1915
United Kingdom
..... there was a split within the National Union of Women's Suffrage societies over the response to war and all the national officers, except Mrs Fawcett and the treasurer, resigned as pacifists. With others they helped to form the Women's International league for peace and Freedom, whose executive included Helena Swanwick, Margaret Ashton, Margaret Bondfield, Mrs Despard, Isabella Ford and Ethel Snowden
..... on May 7th, just off the Irish coast, Nurse Alice Lines ( born December 1897) was on the ocean liner the Lusitania when the first of two German torpedoes hit the ship and within twenty minutes it had sunk with the loss of some 1200 lives. Only a few hundred survived. After the first torpedo hit the ship Alice tied one of her charges, Audrey, around her neck in a shawl and held onto the other one, Stuart, by the hand. As they made their way to the boat deck the second torpedo hit and she was soon up to her waist in water. Once on deck Stuart was snatched from her and thrown into a lifeboat but they wouldn't let Alice in with him. As the lifeboat was being lowered she jumped over the rail into the sea and was dragged into it with Audrey still wrapped around her. The survivors were eventually picked up by a British ship and taken to Queenstown, near Cork where the children's mother was found. Alice recuperated in Suffolk with her own family and later married Francis Page and after his death married John Drury. The children kept in touch with her as they grew and married and each one received a "medal" which depicts the figure of Death issuing tickets at the booking office on one side and the Lusitania going down on the other side
Around The World
..... Norway ..... the Castberg Acts relating to children gave all children equal rights, irrespective of whether the parents were married or not
..... women gained the vote in Denmark and Iceland
Dated items
February 24th ..... ENGLAND ..... 1000 British suffragettes went to France to do war work and the following month Lloyd George promised that women would receive pay as men did for their war work. The government set up a register of women for war service who were needed desperately in trade, industry, agriculture and armaments. Any woman could sign on at the local Labour Exchange and the move was warmly welcomed by the leaders of the women's movements. Mrs Pankhurst said " Women are only too anxious to be recruited" but unfortunately the end of the war saw a return to home and family duties for many women
September 11th ..... ENGLAND ..... the first British Women's Institute was founded in the Welsh town of Llanfair...gogogoch. It was the brainchild of farmer's wife Adelaide Hoodless who founded the first one in Stoney Creek , America, at the end of the last century. The WI's aim was to encourage self help, education and support particularly in the rural areas and its successful campaigns include banning of flick knives and the abolishment of turnstiles in women's public lavatories
October 12th ..... FRANCE ..... the English nurse Edith Cavell was executed by the Germans for helping allied prisoners to escape