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Home and Politics: Women and Conservative Activism in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2010

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References

1 League, Tariff Reform (TRL),“Women's Unionist and Tariff Reform Association,” Monthly Notes 19, no. 1 (July 1913), 68.Google Scholar

2 Trentmann, Frank, Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain (Oxford, 2008), 6971, 76.Google Scholar

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4 Lowell, A. Lawrence, The Government of England, 2 vols. (New York, 1912), 2:10.Google Scholar

5 “Letter to the Editor from Edith Milner: Primrose League Work,” Primrose League Gazette, March 1906; General Purposes Committee Special Report, 2 February 1906, Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bodl.), Primrose League MSS, MS4.

6 Jarvis, David, “The Conservative Party and the Politics of Gender, 1900–1939,” in The Conservatives and British Society 1880–1990, ed. Francis, Martin and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina (Cardiff, 1996), 172–93, 175.Google Scholar

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10 Ibid., 267–68.

11 Jarvis, David, “British Conservatism and Class Politics in the 1920s,” English Historical Review 59, no. 1 (February 1996): 5984, 63, 73–75, 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCrillis, Neal, The British Conservative Party in the Age of Universal Suffrage: Popular Conservatism, 1918–1929 (Columbus, OH, 1998), 47, 76–78, 95.Google Scholar

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15 “Primrose League and Fiscal Policy,” Primrose League Gazette, November 1903.

16 For WUTRA's early history, see Gore, John, ed., Mary Maxse, 1870–1944 (London, 1946), 49, 97100.Google Scholar Liberal Unionist divisions over the tariff issue at the local level are explored in Victoria Barbary, “‘From Platform to the Polling Booth’: Political Leadership and Popular Politics in Bolton and Bury, 1868–1906” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2007), chap. 5.

17 Bush, Julia, “British Women's Anti-suffragism and the Forward Policy, 1908–14,” Women's History Review 11, no. 3 (July 2002): 431–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the progressivism of groups who took a conservative approach to women's issues, Delap, see also Lucy, “Feminist and Anti-feminist Encounters in Edwardian Britain,” Historical Research 78, no. 201 (August 2005): 377–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Bridges, John A., Reminiscences of a Country Politician (London, 1906), 53, 169–70.Google Scholar

19 Barbary, “Platform to Polling Booth,” 100, 189; Report of Joint Committee with English Grand Council, 10 May 1900, Primrose League Grand Council (Scotland) Minutes, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Association (SCUA) MSS, Accession (Acc.) 10424/1.

20 Leo Amery, “Women and the National Service League,” Morning Post, 15 July 1910.

21 Tariff Reform League, “Women's Unionist and Tariff Reform Association,” Monthly Notes 12, no. 4 (1910).Google Scholar

22 “Women and Tariff Reform,”Our Flag, January 1913.

23 “Tried and True,” Free Trader, n.s., no. 1, December 1908.

24 Nottingham Daily Guardian, 28 June 1905, cutting, Churchill College, Cambridge, Page Croft MSS, CRFT3/1.

25 Townsend, Mrs. Walter [St. Clair], The Influence of Women in Politics (London, 1909)Google Scholar, located in Women's Library, London, St. Clair Townsend MSS, 7SCT/05, box FL679. Similar sentiments were expressed by a WUTRA head office speaker, Elizabeth Collum; see “Wrexham Conservative and Unionist Association,” North Wales Guardian, 14 June 1907.

26 Moreton, Amy, Freedom in Happy England (Nuneaton, 1911).Google Scholar For a description of the Gaumount free trade film, see Bioscope, 13 January 1910, 61.

27 Moreton, Freedom in Happy England. For popular reception of the play, see “Branch Notes,” Primrose League Gazette, December 1911.

28 Moreton, Freedom in Happy England.

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31 Townsend, Influence of Women in Politics, 8; WUTRA attacked free trade and socialism in Welsford, J. W., The Reign of Terror: An Experiment in Free Trade Socialism (London, 1909)Google Scholar.

32 Women's Unionist and Tariff Reform Association, Help the Women and Children, 1914, Churchill College, Cambridge, Leo Amery MSS, AMEL6/3/29, file 2.

33 “Worcester's Aid to Ulster: Women's Movement for Women and Children,” Berrow's Worcester Journal, 24 January 1914.

34 Grand Council Minutes, 3 April 1914, Bodl., Primrose League MSS, MS5/1.

35 Edith Lyttelton, “Some Personal Experiences and Accounts of Individual Belgian Refugees,” 5, Imperial War Museum, London, Women at Work Collection (microfilm), BEL2/2/14, reel 4.

