestry and Land Scotland I came across an interesting quote:
"In the spring of 1941, Ernest Bevin, Minister for Labour and National Service, declared that ""One million wives were wanted for war work; inconvenience would have to be suffered and younger women would have to go where their services were required. It would be better to suffer temporarily than to be in perpetual slavery to the nazis." "
Here are a few interesting statistics about the Women's Timber Corps:
- Pay ranged from 35 to 46 shillings per week for tree-fellers. Measurers (who assessed the amount of timber in the trees and surveyed new woodlands to cut) earned up to 50 shillings per week.
Keep in mind that by 1944 a quart of milk cost nearly an entire shilling!
- Women were recruited to the Women's Land Army and the Women's Timber Corps from the age of 17... but some records suggest that some might have been as young as 14!
- At the end of WWII several of the Lumberjills who were considered skilled enough were posted to Germany to help salvage the sawmills there.
- Unfortunately, at the end of the war there was no official recognition for these women. They were even required to hand their uniforms back in! But in 2007 a life-sized bronze statue of a Lumberjill was unveiled at The Lodge Forest Visitor Centre in Aberfoyle, Scotland.
I am very much looking forward to international travel again. This memorial is definitely on my "bucket list" to visit someday!
While the USA had Rosie the Riveter, other countries had Land Girls (the Women's Land Army working on farms and such) and Lumberjills (the Women's Timber Corps) who cut trees and harvested timber for telegraph poles and railroad ties... who milled lumber for manufacturing ships and aircraft... and opened land to create pastures and fields for farming and growing crops!
In a story about the Women's Timber Corps, published by Forestry and Land Scotland I came across an interesting quote:
"In the spring of 1941, Ernest Bevin, Minister for Labour and National Service, declared that ""One million wives were wanted for war work; inconvenience would have to be suffered and younger women would have to go where their services were required. It would be better to suffer temporarily than to be in perpetual slavery to the nazis." "
Here are a few interesting statistics about the Women's Timber Corps:
- Pay ranged from 35 to 46 shillings per week for tree-fellers. Measurers (who assessed the amount of timber in the trees and surveyed new woodlands to cut) earned up to 50 shillings per week.
Keep in mind that by 1944 a quart of milk cost nearly an entire shilling!
- Women were recruited to the Women's Land Army and the Women's Timber Corps from the age of 17... but some records suggest that some might have been as young as 14!
- At the end of WWII several of the Lumberjills who were considered skilled enough were posted to Germany to help salvage the sawmills there.
- Unfortunately, at the end of the war there was no official recognition for these women. They were even required to hand their uniforms back in! But in 2007 a life-sized bronze statue of a Lumberjill was unveiled at The Lodge Forest Visitor Centre in Aberfoyle, Scotland.
I am very much looking forward to international travel again. This memorial is definitely on my "bucket list" to visit someday!
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