WOMEN WHO CAN NAIL.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2988, 27 January 1917, Page 5

WOMEN WHO CAN NAIL.

SOLDIERS' HUTS IN FRANCE.

The first squad of the army of women carpenters who are to build huts under Government contract in France are now mu rning their tra . de at Bjfleet, Surrey, ahey are apt pupils and splendid workers, and Mr. W. G. Tarrant, the contractor, considers that after a month's training they can bo sent out as skilled workwomen.

The work is rough joinery, and chiefly consists m nailing boards to battens or cross-pieces. The huts to be made are the Tarrant patent portable sleeping huts, which can be taken to pieces and remade very rapidly, and the women will make all the sections—sides, floors and roofs.

Tile women carpenters have only been learning their trado for a week and though none of them had previously done more than knock a tin-tack into a carpet, or a nail into the wall for a picture, a "Daily Mail" representative saw them completing side sections with all the success and assurance of skilled carpenters. The women, who are all wives or sweethearts of soldiers, have as their forewoman a neat little woman who came back from New Zealand at the beginning of the war with ■her reservist husband.

They like the work immeneoly, and no woman has so far hit her thumb instead of the nail after the first .time. During the second week of their training they will learn how to tore holes for the bolts which.are to join the hut ■sections. After that they will," be .taught wood-splitting and sawing,-'. In France_ the women will be Tinder'the' supervision of the contractor, and not of the War Office. French women are already working on the huts, but Mr. Tarrant is anxious to employ English women as well. "The women are drawn from the ranks of those who are acoustomed to working in their own homes or elsewhere, , ' said the contractor's representative, '"and at present we aro very pleased with our arrangements with them. They will be sent over to France in batches of twenty or thirty as rapidly as wo can tram them."

Mr. J. Boal, leader of St. John's * oun g.Women's Bible Class, will give v n -n?n , eSS *" tlle membe rs of the 1.W.0.A. on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. in the club-room, Herbert Street.

As reported by cable message from Sydney last week, the death occurred on January 5, at Dover (England), of Jjady Laura Lihas Scratohley, widow of Sir Peter Scratehley, R.E., K.O.M G who for many "years was military adviser to the Australian Governments, and who was the first Governor of New Guinea, Lady 'Scratchley was the youngest daughter of the late Mr. Sylvester Browne, of Hartlands, Victoria, and sister of the late Mr. T A Browne (Rolf Bolderwood), and of the late Mrs. Molesworth Green, of Melbourne; the late Mrs. Robert Massie, of Sydney; the late Lady^arley; the late Sylvester Browne, of Minembah, Singleton; and Mrs. Cockshott, of Sydney. Her only son is Colonel Victor Scratchley, D.S.O. Her eldest daughter is the wife of Captain Howard, R.N. D.5.0., and her youngest daughter o! Captain Adams-Connor, chief constable m the Isle, of Wight. In 1876 SirPeter Scratchley, who was.then lieutenantKJolonol, was selected by Lord Carnarvon to act in conjunction with Sir William Jervois in the important work of advising the Australian Governments upon the best means of defending the colonies against foreign aggrossion. • In 1878 Sir William Jervois becamo Governor of South Australia, whereupon Colonel Scratchley was appointed Commissioner of Defences, and remained in Australia until the beginning of 1883, in which year he was appointed Adviser on Defences. In 1879 he was awarded a C.M.G., and in 1885 was made K.C.M.G. for services in Australia.