36 Letter from George Lane-Fox to Jack Sandars, 4 January 1906, Bodl., Sandars MSS, ca. 751, fols. 73–74.

37 Thomas Robinson to Arthur Longworth, 11 August 1910 (loose), Lancashire Record Office, Preston, Darwen Conservative Association MSS, PLC2/2/1. For Primrose League habitations’ enthusiasm for tariff reform, see, e.g., “The Primrose League: Enthusiastic Meeting at Henley,” Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard, 1 May 1908; and “Paddington and Tariff Reform: Formation of Women's Association,” Morning Post, 27 June 1907.

38 Grand Council (Scotland) Minutes, 9 June 1908, 10 July 1910, 30 May 1911, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, SCUA MSS, Acc.10424/1.

39 Grand Council Minutes, 4 June 1908, 31 October 1912, 6 November 1913, Bodl., Primrose League MSS, MS4. For local cooperation between these organizations, see “Worcestershire's Aid to Ulster: Women's Movement for Women and Children,” Berrow's Worcester Journal, 24 January 1914; and “Primrose League: The Empire Habitation,” West London Observer, 3 July 1914.

40 “The Primrose League in Marylebone,” Marylebone Mercury, 30 May 1914. For the Primrose League's new professionalism, see also Arbuthnot, G. A., ed., The Primrose League Gazette (London, 1914)Google Scholar.

41 Figures are taken from The Outlook, 8 November 1913, 633 (Mid-Devon); Southern Weekly News (Brighton), 7 March 1914, 5 (Horsham); and Berrow's Worcester Journal, 23 May 1914, 6 (Bewdley).

42 Trentmann, Free Trade Nation, 35–42, 46–57.

43 Jones, Grace A., “National and Local Issues in Politics: A Study of East Sussex and Lancashire Spinning Towns, 1906–10” (PhD diss., University of Sussex, 1965), 224.Google Scholar

44 Williams, Constance, How Women Can Help in Political Work: Practical Hints on Local Organization and Electioneering (London, 1905), ix, 1415.Google Scholar

45 “Ulster Women's Unionist Council Executive Committee Minutes, 7 April 1911,” in Minutes of the Ulster Women's Unionist Council and Executive Committee, ed. Urquhart, Diane (Dublin, 2001), 13.Google Scholar

46 “Horsham Division Women Unionists and the Ulster Guarantee Fund,” Southern Weekly News (Brighton), 7 March 1914; “Letter from Lord Winterton to the Editor: Sussex Women and Ulster,” Southern Weekly News, 14 March 1914.

47 “Primrose League and Ulster: Darwen and the British Covenant,” Darwen Gazette, 7 March 1914.

48 Trentmann, Free Trade Nation, 55.

49 “Canvassing in Forfarshire,” Free Trader, March 1909.

50 Lyttelton, Some Personal Experiences and Accounts.

51 On household economy, see WUTRA, Economy: A National and Personal Duty (1915), located in Shropshire Archives, Shrewsbury (Shropshire), William Bridgeman MSS, 4629/1/1915/2; and Mrs. Peel, C. S., A Year in Public Life (London, 1919), 4748.Google Scholar For Conservatives’ work on county agricultural committees, see Mary Maxse to Ivor Maxse, 12 April 1917, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester (West Sussex RO), Maxse Family MSS, C, uncataloged 183.

52 Duplicated letter from Mary Maxse to WUTRA members, June 1917, Shropshire, Caroline Bridgeman MSS, 4629/2/1917/4.

53 Letter from Mary Maxse to Caroline Bridgeman, 24 June 1917, Shropshire, William Bridgeman MSS, 4629/1/1917/46; Mary Maxse to Ivor Maxse, 8 June 1917, West Sussex RO, Maxse Family MSS, C, uncataloged 181.

54 Women's National and Imperial League Manifesto, n.d., mid-1917, Shropshire, Caroline Bridgeman MSS, 4629/2/1917/3; letter from Mary Maxse to Ivor Maxse, 7 July 1917, West Sussex RO, Maxse family MSS, C, uncataloged 181; memorandum by Caroline Bridgeman, n.d., June 1917, Shropshire, William Bridgeman MSS, 4629/1/1917/111.

55 Letter from Mary Maxse to Ivor Maxse, 11 September 1917, West Sussex RO, Maxse Family MSS, C, uncataloged 182.

56 Duplicated letter from Mary Maxse to WUTRA members, June 1917, Shropshire, Caroline Bridgeman MSS, 4629/2/1917/4.

57 NFWI annual report, List of County Federations (1917); NFWI annual report (1918), 11, Women's Library, London, National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) MSS, 5FWI/A/2/2/01–02.

