(i) Women as workers: Factories employed large number of women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries With techno!og:cal developments, women gradually lost their industrial jobs, and were forced to work within households. The 1861 census recorded a quarter of million domestic servants in London, of whom the vast majority were women, many of them recent migrants. A large number of women used their homes to increase family income by raking in lodgers or through such activities as tailoring, washing or matchbox making. However, there was a change once again in the twentieth century. As women got employment in wartime industries and offices, they withdrew from domestic service. (ii) Women and conservatives: Men and women did no: have equal access to this new urban space. As women lost their industrial jobs and conservative people railed against their presence in public spaces, women were forced to withdraw into their homes. The public space became increasingly a male preserve, and the domestic sphere was seen as the proper place for women. (iii) Women and political movements: Most political movements of the nineteenth century, such as Chartism (a movement demanding the vote for all adult males! and the 10-hour movement (limiting hours of work in factories), mobilised large number of men. Only gradually did women come to participate in political movements for suffrage that demanded the right to vote for women, or for married women’s rights to property (from the l870s). (iv) Women and war time: The two world wars of the 20th century once again transformed the life of women They were employed in large numbers to meet war demands.