Who were the female faces in the sand?

Commemoration ceremonies took place up and down the country on Sunday as the UK poignantly marked the centenary of the Armistice. Tens of thousands came out in force to remember the selfless men and women who gave their lives, 100 years ago. Veterans and relatives of fallen soldiers marched past the Cenotaph in London, church services were held, and 1,000 beacons of light were lit up in the nation-wide ‘Battle’s Over’ tribute marking the end to the darkness of the Great War.

Among the many touching tributes was 'Pages of the Sea’, a public art project commissioned by arts organisation 14-18 NOW and curated by filmmaker Danny Boyle, across 32 beaches. Vast sand portraits, created by artists Sand in Your Eye, were traced into the beaches in an affecting memorial to the war dead. Locals took to the coastlines, just as the many ordinary men and women would have done back in 1914, to consider the lives lost in the fight for democracy. From Clacton-on-Sea in Essex right up to Scapa Beach in Orkney, communities watched as the tide gently washed over the etchings, taking the memory of these individuals far out to sea.

Jenny Waldman, Director of 14-18 NOW, said: “Danny Boyle has devised a truly memorable project – directed and inspired by local communities all around our coastline. Pages of the Sea is a fitting tribute to the millions of men and women who lost their lives in the First World War.”

Many of the large-scale portraits were of women, who we know contributed significantly to the war effort, whether within munitions factories at home or VAD nurses abroad, this plucky lot refused to merely "keep the home fires burning” while the men served on the battlelines.  

The munitionette – Dorothy Mary Watson

In amongst the golden hues of Swansea Beach, the features of 18-year-old Dorothy Mary Watson have been traced out, immortalised for all to see. Just down the road, in fact, from Dorothy’s old home on Port Tennant Road, where she once lived with her parents, William and Mary, from 1911. By the time fighting broke out three years later, she took up work at the local munitions factory, Pembrey Munitions Factory in Llanelli producing the ultimate weapons of war: gunpowder and dynamite.

Drafting in mothers, grandmothers and daughters to replace the soldiers headed off to the frontline, munitions work soon became the single biggest employer of women in roles usually reserved for men. The munitionettes, as they were known, worked in the factories making weapons like shells and bullets and were payed a minimum of £1 a week for this long and hazardous labour.

At Pembrey, Dorothy and Mildred Owen, who lived less than half an hour away from one another on Bridge Street, were moving bags between the buildings at the factory on 31st July in 1917 when a sudden explosion killed the pair instantly, along with four men.

“...the men were engaged in mixing and stirring chemicals, while Miss Watson and another lady were charged with moving the product around on trolleys...

"The cause of the explosion remained a mystery, however,” writes Bernard Lewis in his Swansea in the Great War.

Dorothy's funeral drew a huge crowd with fellow workers bearing her Union Jack draped coffin along the local high street, remembering the youngster as she was: a true martyr of Llanelli who gave the ultimate sacrifice for King and country.

The Suffragette and war medic – Dr Elsie Maud Inglis

Beach-goers at Fife’s West Sands celebrated another forgotten heroine of the Great War, Dr Elsie Maud Inglis, on Sunday.  Inspired by Elizabeth Garett Anderson, one of Britain’s first female doctors, Elsie was a true feminist, social justice campaigner and pioneer of relief aid.

Born in Nainital, on Aug 16, 1864, to parents of Scottish descent, her family moved to Edinburgh in 1878 where she later studied medicine. At a time where there was great opposition to women entering medicine, Elsie worked tirelessly to prove her might, founding a maternity hospital, The Hospice, in Edinburgh in 1901 run by and for women.

When war broke out, the now 50-year-old was keen to contribute, eagerly offering up her skills to the War Office to serve in front-line hospitals, but was given short shrift with the words, “My good lady, go home and sit still.” Not willing to kowtow, she helped with the set up the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH) in protest, offering their services, instead, to allied forces.

The French swiftly took up the spirited offer and she set up an Auxillary Hospital at Abbaye de Royaumont in 1914 and in Villers Cotterets three years later. The SWH also sent teams to Serbia, where conditions were terrible and typhus rampant. But little phased Elsie, writing calmly of the time, “We are having some experiences, aren't we.”

In the Autumn of 1915 when Serbia was invaded by Austrian armed forces, Elsie was repatriated back to Britain. But she didn’t remain for too long, heading off to Russia with a unit of 76 women to continue work the following year. Triumphantly described by one Odesan newspaper as a “healthy manly women, sunburnt and ready for anything”.

She was certainly thus; a woman who strove for female emancipation whose lasting legacy as Edinburgh's Florence Nightingale will remain with us in centuries to come.