Yorkshire Girls in WW2 Women's Land Army

 

WW2 Recruitment Poster

The Women's Land Army played a very important job in both world wars, and some local Yorkshire Bancroft women were involved in it.

The first of these was Joyce Bancroft , born 31/10/17 in Silsden nr Keighley, who grew up with farming, in particular poultry rearing in her background. Joyce was the daughter of Sam Bancroft eldest son of John Henry and Nora Crossley. Sam was killed in the First World War when Joyce was less than a year old. Joyce was brought up by Nora and her parents in Laycock, Keighley.

She had a good background in farming practices as she had spent 1937/38 as a student at the Midland Agricultural College, training in poultry management,and was listed as “willing to teach” in the WLA records.She stayed in the WLA only until 1940, and then went into the RAF Pigeon service division. I wrote an article about her previously, which can be read here:

Another local girl who enrolled in the WLA was Mary Estella Bancroft, from Oxenhope, who was born on 5/9/18, a weaver who was the daughter of John Willie & Emily Bancroft. John was the local Blacksmith in the village.

Mary stated in the WLA until May 1944, but after marrying Laurence Leaver in 1943 left the unit as she refused to be mobile, probably because she was now a married woman.

The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls Land Lassies[. The Land Army placed women with farms that needed workers, the farmers being their employers. The women picked crops and did all the jobs that the men had done. It was disbanded in 1919 but revived in June 1939 under the same name to again organise women to replace workers called up to the military during the Second World World War.

As the prospect of WW2 became increasingly likely, the government wanted to increase the amount of food grown within Britain. In April 1939, peacetime conscription was introduced for the first ever in British history, which led to shortages of workers on the farms. To grow more food, more help was needed on the farms and so the government restarted the Women's Land Army in July 1939. At first it asked for volunteers. This was supplemented by conscription, so that by 1944 it had over 80,000 members

The majority of the Land Girls already lived in the countryside, but more than a third came from London and the industrial cities of the north of England. A separate branch was set up in 1942 for forestry industry work, officially known as the Women's Timber Corps and with its members colloquially known as "Lumber Jills" – this was disbanded in 1946

Land Army Girls lifting potatoes in WW2