The Landswoman Magazine (WW1)

The Landswoman

About

The Landswoman was the official monthly magazine of the Women’s Land Army and the Women’s Institutes and was edited by Meriel Talbot (who was in charge of recruitment and co-ordination of the Women’s Land Army during World War One). It was launched in early January 1918 and was priced at 2d. It went up to 3d in May 1918 due to rising costs of paper and printing. Please click below to view the issues of the magazine.

If you are using these magazines for research, please give acknowledgement to the website so it encourages other individuals to access the copies online.

Click here to read an article written on what we can learn from The Landswoman magazine.

The Magazines

Many thanks go to the family of the late Shropshire historian Rachel Brenda Lees who shared the original copies of The Landswoman.

A rare photo of three First World War Land Girls reading The Landswoman.
Source: Catherine Procter WLA Collection

If anyone has any editions of The Landswoman magazine and would be willing to allow them to be scanned, or wish to donate them, please e-mail Cherish Watton at info@womenslandarmy.co.uk.

Alternatively, to read the paper issues in person, please visit the Imperial War Museum or the English Museum of Rural Life.

(1) Courtesy of the ‘To End All Wars’ website

(2) Courtesy of the English Museum of Rural Life, Reading

More Information

From ‘The Women’s Land Army: A Portrait’ by Gill Clarke

  • Each edition was 16 pages in length.
  • It was available from branches of W.H.Smith & Son, County Secretaries or via personal subscription and was also sold at recruiting rallies.
  • In April 1918 – 40,000 copies were sold.
  • Its aim was to bind members into ‘one big family’.
  • Each issue contained:-
    • News and articles about the Women’s Land Army
    • Technical articles about different aspect of farm work
    • Other features of special interest to a landworker
    • Regular competitions where prizes were awarded (e.g. shilling for each of the five best hints on ‘How to Cure Chilblain’s)
    • Correspondence club designed so that girls could compare notes about their work and to found out through editor information about ‘their boys’
    • Notes and queries column written by an expert
    • Advertisements – working on the land did not mean sacrificing beauty so many advertisements for Premier Vinolia soap!
  • It invited contributions from members in the form of :-
    • short stories
    • verses
    • photographs
    • essays on farm work.
  • It was an attempt to encourage patriotism of its readers.
  • It sought to counter prejudices and stereotypes still held by farmers about women’s abilities to work on the land (see Journal of Board of Agriculture).
  • Reinforced in Land Girls’ minds that their labours were highly valuable to the nation even if they were largely unseen and unheralded.
  • Common theme was to increase food production and that more women were needed in even greater numbers for this vital war work on the land.