The central committee on women's training and employment : tackling the servant problem, 1914 - 1945

Domestic service dominated women's lives in the first half of the twentieth century. The largest sector of female employment, paradoxically there was a perceived servant problem. Defined as a shortage of female applicants, it generated much debate both within and outside Parliament. One potential answer was training unemployed women to fill domestic service vacancies. To this end, successive Governments sanctioned and funded training centres, operating alongside State-run Employment Exchanges. This aspect of domestic service has been largely neglected by historians, yet it formed a vital component of Government policy, receiving active support from successive ministries. This thesis focuses on the semi-autonomous organisation administering those training centres - the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment (CCWTE). Operational from 1914 until 1940 in a predominantly male-ordered society, the female-run CCWTE played a central role in State unemployment programmes. Yet, the CCWTE gradually became confined to domestic service training, being forced to abandon its other courses. This thesis seeks to show how this narrowing of opportunities was entrenched in traditional views of women's place in the home - albeit someone else's home. The male-dominated Government's aim was twofold - reduce the number of unemployed female claimants, fill domestic service vacancies. This aim ignored a fundamental element of the domestic service - its unpopularity among workers. Without addressing root issues of status and conditions, the training scheme to solve the servant problem was doomed to failure. This thesis explores the impact of the CCWTE's training work in relation to the servant problem, against constraints imposed by economic and political changes. Also included is an investigation of the role of official migration schemes. Since the servant problem was entwined with broader issues of employment and unemployment, this thesis affords insights into attitudes towards the female workforce, often manifested in gender and class bias, discriminatory practices and restricted opportunities

Defining Planktonic Protist Functional Groups on Mechanisms for Energy and Nutrient Acquisition: Incorporation of Diverse Mixotrophic Strategies

Arranging organisms into functional groups aids ecological research by grouping organisms (irrespective of phylogenetic origin) that interact with environmental factors in similar ways. Planktonic protists traditionally have been split between photoautotrophic “phytoplankton” and phagotrophic “microzoo-plankton”. However, there is a growing recognition of the importance of mixotrophy in euphotic aquatic systems, where many protists often combine photoautotrophic and phagotrophic modes of nutrition. Such organisms do not align with the traditional dichotomy of phytoplankton and microzooplankton. To reflect this understanding,we propose a new functional grouping of planktonic protists in an eco- physiological context: (i) phagoheterotrophs lacking phototrophic capacity, (ii) photoautotrophs lacking phagotrophic capacity,(iii) constitutive mixotrophs (CMs) as phagotrophs with an inherent capacity for phototrophy, and (iv) non-constitutive mixotrophs (NCMs) that acquire their phototrophic capacity by ingesting specific (SNCM) or general non-specific (GNCM) prey. For the first time, we incorporate these functional groups within a foodweb structure and show, using model outputs, that there is scope for significant changes in trophic dynamics depending on the protist functional type description. Accord- ingly, to better reflect the role of mixotrophy, we recommend that as important tools for explanatory and predictive research, aquatic food-web and biogeochemical models need to redefine the protist groups within their frameworks