White Feathers

Does anyone have any stories concerning the use of white feathers by
women in WW1 as a means of shaming men into joining up?

Eve McLaughlin...

Mrs Pankhurst and friends did this, instead of buckling dow to doing
someeful, as her daughter Sylvia did by helping women in the East End
cope with the loss of their husbands.

Eve McLaughlin...

something useful (that started as)

CWatters...

Not me but web-search "Order of the White Feather"..

CWatters...

The order was founded by an Admiral Charles Fitzgerald - so I'm slightly
surprised the National Archive doesn't seem to have anything on the order or
the Admiral.

squealing...

Probably because it was an unoffical thing.
The N.A. have quite a lot on conscription and attestment generally. The
effect of these ad-hoc initiatives and then the 'Derby Scheme' resulted in
damaging skill shortages at home. By 1918 there were exemptions being
granted for men involved in the civil service, timber, iron, food,
shipping, aeroplanes and tanks, a total of 2.5m men in reserved
occupations. (Compare that to just 16,500 concientious objectors)
The NA has records on reserved occupations, those who joined up without
persmission and tribunals (HO45/*, MH47/*, CSC5/85, CUST49, etc)
Unfortunately most of the personal records were destroyed, with just a few
retained (MUN3/297-313, for parts of East Anglia)

Philip Maddocks...

There were badges for those in reserve occupation to wear. I think they
were triangles with "On Government Service" or something similar. I am not
sure if they were WW1 or WW2.

squealing...

I don't know what the situation was in WW2 - doubtless someone here can
fill this out.

David H Wild...

During WWII railwaymen had badges to say that they were railway employees
and the name of their employing company.

In WW1 those on home leave from the Army had their khaki to wear - those
who had attested as willing to serve were given an arm band, which could
avoid the attention of white-feather ladies. The merchant navy wore civvies
with a lapel badge, but many others in reserved occupations had no way of
standing out.
The N.A. files I mentioned earlier have correspondence from various groups
of civil servants who wanted, but never received, any official marking.
Some still went to the recruiting sergeants and were enlisted before their
employers found out.

Philip Maddocks

The only indirect reference I have is from a reply my grandfather
received from the Colonial Office. In it they stated that there were
no plans for providing armbands for Colonial Officers to wear when home
on leave. From this I assume he must have been challenged on some

Eve McLaughlin...

I have been collecting lists of men serving in 1916, and one published
by Wycombe Grammar School includes not only men in active service units,
but others who were doing' work of national importance' in ministries
and overseas' diplomatic/transport/forestry etc. The idea was presumably
that they also deserved mention, since they were working other than in
the army/navy etc.

occasion as to why he had not joined up. (As it happened he did offer
his services for the war effort when back from East Africa but the
Colonial Office blocked him.)

Graeme Wall...

Duff Cooper mentions something about it in his autobiography, Old Men Forget.
A particular problem for younf men like him who worked in Whitehall and were
prohibited from joining up until the rules were changed in 1917. Still
trying to work out how my grandfather, a civil servant in the War Office,
Duff Cooper was in the Foriegn Office, managed to enlist in 1915.