Mrs Florence Collard, who worked as a welder at Bartram & Sons’ yard, was one of the seven hundred women who worked in the Sunderland shipyards during World War II.
This photograph was published alongside an article in the Sunderland Echo on Tuesday 10 November 1942 under the heading ‘Women in Sunderland Shipyards’.
Here is a short extract from that article which, in my opinion, shows just how inspirational, brave and resilient these women were.
‘… Mrs Florence Collard is working as a welder at Bartram & Sons’ shipyard. She is the first woman to be admitted to membership (temporary) of the Boilermakers’ Society in the Wear district. Mrs Collard, whose husband is in the Forces, is nothing if not plucky. A Sunderland woman she was bombed out at Plymouth and since returning to Sunderland she has been bombed out here in a recent raid. She was trapped in the kitchen in her home, but rescued. Though suffering from shock she went to her work at the shipyard for the afternoon shift maintaining that “work comes first”.’