page_title: Florence Attridge
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Florence Attridge / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: The reverse of Attridge's medal, awarded in 1946 for services to the war effort
context_page_description: Florence Emily Attridge BEM worked at the Marconi wireless factory in Chelmsford, Essex and received a British Empire Medal for her contributions to the war effort during World War II. Joining the factory after World War I, by 1944 she was managing a team of women in the coil winding shop. Papers accompanying her medal suggest that she was involved in making secret radio sets used by the resistance during the war.
context_section_description: Florence Attridge joined the coil winding shop at the Marconi New Street factory in Chelmsford just after World War I. Guglielmo Marconi, who is often credited with being the inventor of radio, built the factory in 1912. In 1920 the factory played host to the first experimental wireless broadcast. 
  Attridge was involved in making key components of the radio sets - the coils, transformers, inductors and chokes. Her job was to wind wires of various sizes around frames or magnetic cores. This is where the coil winding shop got its name from. Her work was intricate and exacting, and typically the women worked 12-hour shifts.
  Women played a vital role in the creation of new electrical devices in many pioneering companies such as Marconi, doing most of the assembly work. As the technology improved this work became increasingly intricate and time consuming, and it was found that women excelled at these tasks. At this time women could also be paid lower wages than men, so hiring women for assembly jobs meant more profits for the company. From the consumers’ perspective however, this profit margin paved the way for the mass production of electrical goods at prices that were affordable for ordinary people.
  In 1946 Attridge received a British Empire Medal (civil division) for her contributions to the war effort during World War II. 
  She was listed as head of the coil winding shop by this time. Papers accompanying the medal include a letter from ‘K3 section’, which was part of the Naval Intelligence code breaking section. This suggests that Attridge may have worked on the British Type 3 Mark II radio made by Marconi and used by spies during the war.
  The British Type 3 Mark II radio, more commonly known as the B2, was issued to agents, resistance groups and special forces operating in occupied territory. Weighing just 8lbs it was first used in the field in 1944 and the Marconi Company made over 400 of them. The radio required specialist miniaturised components; work trusted to expert staff. Attridge would have led a small team in assembling these components, probably in a closed off area of the factory to ensure secrecy as the factory operated 24 hours a day.
caption: Back of Florence Attridge's British Empire Medal (Chelmsford Museum)
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