Agricultural History Review, Volume 57 Part 2 (2009), p. 288

The Women’s Land Army has often been depicted as the ‘Cinderella’ service of the Second World War. As a volunteer civilian force, it was not recognized as a service organization and excluded from service gratuity schemes, medals and demobilization benefits. This marginalization was belatedly amended by the government in 2008 when DEFRA bestowed commemorative badges on the surviving members of the WLA in recognition of their contribution to the war effort. Gill Clarke argues in the introduction to her book that this neglect has also been perpetuated in academic circles. Her premise is that although the work of the WLA represented a ‘vital contribution to keeping the nation fed’ in both wars, ‘the history and role of the organisation has been largely overlooked’ (p.8).

This book, like the exhibition it is based upon (held at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington, Hampshire in 2008), sets out to rectify this neglect by providing an insight into the history of the WLA and the artists and illustrators who portrayed them. It is divided into three main parts. The first part traces the emergence of the various organisations and societies that promoted women’s work on the land in the First World War, leading to the formation of the WLA in 1917, which, at its height in September 1918 had placed 16,000 Land Girls in agricultural work. The second part tracks the reformation of the WLA in the summer of 1939 and, interweaving the life stories of the various women who served, provides an overview of the key duties and challenges they encountered. The final part provides biographical portraits of the leading artists and illustrators who have left behind a rich and varied representational account of the WLA including Evelyn Dunbar, Laura Knight and Randolph Schwabe.

As would be expected, this is a beautifully illustrated book packed with colour and black-and-white reproductions of a wide range of paintings, drawings, recruitment posters, cartoons and photographs. Some of these are well known but many have rarely seen the light of day since the end of the war. They provide a fascinating insight into the various ways the WLA was recorded and represented in both wars, from the sanitized and glamorized vision of agricultural labour promoted in government posters to the heroic and stoic women workers depicted in Schwabe’s First World War paintings. They make this a delightful addition to any bookshelf. However I do have reservations. The book is aimed at a wide audience including students and researchers of art, social and cultural history and biographical studies, but such a broad brush approach may leave some readers unfulfilled as it provides neither an in-depth historical analysis of the work performed by the WLA, nor a critical assessment of the life histories of ex-Land Girls, and not even a thorough critique of the artistic representations presented. It terms of work on the land, Clarke argues that it is vital to recognize the diversity of experiences and prejudices faced by members of the WLA but glosses over many of these. Initial intolerance and rural conservatism was ‘largely overcome relatively early on’ in the Second World War. Work on the land was often arduous, isolated and monotonous but it was tackled with ‘gusto’ and was central to ‘winning the Battle of the Fields’. This narrative of courage and endeavour largely confirms that produced in other popular histories of the WLA.

This book raises some interesting questions about the representation and meaning attached to the WLA. It provides a thorough account of the evolution of the service in both world wars, of its personnel, recruitment processes and training procedures. This, along with the visual images reproduced in the text, provides a useful and appealing introduction for a wide audience. However, the WLA still awaits a national academic study to stand alongside those already produced for women in the armed forces and munitions industry, which have so successfully utilized innovative methodologies to analyse the controversies wartime women workers provoked over class, gender, sexuality, and regional and national identity.