Peggy and Jean Sweetland dressed in their Women’s Land Army uniforms, either side of their friend Gladys Dell, photographed here during Easter 1948 on The Pavement, Clapham. The Sweetland family lived in Clapham Manor Street and later in The Polygon. The Women’s Land Army, along with the Women’s Timber Corps, was formed in June 1939 as part of a government initiative to replace male agricultural workers who were due to be enlisted for war. By 1943 there were 80,000 ‘Land Girls’ growing food and tending livestock in Britain. The WLA continued after the war, although numbers soon dwindled as men were demobbed and reclaimed jobs traditionally associated with the male workforce. It was finally disbanded on 21st October 1950.Image by kind permission of Mrs Shirley Skinner (n\u00c3\u00a9e Sweetland)Ref: SP4233\/1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peggy and Jean Sweetland dressed in their Women’s Land Army uniforms, either side of their friend Gladys Dell, photographed here during Easter 1948 on The Pavement, Clapham. The Sweetland family lived in Clapham Manor Street and later in The Polygon. The Women’s Land Army, along with the Women’s Timber Corps, was formed in June 1939 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4,75,30,6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1926-1950","category-clapham","category-emergency-services","category-people","category-photograph","category-war-and-armed-forces"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n