reason for discharge - pregnancy

[Neil 2242]

Looking into the records of an individual in the WAAC/QMAAC who was serving in France I come across this:

 

 

I'm sure it wouldn't be phrased quite like that these days!

I'd like to get some sort of idea how common/unusual an occurrence that was for a serving WAAC. Was it extremely uncommon?

Presumably official policy was simply "Don't!"

 

Grateful for any thoughts.

 

[Acknown]

There's some comment here.

... and here:

Acknown

 

[Neil 2242]

Thank for the those links which I will take a look through.

Begs the question why I can't seem to find them when I search the forum.......the search facility doesn't like me!

[Acknown]

I often just put the subject into Go**le (in this case 'great war pregnant servicewomen') and it comes up with the GWF entries. 

Acknown

[Marilyne]

Funny at first sight, but just true... 

 

It was the same for weddings... the diary of the matron in chief is full of remarks about nurses and VAD's being discharged to get back to Britain and get married. There was no  way a married woman would further serve on the front. 

As to the use of the word "disability"... the forms were the same for the men. There were no special forms for the nurses or the women on which to write the grounds for a medical discharge. I guess that today it would be a case of political incorrectness but one can easily understand that the front line or a field hospital was NOT the place for a pregnant woman. 

 

M.

[303man]

Extract taken from another thread,  Between Mar 1917 to Feb 1918, of the 6,000 WAACs in France, only 21 became pregnant.

[Becstar]

I know I’ve stumbled across an Australian Unit Diary (am certain it was one of the AIF Base Depot records when in Le Havre, I’ll have a dig around & I’m sure I’ll find it again) which described some questionable WAAC’s values. It was actually quite interesting so I’ll most definitely try to find it.

[ilkley remembers]

In and amongst my rapidly expanding collection of Ph.D thesis on various subjects relating to WW1 is this little gem from 1988 written by Jennifer Margaret Gould for her award from UCL. I suspect that Chapter 9 addresses most of the issues raised in this thread and another similar one from 2012.

 

http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317607/1/260868.pdf

 

Recently Laura Lammasneimi has also been conducting work on the application of Section 40D (punishing promiscuity) of DORA against women on the home front.

 

It seems clear from these valuable pieces of research that the widespread belief in the incidence of female promiscuity during WW1 was largely a figment of the prurient attitudes of certain sections of society.

Edited 30 January , 2019 by ilkley remembers

[Acknown]

May I quote from a most excellent, but private, family history wot I wrote a while ago:

 

Trained in first-aid and nursing, VAD members were quick to offer their service to the war effort, but at first the British Red Cross was disinclined to establish women abroad. This attitude was engendered, writes Hilda (my great aunt - a VAD), by ‘some bother about a clause forbidding use of women orderlies as a result of what happened in the South Africa war’. This statement seems somewhat specious, as:
‘.... women’s evident ability to ‘rough it’ - which had, after all, been demonstrated on previous occasions - was not in itself enough to dispel official prejudices against employing them in the field. Rarely stated before the [South African] war, but undoubtedly important in official thinking, was the objection to exposing women to sexual danger’. (Summers, Anne, ‘Angels and Citizens - British Women as Military Nurses 1854–1914’ Threshold Press, Newbury 2000).
This outlook changed, largely due to the efforts of Dame Kathleen Furse, the founder of the VAD, leader of the first VAD unit to be sent abroad and later Chairwoman of the Joint Women's VAD Committee. Nevertheless, there was considerable mind-changing.

 

Acknown