| Main Performers | Rt. Hon. Ernest Bevin (Chair),
Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill,
Dorothy Elliott,
Marjorie Maxse,
Ellen Wilkinson,
Rt. Hon. Ernest Brown - Minister of Health,
Rt. Hon. Lord Woolton - Minister of Food,
Florence Horsbrugh,
Rt. Hon. Hugh Dalton,
Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden,
Megan Lloyd George,
Dame Anne Loughlin - speakers |
| Set List | 'God Save The King' (The National Anthem),
Welcome (Ernest Bevin),
Speech (Winston Churchill),
A vote of thanks to the Prime Minister (Proposer: Dorothy Elliott, Seconder: Marjorie Maxse),
Speeches (Ellen Wilkinson - chair, Rt. Hon. Ernest Brown, Rt. Hon. Lord Woolton),
INTERVAL
Speeches (Florence Horsbrugh - chair, Rt. Hon. Hugh Dalton),
Speech (Rt. Hon. Ernest Bevin),
Answering of Written Questions by Members of HM Government (Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden),
Resolution (Proposer: Megan Lloyd George, Seconder: Dame Anne Loughlin),
'Jerusalem', Parry |
| Performance Notes | Meeting of senior members of the government with representatives of women in the main occupations and voluntary organisations to discuss war work for women.
Lunch boxes were provided by the Ministry of Labour and National Service, who had also sent audience members, assembled from women's organisations across the UK, special mauve travel couchers and arranged their accommodation in London.
"Six thousand women at the Royal Albert Hall, on Tuesday, were told by the Prime Minister that through war we had been led to an almost complete equalisation of the roles of men and women in society. Mr. [Winston] Churchill painted a picture of women engaged in heavy industry, on precise scientific work, at responsible clerical duties, in hospitals, shops, civil defence, and with men in the firing line. Mr. Bevin revealed that over 71 million women were in national service, and more than another million giving part of their time to it. This represented, he said, a voluntary submission to discipline by a whole people. These women had responded to the nation's call because they desired to, not because they were forced to. The Ministry's directions told them where to serve, but not that they must serve. Mr. Brown spoke of the housewives who four years ago looked after a million evacuated school children and their mothers. The two women Parliamentary Secretaries, Miss Wilkinson and Miss Horsbrugh, also addressed the conference, which closed on a resolution reaffirming its determination to work for victory with all its might and with- equal vigour tackle the tasks of peace. That last phrase is important If what was perhaps the largest representative gathering of women in British history could be called in war-time, the conclusion is obvious. It must be the model for successors."
(The Spectator, 20 September 1943)
"This war effort could not have been achieved if the women had not marched forward in millions and undertaken all kinds of tasks and work for which any other generation but our own
would have considered them unfitted; work in the fields, heavy work in the foundries and in the shops, very refined work on radio and precision instruments, work in the hospitals, responsible clerical work of all kinds, work throughout the munitions factories, work in the mixed batteries
. Nothing has been grudged, and the bounds of womens activities have been definitely, vastly, and permanently enlarged."
(Winston Churchill's speech from the event, cited in 'Churchill: In His Own Words', Langworth) |
| Related Archival Material | Programme (RAHE/1/1943/120) |