The role of women in war
Women and War: A Changing Story
The role of women in British warfare has changed dramatically across the eras. In the medieval period, women were largely excluded from formal military roles but could be drawn into defence by circumstance. By the twentieth century, women served in auxiliary military organisations and on the home front. By the twenty-first century, women serve in combat roles alongside men. Tracing this change — and the continuities — reveals how attitudes to gender, citizenship and military service have shifted over 1,500 years.
Women in Medieval Warfare
Nicolaa de la Haye is one of the most striking examples of female military leadership in medieval England. She served as hereditary constable of Lincoln Castle and, in 1217 during the First Barons’ War, successfully defended the castle against rebel forces supporting the French prince Louis. King Henry III subsequently confirmed her position, recognising her military contribution. Nicolaa’s example shows that, while women were generally excluded from the feudal military system, high-ranking noblewomen with control of strategic fortifications could exercise genuine military authority.
More commonly, women in medieval England contributed to war effort indirectly — managing estates while husbands were on campaign, providing supplies and labour, and occasionally facing siege conditions alongside male garrison troops. Their role was essential but largely unrecorded and unrecognised by contemporary chronicles.
Nicolaa de la Haye was the female castellan of Lincoln Castle who successfully defended it during the First Barons’ War in 1217. Her case shows that, in exceptional circumstances, medieval women could exercise genuine military command — though this was rare and depended on social rank and access to fortifications rather than any formal recognition of female military service.
Women and British Armies, 1500–1900
In the early modern and Napoleonic periods, women who accompanied British armies served in supporting roles that were informally tolerated but rarely officially recognised. Camp followers provided cooking, laundry and nursing. Some women served as nurses at regimental level. Prostitution was widespread in and around military camps and was tacitly accepted as a reality of campaign life, though officially discouraged.
The Crimean War (1853–1856) produced two women whose contributions transformed the image of female nursing in warfare. Florence Nightingale reorganised the British military hospital at Scutari, introducing rigorous sanitation and supply management. The death rate among wounded soldiers at Scutari fell from approximately 40% to around 2% under her management — though historians continue to debate the precise figures and the relative contribution of different factors. Nightingale’s campaign for evidence-based healthcare reform continued long after the war.
Mary Seacole applied to join Nightingale’s nursing team and was rejected; she funded her own passage to the Crimea and established the “British Hotel” near the front, providing food, medical care and comfort to wounded soldiers. Her contribution was widely praised by soldiers at the time but was largely forgotten for most of the twentieth century until a major revival of her story from the 1980s onwards.
The Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), established 1902, provided the professional framework for military nursing in the First World War. Over 10,000 women served as military nurses in the war, often working close to the front in casualty clearing stations. Nurses worked under shellfire, in extreme conditions, and often in close proximity to death and mass injury on a scale no previous generation had faced. Their service was formally recognised, though they did not receive full military status until later in the twentieth century.
Women on the Western Front: Flora Sandes and Dorothy Lawrence
A small number of women served in combat roles during the First World War. Flora Sandes began the war as a nurse in Serbia and, when the Serbian army faced collapse, continued fighting as a soldier. She was officially enlisted into the Serbian army, took part in combat, was wounded by a grenade in 1916, and was awarded the Order of Karađorđe. Her case was exceptional: no other British woman served formally in a combat role in an Allied army during the First World War.
Dorothy Lawrence disguised herself as a male soldier and served on the Western Front as a sapper (combat engineer) in 1915 for ten days before her identity was discovered and she was discharged. Her case illustrates the social barrier that prevented women from serving in combat: her commanding officers were more concerned about the risk of embarrassment than about her demonstrated ability to serve.
Women in the Second World War
The Second World War saw the largest mobilisation of British women in history. The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS — informally “WRENs”) and Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) collectively employed hundreds of thousands of women in support roles: operating radar and anti-aircraft batteries, working as drivers and mechanics, coding and communications work, and intelligence analysis. Women in ATS anti-aircraft units operated the targeting instruments — though they were not permitted to actually fire the guns until late in the war.
The Women’s Land Army mobilised approximately 80,000 women to work on farms by 1944, helping to maintain food production during the period when German U-boats threatened Britain’s supply lines. Their contribution was essential to home front survival.
The ATS, WRENs and WAAF employed hundreds of thousands of women in the Second World War in roles including radar operation, driving and logistics, code-breaking and intelligence. Women in the ATS operated anti-aircraft targeting instruments. The Women’s Land Army employed approximately 80,000 women on farms by 1944. These organisations represented the most systematic use of women in British military history to that point.
Women in the British armed forces were formally excluded from close-combat roles until 2016, when the ban was lifted. From January 2016, all military roles — including the infantry and special forces selection — became open to women. Sarah Bushbye, a corporal in the Royal Military Police, was cited in the spec as an example of women serving in frontline roles in recent operations. The change from total exclusion from the medieval military structure to full legal eligibility for any role represents one of the most significant social changes in the history of British warfare.