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Concept

Essential Work Order

The image depicts a construction site with cranes and silhouetted figures, symbolizing the concept of essential work orders during wartime.

A 1941 British wartime regulation, signed by labour minister Ernest Bevin, that compelled workers in designated industries — aircraft, shipbuilding, coal — to stay in their posts and accept reassignment. For women it became a mechanism of industrial conscription. By 1943 roughly seven and a half million British women were in some form of war work, a participation rate unmatched before or since.

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