Women’s Activism in Twentieth-Century Britain: Making a Difference Across the Political Spectrum

287 Pages·2022·5.731 MB·English

by  Paula Bartley

GENDER AND HISTORY
Women’s Activism
in Twentieth-Century
Britain
Making a Difference Across
the Political Spectrum
Paula Bartley
Gender and History
Series Editors
Amanda Capern
University of Hull
Hull, UK
Louella R. McCarthy
University of Wollongong
Wollongong, Australia
Gender and History is an important series of books that offers teachers and
students lively and accessible surveys of the most recent research into the
impact of gender and sexual orientation on the past. Exciting new methodolo-
gies and topics are covered using gender as a category of historical analysis. The
series acknowledges the multiple cultural constructions and fluidity of gender
and sexuality as well as intersectionality with race. Its titles aim to embed wom-
en’s and LGBTQ+ histories in the curriculum while revealing some of the root
causes of global inequalities of power. Culture, race, politics, economy and
religion are all covered in books that use the lens of gender to excite interest in
the lived and embodied experiences of people whose voices have been margin-
alized. Reimagining history for the twenty-first century, this series tackles ques-
tions of power and emotional life in ways that are highly engaging for the
reader and that restore social justice to the historical narrative.
More information about this series at
https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14997
Paula Bartley
Women’s Activism in
Twentieth-Century
Britain
Making a Difference Across the Political Spectrum
Paula Bartley
Stratford upon Avon, UK
Gender and History
ISBN 978-3-030-92720-2 ISBN 978-3-030-92721-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92721-9
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For Réka and Dóra Dudley and to the memory of Carol Adams
A
cknowledgements
First of all, thanks to my editor Emily Russell, who encouraged this project
from its early beginning, discussed it at each stage and provided such
great advice.
Thanks to my lovely women’s group of activists, Jane Clarke, Joan McKenna,
Sue Morley and Rachel Wiggans, for helping me to remember some of our
joint political endeavours. Sadly, one of our group, Carol Adams, the country’s
first inspector for Equal Opportunities and champion of women’s history, died
some years ago, and this book is partly dedicated to her. Since 1982, individu-
ally and collectively my women’s group have provided laughter, politics and
love. Much of their spirit, I hope, is encapsulated in this book. Without the
numerous women like them, often supported by sympathetic men, the wom-
en’s rights we now enjoy would never have been achieved.
I would also like to thank my former colleagues at Lewisham Girls’ School,
Helen Leigh, Nicole Stone and Doug Thorburn, for devising one of the first
women’s history courses in the United Kingdom. Our collective educational
activism provides the backbone of my writing, and I still draw upon our work
in this area.
Thanks to my students who enrolled on my women’s history courses at the
University of Wolverhampton and gave me such great feedback. Colleagues
and friends like Janis Lomas and Maggie Andrews were so supportive of my
project—our discussions about women’s history and politics more generally
have all helped shape the book.
A number of other friends helped, and I would like to thank them too.
Cathy Loxton, Dawn Rumley, Hilary Bourdillon, Jeanette Black, Rosie Keep
and Rebecca Liebmann commented on various chapters; Janet Anslow, Diane
Atkinson, Libby Bennett, Angela V. John, Hilda Kean and Kathy Stredder all
helped in one way or another. I am indebted to Sue Morgan for all our conver-
sations about women’s history. Thanks to Vicky Robinson for early inspiration.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Tom Kelly for putting me in touch with Margaret Fleck and Leah
Strug. Thank you Margaret for sharing your amazing story about The Dolly
Mixtures with me.
I was researching this book just as the pandemic began. Without the vast
