Women's Land Army sorting potatoes, 1944 (c)

Photograph, World War Two, Home Front, (1939-1945), 1944 (c).

For the first two years of World War Two thousands of women volunteered for essential work in order to release men for service in the armed forces. By 1941 however, it was clear that volunteers alone were not going to meet the demands of wartime production. In December of that year the National Service Act made the conscription of women legal. At first, only single women aged 20-30 were called up, but by mid-1943, almost 90 per cent of single women and 80 per cent of married women were employed in war work.

Over 80,000 women served with the Women's Land Army which aimed to increase the amount of food grown within Britain. The majority of the Land Girls already lived in the countryside, but many came from London and the industrial cities of the north.

One of 13 photographs of the Women's Land Army, 1944 (c).