58 Letter from Mary Maxse to Ivor Maxse, 24 May 1918, West Sussex RO, Maxse Family MSS, C, uncataloged 222.

59 For the reorganization of the Conservative women's organization in 1918, see McCrillis, Age of Universal Suffrage, 20–25

60 Letter from Caroline Bridgeman to Mary Maxse, 16 October 1917, Shropshire, William Bridgeman MSS, 4629/1/1917/114. For party anxieties about the new electorate, see Jarvis, David, “The Shaping of Conservative Electoral Hegemony, 1918–39,” in Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820, ed. Lawrence, Jon and Taylor, Miles (Brookfield, VT, 1997), 131–52, 144–45.Google Scholar

61 Memorandum by H. Crowe, “The Halifax habitation,” 19 June 1918; General Purposes Committee, 3 October 1918, Bodl., Primrose League MSS, MS6/1.

62 Letter from Mary Talbot to Caroline Bridgeman, 3 May 1917, Shropshire, William Bridgeman MSS, 4629/1/1917/5.

63 “Unionist Women's Conference,” Home and Politics, June 1923.

64 Executive Committee Minutes, 21 October 1920, West Sussex RO Chichester Women's Unionist Association MSS, Add.12090.

65 “Women Unionists: Gathering at the Theatre,” Berrow's Worcester Journal, 21 May 1921.

66 “Bonar Law and Sound Government: Vote Unionist,” 1922, Conservative Party MSS (microfilm), microfiche 0.396.220, pamphlet 1922/74.

67 “A “Labour” Party Government? What It Would Do and How It Would Do It,” (1921), Conservative Party MSS (microfilm), microfiche 0.396.211, pamphlet 1921/16; the original document is located at Bodl.

68 E. J. Forster, “Women's Unionist Clubs: 15 Years Experience in Newbury,” Conservative Agents Journal, January 1921; “Our Work in the Constituencies” (Horsham), Home and Politics, February 1922.

69 Lawrence, Jon, Electing our Masters: The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford, 2009), chap. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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71 For Conservative hostility to the negative discourse of the Anti-Waste League and Middle Classes Union, see Robert Cecil to Lord Salisbury, 18 May 1921, British Library, London, Robert Cecil MSS, fols. 92–97; and Dearling, James, “The Language of Conservatism in Lancashire between the Wars” (PhD diss., Manchester, 2002), 174–78.Google Scholar

72 Houston, Henry James and Valdar, Lionel, Modern Electioneering Practice (London, 1922), 1718.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., 643.

74 See Lady Brittain, “Women and Municipal Representation,” Home and Politics, October 1921, 10.

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78 Jessie Stephen, “Some Lessons of the Election,” Labour Woman, 1 January 1923. See also “Women's Work in the Election: What Are You Prepared to Do?” Labour Woman, 1 November 1922.

79 For good examples of the Leeds Weekly Citizen's language, see “Middle-Class Futility: Why They Do Not Count,” 28 January 1921; “New Municipal House Rents: The Government's Attempt to Raise Them Defeated,” 18 February 1921; “The Coming Struggle in the City and the Country,” 21 October 1921; and John E. Davison, “The Housing Shortage,” 19 May 1922.

80 Leads Weekly Citizen, “The Coming Struggle in the City.”

81 See the Yorkshire Post articles, “The Coalition's Unfinished Tasks,” 4 March 1922, and “Conservatism and the Coalition,” 2 October 1922.

82 James Glover, “Letter to the Editor,” Yorkshire Post, 4 October 1922.

83 See, e.g., “Editorial: The Eleventh Hour,” The Conservative Woman (Leeds), October 1921.

84 See The Conservative Woman (Leeds) articles, “Leeds Board of Guardians,” June 1921, and “The Lighter Side of Politics,” March 1922.

85 “Matters Pertaining to the Home,” The Conservative Woman (Leeds), May 1921 and September 1921.

86 “Ward News,” The Conservative Woman (Leeds), March 1921; “Mrs. William Henry Clarke,” The Conservative Woman (Leeds), April 1921.

87 The Conservatives were aided by the professional and business vote accounting for up to 20 percent of the Leeds Central electorate, but winning over industrial workers was seen as the determining factor in contests within this constituency. See “Leeds Polling To-Day,” The Times, 26 July 1923.

88 “Women and the Election,” “Yorkshire Women and the Fight,” Yorkshire Post, 17 October 1924.

89 See the Yorkshire Post's coverage of the by-election: “Sir C. Wilson Opens His Campaign,” 14 July 1923; “Crowded Conservative Meeting,” 20 July 1923; and “Central Leeds Poll,” 27 July 1923.

90 Letter from Patrick Hannon to Neville Chamberlain, 1 November 1924, Birmingham University Library, Neville Chamberlain MSS, NC5/10/23.

