Women and Work in the First World War - The War in the Air

The merging of the RFC and the RNAS to form the Royal Air Force (RAF) raised fears about losing their specialised female workforce. The WRAF was formed on 1st April 1918 to create a separate women's air service. Their work was divided into clerks and store women, household, technical and non technical. They were not trained at first and recruited according to their existing skills. 

Some of Henry Montgomery Martin’s 1918 Photographs of Croydon

Aerial view of Croydon, 1918

A series of photographs that HCAT has copies of - not the originals - gives a great visual glimpse of Croydon / Beddington aerodrome during the war and occasionally leisure activities in Croydon itself. As we have progressed through the project, we've found some information that assist with some context for those photographs. the photographs belonged to and were probably taken Herbert Montgomery Martin, who appears to have been one of the ground crew based at Croydon / Beddington during the war.

Living near the Airport: The Aerodrome's Location

U3A member Peter Day writes on the disturbance caused by living near Croyon Airport:

In 1915 a small aerodrome was established at Beddington, one of a ring of such aerodromes built to protect London from Zeppelin raids. In 1918 another small airport, Waddon, was opened on the other side of Plough Lane to be used for test flights from the National Aircraft Factory No1. Plough Lane is the road running north from Russell Hill on this old map (on the left).

After the First World War these two aerodromes were combined (and Plough Lane eventually disappeared - though initially traffic was stopped to allow aircraft to arrive and depart) to become Croydon aerodrome, which opened in 1920. The buildings you can see now were part of a later development and the aerodrome entered a second phase in 1928.