Edith Lillie Kent (née Carter, 24 November 1908 – 24 August 2012) was a British electrical welder from Plymouth, England during the Second World War. She was the first woman in Great Britain to be given equal pay.^[1][2]

History

Kent took a job as a welder at Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth in 1941, where she was paid £5 6s a week. She became the first woman to be employed at the dockyard. Kent had the advantage of being only 4 feet 11 inches tall, meaning that she was small enough to weld in places her male colleagues could not such as torpedo tubes.^[1][2]

In 1942, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter called Jean. She returned to work soon after she gave birth, however, leaving Jean in the care of one of her sisters. In 1943, she was given a pay rise, earning £6 6s. This was higher wage than the average for a male manual worker, which was £5 8s 6d.^[1] After the war had finished in 1945, she left her job when the male workforce returned from the front. She took up a new job as a barmaid.^[1] She lived with her husband Bill, who ran a shoe repair business. He died in 1996, aged 86.^[2]

Kent herself has said that she was embarrassed at the time of her achievement saying: "I got the job because my brothers worked at the dockyard and they thought I would be good at it. I was the first woman to work as a welder there. It made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men – and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn't seem to mind me earning the same. None of them ever dared say it, but I think they knew I was worth as much as them, if not more."^[1]

Kent had an elder sister, Minna Algate, who died aged 106.^[3] Kent died in Plymouth in August 2012 at the age of 103.^[4][5]

References