● 1 How useful is Source A to a historian studying the role of British women in the First World War?
Women were part of the British workforce long before the First World War. According to the 1911 census, about one third of all women were employed outside the home. They worked primarily in lower paid, less skilled trades and industries as domestic servants, ‘sweated’ labour, dressmakers, waitresses and clerks (secretaries). Of these, domestic service accounted for most working women; it was estimated that one in ten of all British woman was a cook, maid or cleaner before 1914. Politically, British women were largely treated as second-class citizens before the outbreak of the First World War — the right to vote in parliamentary elections was still denied them.
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