Ruby Loftus: Before the War

Dame Laura Knight’s painting Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring was an iconic wartime image, recognised around the world as a symbol of British resilience and home front fortitude. How did an ordinary woman from South Wales become one of the most recognisable poster girls for women’s contribution to the war effort?

Ruby's parents, Martha (née Williams) and Harold Loftus, lived in Central Road, Llanhilleth near Newport. They had four children: Elsie (born 1919), Stella Ruby Isabella (known as Ruby, born 1921), Harold (born 1924) and Queenie (born 1925).

Wales was particularly hard hit by the the Great Depression. Harold Loftus sought work in London, securing a job with the Shell-Mex petroleum company. Harold died in 1938 while the family were living in London.

Shell-Mex House. Henry Rustbury, 1932. — *Shell-Mex House*. Henry Rustbury, 1932.

View along the Thames towards smoke rising from the London Docklands after an air raid

The Loftus family moved to Finchley, where Ruby worked in a tobacconist's shop in Monkville Parade. When the London Blitz began in September 1940, the family returned to Newport to live in a flat above a shop opposite the chemical works in Corporation Road.

Martha Loftus was employed as a porter at Newport Railway Station. In November 1940, her daughters, Ruby, Elsie and Queenie went to work in the new Royal Ordnance Factory No. 11.

The Loftus daughters’ factory work entitled the family to move to 20 Elgar Avenue in Alway, into one of the many new houses built for workers in reserved occupations.

Reserved workers’ houses, designed by renowned architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, contained a reinforced cage in one of the rooms, intended to resist blast damage from air raids.