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| Dorothy Lawrence |
“I’ll see
what an ordinary English girl without credentials can accomplish.”
Dorothy
Lawrence was an English reporter who posed as a man to become a soldier during
World War 1. She was an inspiring
journalist and had already had some articles published in The Times. At the outbreak of war, she approached some
of the Fleet Street newspapers in the hope of becoming a war reporter but was
turned down.
In 1915, Dorothy travelled to France
and tried to volunteer as a civilian employee of the Voluntary Aid Unit, but
was rejected once again. She then tried
her luck as a Freelance War Correspondent until she was arrested by the French
Police, who ordered her to leave.
Unwilling to accept defeat, she then decided to disguise herself as a
man in order to get the story she wanted.
Dorothy befriended two British
Soldiers and along with her ‘Khaki accomplices’; ten men who helped to smuggle
her a khaki uniform, she altered her appearance in order to look more like a
man. With false papers in her pocket,
Dorothy Lawrence headed to the front lines, as Private Denis Smith of 1st
Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment.
After ten days of liberty working in
the trenches, the stress of hiding her true identity, along with the
hard-working conditions was beginning to take its toll on her health. She began to suffer from constant chills,
rheumatism and soon fainting fits. It
became clear to her that she would soon require medical aid, which would lead
to her secret being found out. The men
who helped her would all find themselves in danger within the army. Dorothy decided that the only thing she could
do, was to present herself to the Commanding Sergeant, who placed her under
military arrest.
Dorothy Lawrence was taken to the
BEF (British Expeditionary Force) Headquarters where she was interrogated as a
spy, before being declared as a prisoner of war. They also made her sign an affidavit, so
that she would risk jail if she wrote anything about her experiences on the
front line.
On the way back to London, Dorothy
shared the same ferry as Emmeline Pankhurst, who invited her to speak at one of
her Suffragette meetings. She also tried
to write about her experiences but was silenced by the War Office, using the
1914 Defence of the Realm Act.
In 1919, she published an account of
her experiences entitled; ‘Sapper Dorothy Lawrence: The Only English Woman
Soldier.’ It was well received in a
number of countries, despite being heavily censored by the War Office. Despite her efforts, she never managed to
receive any real credibility as a journalist.
Dorothy Lawrence spent the final
thirty-nine years of her life in an asylum, before being buried in a pauper’s
grave.
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