Women workers in a German munitions factory. The man on the right is holding a cigarette.
"A Wandsworth jury yesterday returned a verdict that a girl of 16, a worker in an explosives factory, died from T.N.T. poisoning. A Government contractor said that he had 2,000 employees, practically all girls, and this was the only death. no one under 18 or over 45 was engaged. The girl had said she was 18. They now had a new type of machinery, so that T.N.T. would be very little handled by the workers. The work would be done under glass screens, excluding dust. Dr. Legge said only a small class were susceptible to T.N.T. poisoning. This class were those under 18 and the Ministry of Munitions is taking steps to prevent the employment of anyone under 18. The jury suggested that girls should be required to provide their birth certificates."
Excerpt from The Star, December 7, 1916. The Bulletin of the United Kingdom's National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies dated December 12 reported that 41 munitions workers died of T.N.T. poisoning in the six months ending October 31, 1916. Both publications were published immediately after the Barnslow Munitions Factory explosion of December 5 which killed 38, 35 of them women. Wandsworth is a borough in southwest London.
The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, page 171, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999
1916-12-07, 1916, December, munitions workers
