The health of forestry workers; a survey of the Women's Timber Corps of Great Britain.

Introduction In normal times Great Britain imports all but 4 per cent. of the timber needed for her industrial requirements, chiefly from Canada, Scandinavia and the Baltic States, and forestry work in this country is carried on by the Forestry Commission and private owners, who do research and reafforestation, and clean up woodland areas. War with Germany, however, resulted in a rapid and considerable drop in imports; the Baltic was closed, the Scandinavian countries were overrun and shipping could not be spared to bring large quantities of timber from Canada. At the same time there was a heavy demand at home. Timber' was needed for army camps, for hostels, air stations, field telegraph poles, for beach landing runways, ammunition boxes and field hospitals, and at the same time essential civilian demands such as pit props and railway sleepers had to be met. In 1940, therefore, the Forestry Commission recruited a number of girls from the Women's Land Army to work in the woods and sawmills up and down the country, and in April 1942 the Women's Timber Corps was founded and became a working unit of the Home Timber Production Department of the Ministry of Supply. All the forestry girls working for the Forestry Commission were absorbed into the Corps and, in addition, many more were recruited from the Land Army.