Women Gardeners Tending Soldiers' Graves

Category

Library Item

Item no

32738

Title

"Some Corner of a Foreign Field That is For Ever England": Women Gardeners Tending Soldiers' Graves.

Description

From the Illustrated London News published October 6th, 1917, page 388-389. Drawn by S. Begg from official photographs. Full title: "In that rich earth a richer dust concealed": Graves of British soldiers in France tended by trained women gardeners of the W.A.A.C.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1917

Size

39.6 x 53.4 cm

Type

Press cutting; Reproduction

Location

Reference Library

Women's Army Auxiliary Corps., or W.A.A.C, was an organisation formed to free up able bodied men from office work and other tasks in order to move them to the front lines. The women of W.A.A.C., who often took their new posts at great personal risk, worked as clerks, record keepers, ambulance drivers, telephonists and gardeners, tending the fields of foreign gravesites.

Wartime called these women to duty and they often worked long hours, with some days lasting up to 14 hours. Yet, they handled their roles bravely and with a sense of duty and were appauled by the generals and officers they supported.

Read the history as it happened with free access to the Scotsman Digital Archive.

You can search the entire 1914-19 archives of the Illustrated London News online.

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Agriculture and fisheries > Equipment > Hoes

Agriculture and fisheries > Equipment > Spades

Architecture > Monuments > Gravestones

Events > Wars > World wars

Landscape > Landscape architectural facilities > Gardens

People > Adults > Women

Places > Europe > France

Plants > Flowers > Flowers

Plants > Grasses > Grasses

Plants > Trees > Trees