This film was made in April 1918 as a recruitment tool by the government's Women's War department.
In this unique episode we look at one of the oldest surviving films of Oxford. Made in April 1918, the film is titled -“Recruiting march and presentation to Princess Mary of the Women's Land Army, Oxford, 1918”. The march begins in St Giles with women entering the enrolment hut by the Martyrs' Memorial. The huge procession goes down the Cornmarket, through Carfax and on to Broad Street. Some of the women are in uniform, and the procession includes a steam tractor. Mr R E Prothero, Minister of Agriculture, leads local city and university officials to Trinity College gardens, where Princess Mary presents awards to the Land Girls. One of the girls shows two baby lambs. The awards continue while the members of the council and the university, one in a Bath chair, watch.
“Recruiting March of the Oxfordshire Women's Land Army,” by Women's War Department. The Imperial War Museum Film Archive via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed March 8, 2023, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/5523
