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Commissioned paintings of war workers were common during the war, but female artists were not so commonplace.

A painting now owned by the IWM is of the women workers at the former Phoenix Dynamo Munitions Works in Bradford. The artist is Flora Lion and the painting shows the ‘female only’ dining area within the Bradford works.

The former Phoenix Works is now Woodhall Retail Park.

Phoenix had 2,000 women workers who came from a mixture of working class and middle class backgrounds. For the working class women the work gave them more money than they had previously earned in the textile factories and the middle class women felt they were doing their bit for the war.

Many of the women worked in the shell shops and this dangerous work involved inserting the explosives into shell casing and putting the caps on. They had to be careful not to wear any exposed metal; such as hair grips, zips or buttons, as these could catch sparks.

There were 2,000 men working at Phoenix too but they were kept separate from the women.

Location: Woodhall Retail Park (formerly home of the Phoenix Works), Woodhall Road, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD3 7BS
Image of Flora Lion's painting courtesy of Imperial War Museums
Presented by Jane Chesworth

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