@drmaryfraser
From the outset of war the Asquith government gave a War Separation Allowance to all wives and dependents of soldiers and sailors. It was a central plank in the government's strategy of voluntary recruitment, to encourage men to enlist. The huge numbers enlisting initially threw the goverment payments system into chaos, so that large numbers of women and children had to wait for many months before they received any funds, some faced starvation and had to rely on charitable money to get by. Once the weekly payments were established for all who were entitled to receive them, claims started to be assessed to ensure only those considered worthy received them. Inevitably a very few fraudulent claims were found, which reached the press.
But so many women receiving government funds with no patriarchal husband or adult male to supervise how it was spent, led the government to have concerns that the women would fritter the money away and drink to excess. To try to prevent this, from the start of the war the War Office issued a memorandum to all Chief Constables asking the police to act as a surrogate husband by providing information on women who were misbehaving while their husbands were away at war. The police were provided with the names and addresses of all men who had enlisted, so that they could know where every woman lived. This led to a national uproar which brought in women's organisations, labour organisations and the parliamentary Labour Party. They protested strongly that women did not need surveillance and were insulted at being told they did not know how to spend their money. Indeed, as Arthur Henderson, Leader of the Labour Party said; it was not only women who sometimes did not know how to spend their money, everyone could be accused of that at some time. However, the police showed their autonomy by saying they had no business in the lives of women or anybody else who did not risk or actually break the law, so surveillance of the general population was not their business.
The furore in the nation as well as in parliament lasted from the beginning of November until the middle of December 1914.
The poster below shows the increased separation allowance from 1st March 1915 (courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London). The poster was used by Members of Parliament and recruiting agents to encourage men to enlist in the war, by promising that the State would look after their wives and dependents.
Further reading
Grayzel, S. R. (2013) Women and the First World War. Abingdon and New York: Routledge
Hodge, J.M. & Garside, T.H (1918) War Pensions and Allowances. London: Hodder and Stoughton (available on line)
Pedersen, S. (1990) Gender, welfare and citizenship in Britain during the Great War. The American Historical Review 95, 4, 983-1006
Gregory, A. (2008) The Last Great War. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Braybon, G. & Summerfield, (2012) Out of the Cage: Women's Experiences of Two World Wars. London: Pandora Press
