{"id":15,"count":4,"description":"

<\/span>During the First World War, one in six families throughout the United Kingdom, <\/span>suffered a direct bereavement. 192,000 wives lost their husbands, and nearly 400,000 children had lost their fathers. A further 500,000 children had lost one of more of their siblings. Appallingly, one in eight wives died within a year of receiving news of their husband's death.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\r\n
Women who lost their husbands in the First World War were granted the first State-funded, non-contributory pension (meaning that they did not have to pay a contribution towards it). They also received a dependents\u2019 allowance for any children under 16. Charities such as The Soldiers\u2019 and Sailors\u2019 Families Association and The British Legion provided some families with additional support.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\r\n
Not all women were granted the<\/span> <\/span>pension.<\/span> A woman who married an ex-soldier after he had been discharged from the army would not get a pension if he later died from war wounds. Some women had their pensions withdrawn by the Local Pensions Office if they were judged to be behaving in the wrong way, for instance if they were accused of drunkenness, neglecting their children, living out of wedlock with another man or had an illegitimate child. Thousands of women wrote to the authorities to appeal for a pension.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\r\n
There was fear that if the pension was too generous, then it would mean that women would be discouraged from supporting themselves. \u2018Eighteen shillings a week and no husband were heaven to women who, once industrious and poor were now wealthy and idle\u2019 one man wrote to the Daily Express, complaining of the pension.<\/span><\/span><\/div>","link":"https:\/\/www.ww1hull.com\/?cat=15","name":"Widows and Children","slug":"widows-and-children","taxonomy":"category","parent":7,"meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ww1hull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/categories\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ww1hull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/categories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ww1hull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/taxonomies\/category"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ww1hull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/categories\/7"}],"wp:post_type":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ww1hull.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts&categories=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}