An ATS spotter at an anti-aircraft command post, December 1942 (Neg no TR 452)

Women have always been associated with the Army in an indirect way, as wives and camp followers.  Nurses were the first women to be officially attached to the Army, and in the mid nineteenth century, following Florence Nightingale’s achievements in the Crimean War, a professional nursing service was established.  The Army Nursing Service was renamed Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in 1902, and later, in 1949, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps.

The shortage of manpower in the First World War led to the formation of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1917.  Women working in France and in the United Kingdom were able to replace military men serving behind the lines and enable them to fight.  Given Royal patronage in April 1918 and renamed Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps, it had completely demobilized by 1921. 

The Women’s Work Collection contains the most comprehensive source of information about women in the First World War, and is available as a searchable web database (by paid subscription to Thomson Gale (Women, War and Society 1914-1918) or free at point of access within the Imperial War Museum).  The Army and British Red Cross Society sections are especially useful for Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps and military nursing.
 
Women had proved their worth during the First World War, and served during the Second World War and immediate post war years in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, formed in September 1938.  The Women’s Royal Army Corps was established in 1949.  Women achieved full integration in the Army (although still not allowed to fight in the front line) when the Women’s Royal Army Corps was disbanded in 1992.