Britain’s Land Girls and the 500,000 horses they labored alongside are being remembered as the country marks 80 years since the start of World War Two. Working animal charity SPANA is calling on the public to honor the women and their equine colleagues, who worked on the UK’s farms to help feed Britain throughout the six years of conflict. The Women’s Land Army (WLA), first established in 1917 during World War One, was reformed in June 1939, a few months before the outbreak of war.
They were called on to fill the void left by the male farm workforce, who had been drafted to fight. Britain, which was heavily reliant on food imports, had its ships subjected to continued attacks from the Germans, making an increase in domestic food production critical. At its peak in 1944, there were more than 80,000 Land Girls working in Britain’s fields. They worked closely with horses, who outnumbered tractors 30 to one during this era.
Historian Ruth Goodman, whose television series Wartime Farm highlighted the work of the WLA said that many of the female workforces had never lived away from the city. “They were immediately thrown into every variety of farm work – from using horse-driven plows to milking cows and delivering products on a pony cart,” she said. Dame Vera Lynn branded the women “without question among the unsung heroes of World War Two”, adding that they ‘couldn’t have succeeded without their horsepower’.
“When the WLA was reformed at the start of the war, Britain was producing less than a third of its food by 1939, but – thanks to the enormous efforts of the Land Girls – this rose to 70% by 1943,” she said. “Many women formed close bonds with the animals that worked side by side with them.” The WLA’s work continued after the end of World War Two, with the land army finally disbanded in 1950. In 2008, surviving Land Girls were awarded a badge of honor at Downing Street.
