The paid workforce in New Zealand in was highly stratified: very few occupations involved both men and women, and most workplaces had strict hierarchies of skill and seniority. Children could start work at the age of fourteen, with fewer than one in three pupils staying on at school beyond this age. Women workers dominated textile and clothing factories and domestic service.
Men filled most other jobs from unskilled labouring through to skilled manufacturing and professional occupations. War disrupted these well-established patterns in several ways. In response, the government brought in new welfare measures to provide for dependants of soldiers. The allotment system allowed men to divert part of their military pay to family members, and the government introduced a separation allowance for women and children whose male provider had enlisted.
Most of the 3, temporary public service positions created during the war were filled by women. In rural occupations especially, women — often family members rather than paid workers — took on greater workloads.
Wartime reminiscences are rich with descriptions of women and children in orchards and hops fields, ploughing, milking, planting and picking. In early and after the introduction of conscription see section on Conscription , the government instituted the National Efficiency Board NEB to regulate the wartime economy. The conscription—appeals mechanism run at a local level was used by the government to prioritize local economic needs and Military Service Boards were given the power to grant exemptions to men whom they saw as economically vital.
However, central government retained the power to declare some industries reserved and these workers, while they could be ballotted, were automatically granted exemption from call-up when they appealed to the Military Service Board. Minister of Defence James Allen sent a notice to boards detailing this category as including coalmining, shearing, freezing work, shipping, and leather and boot manufacture.
This created a two-tier hierarchy for appeals: men employed in production deemed central to the war effort were to be considered for automatic exemption, all others were not. Despite these measures, many industries suffered shortages of workers. Bringing on apprentices was almost impossible. A review by the Wellington Military Service Board in September deemed only those men who were experts, foremen or leading hands would be exempt from conscription.
In addition, the coal shortage — in part caused by a shortage of miners as well as industrial action — made experienced firemen essential in the factory but, consequently, difficult to find. New Zealand was not entirely without industrial war production. Men in the Railway Department workshops in Wellington found their work substantially disrupted by the addition to their usual work of military production of wagons, tools and spare parts.
Furthermore, in late , the workshops produced disinfectant-spraying equipment for the Department of Health in an effort to combat the influenza pandemic. It was ironic, and a cause of substantial tension see section on Social and Political Tensions that farming never enjoyed the protection of automatic or blanket exemption, despite NEB recommendations that it should.
Labour shortages were acute if farming organizations were to be believed, although census figures did not reflect large changes in the national agricultural workforce, reflecting the extent to which farming in New Zealand in this period was reliant on family labour. The solution in practice was that those left on farms, including women and children, worked harder. At an aggregate level, the New Zealand workforce became both older and younger during the war, and also slightly more feminized.
The return of veterans see section Rehabilitating the Wounded created some tensions as women workers were generally replaced, and ex-soldiers found themselves displaced in their workplaces by men who had been too young to serve.
The economic slump of also worked against the seamless reintegration of veterans into the workforce, and by the end of the decade, veterans were significantly represented among the unemployed of the s depression, but their economic distress was shared with the population at large.
A huge amount of economic activity during the war was carried out by volunteers. The formation of patriotic societies of all sorts, as well as the emergence of the New Zealand Red Cross initially a branch of the British Red Cross facilitated the incorporation of voluntary labour into the mobilization for war and the mitigation of its effects.
Records of voluntary labour are fragmented but large numbers of schools, workplaces and sports teams as well as Red Cross groups performed voluntary labour around the country. By the end of the war there were patriotic organizations registered with the government, and hundreds more Red Cross branches. Voluntary workers provided essential materials for soldiers, medical units and hospitals. Alongside the ubiquitous socks, a wide range of clothing — especially pyjamas — was sewn and knitted. One provincial Red Cross depot supplied , of these items in one month in , which could be extrapolated over forty months of war to 5.
Men, too, donated their time, mainly in bandage-making groups and as packers, with workers and sports teams volunteering in the evenings. These efforts were not without criticism, although it was muted. Participation in voluntary work was driven by a range of reasons, from working-class women saving on postage to the front by sending their knitted or sewn items from patriotic society depots, to the sense of community created by a common project and communal gatherings.
