Munitions Workers
Story
Daisy (pictured above left) was born 18th September 1910, and Gladys (right) on 18th October 1914. The sisters were daughters of Charles Robert Wright (1884-1933) and Alice Goddard (1887-1959) who married in Kippax on 8th October 1905. Their brother, John Wright, also served in the War effort. The family lived on Kippax Common, and Alice Wright kept the small wooden shop on Leeds Road.
Daisy and Gladys both worked as clothes pressers before they became ordnance workers at Barnbow, joining 3,000 people employed there, 2,000 of whom were women. The workers had to make guns, retro-fit Sherman tanks, and build Centurion tanks, requiring them to learn welding and riveting. Daisy filled the ammunition shells with explosives.
In January 1945, Daisy married Ernest Peel (pictured below) and they went to live in Belmont Terrace, Thorpe-on-the-Hill, Wakefield. Daisy died in 1956 at the early age of 45 years having developed throat cancer. The couple had no children.
Gladys Wright married Henry Rhodes from Castleford in January 1946, and the couple went to live in Blackpool, where Henry worked in the aircraft factory. Gladys passed away in 2005, at the age of 91.
Kippax Roll of Honour 