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After a six months’ trial the success of the experiment was assured, and not only had vast savings of food been made, but these were combined with marked improvement in the standard of camp cookery. As a result of this initial success, by February, 1916, the Women’s Legion was asked to extend its work, and in the course of the year that followed the number of women employed in military cooking rose from the original hundred to over 7000. When it is realised that the cooking for 1000 men has to be done by a staff of only thirteen or fourteen women, including, besides actual cooks, kitchen helpers and waitresses, it will be readily admitted that their work is of an arduous nature. A difficulty might have been expected in finding a sufficient number of suitable women to respond to the ever-increasing demand. On the only occasion, however, when an advertisement was published asking for the services of 1000 women to undertake this hard and not particularly well-paid work, no less than 28,000 applications were received. This fact alone is a remarkable testimony to the patriotic way in which women have come forward during the war to offer to their country the services for which their particular training has fitted them.
The rapid development of this great organisation owes much to the powers of judgment, tact, and management displayed by Mrs. Leach, for even in war conditions it is always hard to introduce innovations without friction. Mrs. Leach has been helped in her work by her sister, Mrs. Long, who has been responsible for much of the detailed administrative organisation. A large part of the office work, taking up of references and arrangements of posting, has been carried out by Mrs. Long, who has also supervised the issue of uniforms. Mrs. Leach has been personally responsible throughout for the engagement of most of the cooks, and for their distribution. She inspects the cooking staffs from time to time, and all decisions for promotion go through her hands. A cook joining a camp staff in a subordinate position may rapidly rise to a post of head cook, one of considerable responsibility in these days. For, not only is the economical use of the country’s food supplies a matter of national urgency, but the good or bad feeding of the individual soldier is admitted by all authorities to have a strongly marked effect on his fighting power and efficiency.
The satisfactory reports on the women cooks from officers’ and men’s messes throughout the country prove how well the work has been done. But the clearest tribute of success came when in February, 1917, this branch of the Women’s Legion, which had worked hitherto as a private organisation in co-operation with the War Office, became incorporated actually in the Army as part of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. The value of Mrs. Leach’s work was fully recognised, and she was asked to continue the management of the department under the new system. She is the first, however, to ascribe the real success of the work to the _esprit de corps_, the loyalty, and the patriotism of the women themselves, who have shown their capacity to carry on women’s most time-honoured household duty under unexpected and increasingly important conditions.
MRS. GRAHAM JONES
Bassano
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XXIV
MRS. GRAHAM JONES