This regional approach went against the generally agreed principle among New Zealand patriotic associations that articles should be sent to New Zealanders regardless of where they came from, and caused tensions among the executives of these groups. These debates signalled clearly, however, the sense of community ownership and connection that was served by voluntary labour.
Boxes of sheets and pyjamas had arrived at the hospital just the week before the influx of men. While New Zealand was a relatively homogenous and egalitarian society, there were deep economic divisions between Maori and Pakeha.
In addition, where Maori worked in occupations with unions, such as shearing and mining, higher wages were also on the agenda. The Worker quickly became known for its commitment to industrial unionism, international cooperation between unions and its pacifism. They were among the people charged with sedition during the war, for speaking out against government policy, the conduct of the war, and especially the introduction of conscription.
People from other political persuasions also objected to war, and then even more so to compulsion when the Military Service Bill was enacted in August Peace movements had arisen in New Zealand during the South African War , and maintained an anti-militarist stance throughout the introduction of compulsory military training for boys and young men.
Indeed, the introduction of this scheme brought together advocates from the militant left and the liberal middle-class. The Anti-Militarist League, for example, which had sixteen branches by the end of , was established by the editor of the Christian Herald , but the League joined with the socialist opponents of compulsory military training by Such organizations campaigned against the ongoing waging of the war, and assisted men who wished to avoid conscription.
The stresses of wartime also saw increasing tension between urban and rural workers. Farmers' newspapers increasingly published editorials opining that farmers were over-represented in the NZEF while the urban working and middle classes were not pulling their weight. Industrial unrest grew in the later years of the war, especially as the cost of living outstripped wages.
New Zealand was involved in many campaigns including;. There were battles in Sinai and Palestine in They led to the Allied victory over the Ottoman Turks.
Many New Zealanders thought that going to war would be an adventure but the reality was very different.
Image: Public Domain. Life in the trenches was dangerous and difficult and often soldiers became sick because of the poor conditions they were living in. It contains a wide range of quality resources from reliable national and international sources.
This website is from the Victoria University of Wellington and has heaps of history books from their library that you can read online. Primary sources are things like diaries, photos, newspapers and other documents written during the war or soon after by people who were involved in it.
Christchurch City Libraries. This link will lead you to heaps of World War One primary sources such as diaries, letters , postcards , portraits , shipboard magazines , and information about conscientious objectors. DigitalNZ is a search site that focuses on New Zealand history and brings together results from different New Zealand libraries, museums, universities and government sites all at once.
Audio and videos are some the best ways that history has been recorded. Take a look at these two websites that have special collections on New Zealand's involvement in WW1. It is especially useful for NZ history and primary sources. Check out some of these books at your school or local library. Don't forget you can always ask your librarian for more recommendations too. Where can I find information about the causes and impacts of World War One? Where can I find information about daily life during World War One?
Where can I find information about experiences of war during World War One? Where can I find information about the main battles and campaigns of World War One? Acceptable use means acting like a good citizen online. How you behave online should be the same as how you behave offline in the real world. AnyQuestions is a free service, staffed by real people from libraries right around New Zealand. Please be respectful and polite to our librarians. We like helping people who show good manners :.
Obscene language means using words that would upset your grandparents! Time wasting means being silly and not working with our librarians. Used in combination with material such as Unit Diaries, maps are useful to trace the movements of an individual or unit. These include. Archway as at May Messines They are held on Microfilm and in Army and War Department records. Mostly administrative, but some material on individual nurses; e.
There are few files about individual war pensions. Two useful series about war pension applications are:. Gallipoli Campaign, by Sergeant Jack Hilliard. Permission needed for copies ACID Most photographs are group portraits.
A numerical list by print number includes brief descriptions of subject matter. Soldiers overseas, cemeteries etc.
ACGO format: photograph. For more information on our photography records see our Photography research guide. A number of servicemen suffering from shell-shock, etc, spent time in the Queen Mary Hospital, Hanmer.
See our Mental health research guide. Many of the records are restricted access. The government also made efforts to rehabilitate soldiers into civilian life after the war.
A key initiative was the land settlement scheme which aimed to provide cheap farms for those who wanted them, and loans to help finance the purchases.
About soldiers were settled but much of the land was marginal.
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