51414: Gas Works

Women workers at a gas manufacturing plant, probably in Britain, during the second half of the First World War. The women work outside shovelling coke into sacks and loading these onto a cart. At another heap they shovel the coke onto sieves balanced on wheelbarrows to sort out the slag. The slag is taken in the barrows to another tip where it is dumped. The staff inside the gas works includes a few men. Lighting conditions are poor but the furnace doors are open and women are working shovelling coke inside.