Work Discipline

In spite of official worries about general morale, absenteeism and sick leave did not emerge as a serious problem for London employers even during the Blitz and the flying bombs. Many Londoners seem to have drawn strength from the pursuit of normal routines in stressful times and it became a matter of pride that service to the public should resume as rapidly as possible after air raid damage to premises. Plate glass was in short supply, so damaged shops had to replace their big display windows with smaller versions, decorating the surrounding hoardings with murals, cartoons and slogans like 'Smaller windows..yes, but there are big values inside!' , or 'Business as usual, Mr Hitler'. Business and institutional records can yield insights into the realities of 'carrying on as normal'. Bishopsgate Institutes's librarian reported to his committee in October 1940 that: 'Two member of staff - Miss Reid and Miss Daniels - have had to evacuate their homes in Stepney owing to the serous damage caused by bombs; but I am happy to state that beyond shock they are well and have loyally attended to their duties here'. Muriel Quinn, sub-librarian at the University of London library, kept a work diary chronicling the difficulties of working properly in wartime condition: 'The staff has been short owing to illness recently and as the glass lost from windows has never been replaced since the air raids the LIbrary Rooms are too draughty and cold' (UL 3/3 5 February 1943). Cold or not, staff were expected to put up with the situation. The Ministry of Labour could prosecute slackers in essential occupations; Petty Sessions registers regularly recorded fines for those who were persistently late for or absent from work without reasonable excuses.

Background information about the workplace sometimes occurs in unexpected sources. The Public Morality Council became concerned in 1943 that '....young girls some of them just leaving school, aged 14-15, were being enticed into the blind alley occupation of the manufacture, testing and packing of contraceptives, by large wages offered'. They were earning £2.5.0. a week, very good pay for their age at a time when adult female munitions workers got a £2.16.O. The PMC tried to get a minimum age limit set on this work but the government refused, pointing out that the girls took up the work of their own accord, often because an older relative in the same firm had got them the job (LMA A/PMC/1 0. 16.9.43). The flourishing state of this firm, presumably supplying the commercial market, would have annoyed the formidable birth control reformer, Marie Stopes, as she tried to run her free contraception clinics. Her papers, in the Wellcome Institute Contemporary Medical Archives Centre, document her ceaseless skirmishes with the 'enraging' Rubber Control at the Ministry of Supply which was unwilling to divert supplies for her clinics. She wrote to the London Rubber Co in December 1944, '.. .the position I maintain is that the commercial trade, touting in garages and barbers shops, should have no supplies at all while we are short' (PP/MCS/B.29).

Munitions work

Munitions of all kinds were manufactured throughout the London area in a variety of premises, such as converted factories, underground railway shelters and private basements. The History of the Second World UK Civil Series volumes on Labour in the Munitions Industries, Factories and Plant and British War Production all contain some material on London factories, especially the Royal Ordnance factories at Enfield, Woolwich and Waltham. One of the more unusual examples was the Palace of Westminster's Munitions Factory, documented in files MF/l-6 in the House of Lords Records Office. Volunteers, including members of the Houses of Commons and Lords as well as staff, were invited to sign up for a regular shift assembling instruments. Initially this was done at the Westminster Technical Institute, but when the accommodation there was needed for full-time workers, attempts were made to find space within the Palace itself, causing great alarm to the Lord Great Chamberlain who supposed that explosives would be involved and ruled that 'under no circumstances will he, as being responsible for the safety and well-being of the Palace, allow this scheme to be carried out' (MF/2 15 December 1942). Only the personal intervention of the Minister of Production changed his mind. The scheme became successful, with more than a hundred part-time workers by 1944. All were paid, unless they were civil servants of the higher grades. Some produced torque amplifiers for anti-aircraft guns, some assembled detonator holders and fuses, and others inspected shell fuse parts. The House of Lords Record Office has interesting photographs of this work in progress.