CHESHIRE'S important role in munitions production during the First World War is well-known, and Brunner Mond was the key to this reputation.

With thousands of men from the area sent off to fight, women stepped into the roles left vacant, and new roles created by the sudden demand for munitions.

Between 1915 and 1918, the company produced 191,619 tons of ammonium nitrate – a key part of high explosives used in the war. This represented a 4,800 per cent increase on annual production prior to 1914.

And by 1918 – the final year of the war – Brunner Mond employed around 2,400 women.

The scale of this change in lifestyle – and ultimate social shift ­– is made clear in the 1911 census, taken three years before the war broke out.

Examples of a typical 1911 woman's occupation include dressmaking assistants, domestic servants or housewives.

It would have been hard for them to imagine themselves involved in such heavy mechanical work just a matter of years on.