number of sources available online, this book could not have been written. I
am therefore grateful to the British Newspaper Archive, the University of
Warwick, the London School of Economics, the Women’s Resource Centre
and a number of feminist journals for putting their archives online. My special
thanks to Christine Maloney and Amy Merriott at Stratford-upon-Avon library,
Eddie Bundy at the British Library and Indy Bhullar at the Women’s
Library, LSE.
A number of people have helped with illustrations: Pat Bickerstaffe, Leah
Strug and Margaret Fleck gave me private photographs; and Christine
Hankinson and Rebecca Odell gave permission to use their images.
I am especially grateful to the Women’s History Network and all those
(mostly) female scholars who have reclaimed women from the obscurity of the
past and in so doing reinterpreted history. I have referenced those who have
helped in this particular project. Thank you to the anonymous readers who
read my proposal and to the anonymous reviewer who read the finished manu-
script for their comments on how to improve the book.
Huge thanks to Clare Short for helping me in countless ways: discussing the
book right from its early stages, unearthing material for me to use, suggesting
ways of improving the book and commenting on the entire manuscript. Her
wisdom and insights were invaluable.
My greatest thanks, as ever, are to my husband Jonathan Dudley, whose love
and care have been unsurpassable in these most difficult times. Always support-
ive, always encouraging, always fun to be with, he remains both my rock and
my rocket. The book is dedicated to two special young women in our family as
well as to Carol Adams.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Themes and Debates 1
2 A New Age: 1900–1914 13
3 The Home Front: 1914–1918 37
4 The Not-So-Roaring Twenties: 1918–1929 63
5 The Hungry Thirties: 1930–1939 93
6 The Second World War: 1939–1945 123
7 The Post-War World: 1945–1960 151
8 The Less-Than-Swinging Sixties: 1960–1970 175
9 The Selfish Seventies?: 1970–1979 197
10 Margaret Thatcher’s Age and After: 1979–2000 225
11 Conclusion: Change and Continuities 257
Bibliography 269
Index 279
ix
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 2.1 O live Christian Malvery, 1904 (Courtesy of Rebecca Odell and the
British Library) 14
Fig. 3.1 T he Women Welders’ School, from Ray Strachey Women’s Suffrage
and Women’s Service, published by London and National Society for
Women’s Service, 1927 (Courtesy of author) 39
Fig. 3.2 W omen ambulance drivers, from The Great War, 19 April 1919
(Courtesy of author) 47
Fig. 3.3 W omen in the Land Army, spraying fruit trees, from The Great War,
19 April 1919 (Courtesy of author) 49
Fig. 3.4 WRAFS from The Great War, 19 April 1919 (Courtesy of author) 51
Fig. 4.1 S even of the eight women: Dorothy Jewson, Susan Lawrence, Vera
Terrington, Margaret Bondfield (L-R standing) Margaret
Wintringham, Nancy Astor, Mabel Hilton Philipson (L-R sitting)
(Courtesy of Christine Hankinson, Leeds Postcards) 69
Fig. 4.2 C hair (second left sitting) of Liverpool Orange Lodge circa 1930s
with family (Courtesy of author) 73
Fig. 4.3 Women’s pilgrimage, 1926 (Courtesy of the Women’s Library, LSE) 76
Fig. 5.1 B UF Women’s Corp, 1939 (Courtesy Mary Evans Library/Marx
Memorial Library) 101
Figs. 5.2
and 5.3 P earl Bickerstaffe in about 1937 and with Rodney, 1949 (Courtesy
of Pat Bickerstaffe) 108
Fig. 6.1 W omen of the Amazon Defence Corps, from the Liverpool Daily
Post, 24 July 1940 p4 (Courtesy of Mirrorpix) 134
Fig. 6.2 W omen recruits from the Caribbean (Courtesy of the National
Army Museum, London) 137
Fig. 6.3 P rincess Anne unveiling the memorial to Noor Inayat Khan at
Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, London on 12 November 2012
(Courtesy of Shrabani Basu) 139
Fig. 7.1 C haos at the Housewives League Conference (Courtesy of Mary
Evans picture library) 156
Fig. 9.1 A dvert from Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 April 1971 (Courtesy of
author) 200
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