A British soldier helping a woman farmhand to gather in the crops on the Home Front. Credit: Horace Nicholls © IWM (Q 31134)

Locally-based charity Global Link has received £9900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a project called ‘Women, War & Peace’ in Lancashire.

Awarded through HLF’s First World War: then and now programme, the project will focus on the role Northern women played in the pacifist movement of the time as well as their role on the Home Front in Lancaster.

The project is a development of Global Link’s Documenting Dissent heritage projects where volunteers research the roles ordinary people have played in the historical struggles for peace, equality, human rights and social justice.

Volunteers from across Lancashire are invited to join the project, and will attend workshops, visit North West Archives, collect newspaper clippings, photos and letters, and document these histories on the website www.documentingdissent.org.uk. To volunteer on the project please contact Global Link on 01524 36201 or email a.lloydwilliamsATgloballink.org.uk

Project worker Alison Lloyd Williams said, ‘We are delighted to have received this funding. Having previously worked with volunteers from across the region to research the histories of conscientious objectors, we are delighted to now explore the role women played in the movement for peace at the time. This will include the roles women played in campaigning as well as providing ‘safe’ houses for conscientious objectors.’ We are also delighted to work with girls from Lancaster Girls Grammar School to research the contributions of girls and women in the Lancaster area to the war effort.’

Based at Lancaster’s YMCA, Global Link is a development education centre. They deliver workshops, training and heritage projects which explore the ‘global dimension’ to our lives, then and now. The global dimension includes key concepts such as human rights, social justice, and diversity.

Global Link online: www.globallink.org.uk|www.documentingdissent.org.uk

• More about HLF World War One-related projects here