Online Exhibitions & Stories

Women in Shipbuilding Gallery 2: Imperial War Museum Photograph Collection

Rewriting Women into Maritime History

Where were these women working?

These women in shipbuilding were photographed in 1918 in several shipyards on the Tyne – in Wallsend, Hebburn, Howdon, and Elswick – and building a new shipyard at Haverton Hill on the Tees. The women worked alongside thousands of men – and boys – in the shipyards. The heritage of shipyards, marine engineering and other maritime trades in the north east continues to enrich places and communities today and contributes to their future vitality.

Workers, many of them female, at improvised offices at the Furness Withy and Company shipbuilding yard at Haverton Hill.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20125

Female workers lifting bags of and shovelling cement during the constructing of a new berth at a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20133

SS War Vigour (renamed Andalusier) in course of construction in a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20134

Female workers constructing embankments in a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20138

Female workers carrying wooden joints in a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20139

Female workers carrying timber at a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20140

Female workers constructing a railway track in a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20141

Female workers shovel sand to form an embankment at a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20142

Female workers excavating a wet basin in a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20143

Group of female canteen staff of a shipbuilding yard.

© Crown copyright. IWM Q 20145

  If you have stories and would like to get in touch, please email hec.info@lrfoundation.org.uk or call in at the exhibition.

 

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