THESE were the women war workers in 1918 at Messrs Longbottom and Farrar, Alice Street, brass founders.

Normally this firm made items for the plumbing trade, like valves, taps, stop-cocks and couplings, but during the Great War worked on behalf of the Keighley branch of the National Shell Factory, producing brass nose cones for shells.

Shortage of manpower brought women out into previously all-male jobs. When the National Shell Factory was set up in Dalton Lane in 1915, 500 women applied for work even before it opened, and women would provide the bulk of its workforce for the duration.

When King George V and Queen Mary visited Keighley in 1918, they were given "a loyal welcome" by cheering munition girls, the Queen especially admiring their "smart, khaki coloured uniforms".

These women and girls from Longbottom and Farrar's have gone to Bruce Johnson's fashionable studio for their photograph, and only two of them are wearing the caps that formed an essential part of the munitions uniform. The young woman seated on the far right is wearing a West Riding Regiment badge as a brooch, indicating that she has a sweetheart or relative serving there.

The photograph has been supplied by Mr Robin Longbottom, of Providence Lane, Oakworth, whose grandfather Herbert Longbottom was a partner in the firm. He acquired the original print from Alan Burnett, whose mother's uncle was in charge of the women.