91 Quoted in Boughton, John, “Working Class Politics in Birmingham and Sheffield, 1918–1931” (PhD diss., University of Warwick, 1985), 121.Google Scholar

92 “Mrs. Neville Chamberlain and the Workers: The Desire for Service,” Home and Politics, October 1923.

93 Letter from Neville Chamberlain to Hilda Chamberlain, 26 September 1920, in The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters, 4 vols., ed. Robert Self (Aldershot, 2000–2005), 1:388.

94 Mrs. Neville Chamberlain, “Clubs for Unionist Women,” Home and Politics, March 1921; “Unionist Women's Institute: Interesting Development in the Ladywood Division,” Straight Forward (Birmingham), January 1921.

95 See the Straight Forward (Birmingham) articles, “Doings in the Divisions,” February 1921, “Women and Politics: Success of the Institute Movement,” April 1921, and “Women's Activities,” December 1921.

96 Worcestershire Conservative Association Minutes, 22 February 1908, Worcestershire Record Office, Worcester; “Fete at Sandon Park,” Stafford Chronicle, 27 July 1912; Agent's Report 1923–24, Ladywood Division Unionist Association Minutes, Birmingham Conservative and Unionist Association (BCUA) MSS, Birmingham Central Library.

97 McCarthy, Helen, “Parties, Voluntary Associations and Domestic Politics in Interwar Britain,” Historical Journal 50, no. 4 (December 2007): 891912, 910CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McKibbin, Ross, Classes and Cultures: England, 1918–1951 (Oxford, 1998), 96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98 For male agents’ criticisms, see the various pieces that appeared in the Conservative Agent's Journal during 1919–20, particularly “Letter to the Editor: ‘An Anxious Agent’,” July 1919; J. H. Bottomley, “The Party System Defended,” August 1919; and Leigh MacLachlan, “Women's Organisation,” June 1920. For a rare example of female criticism of nonparty organizations in Home and Politics, see “Women's Conference,” November 1920.

99 Brian Harrison, “For Church, Queen and Family: The Girls’ Friendly Society, 1874–1920,” Past and Present, no. 61 (November 1973): 107–38; Beaumont, Caitriona, “Moral Dilemmas and Women's Rights: The Attitude of the Mothers’ Union and Catholic Women's League to Divorce, Birth Control and Abortion in England, 1928–1939,” Women's History Review 16, no. 4 (September 2007): 463–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

100 Houston and Valdar, Modern Electioneering Practice, 144.

101 “Our Work in the Constituencies,” Home and Politics, June 1921; “Western Agents Meeting,” Conservative Agents Journal, March 1921; NFWI General Meeting Report, 3 May 1921, 431–57, NFWI MSS, 5FWI/A/2/3/01.

102 Scott, Gillian, Feminism and the Politics of the Working Woman: The Women's Co-operative Guild, 1880s to the Second World War (London, 1998), 34.Google Scholar

103 Chamberlain, “Clubs for Unionist Women”; “Mrs. Neville Chamberlain and the Workers.”

104 “Address by Mr. F. De Lisle Solbe to Home Counties Agents Meeting,” Conservative Agents Journal, April 1922.

105 For this organization, see Mrs. Jessie Furse, “Co-operation and Service,” Home and Politics, March 1927.

106 See Home and Politics articles: “How to Form a Branch,” November 1923, and “How I Started My Branch in a County Constituency,” Home and Politics, January 1924.

107 Thompson, Andrew S., Imperial Britain: The Empire in British Politics, c 1880–1932 (Harlow, 2000), 5657.Google Scholar

108 Mrs. A. Townley, “A Woman's Page,” Labour Organiser, January 1922.

109 Ibid.; Chamberlain, “Clubs for Unionist Women.”

110 Jarvis, “Politics of Gender,” 176–77, 183.

111 Letter from Sir Herbert Jessel to Malcolm Fraser, 18 July 1922; Herbert Jessel, “Special Difficulties in London in Dealing with the Women,” n.d., Bodl., Metropolitan Area, Conservative Party MSS, ARE1/29/1.

112 James, Robert Rhodes, Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson's Memoirs and Papers, 1910–37 (London, 1969), 266–68.Google Scholar

113 Letter to the editor from Hughes, A. D., “The National Conservative League,” Conservative Agent's Journal, July 1925Google Scholar; see also Allan Hand, “The National Conservative League,” May 1925.

114 Agent's Report, 1923–24, Ladywood Division Unionist Association Minutes, BCUA MSS.

115 Williamson, Stanley Baldwin, 176, 206.

116 Ibid., 153.

117 “West Worcestershire Conservatives,” Berrow's Worcester Journal, 3 May 1913; “West Worcestershire Conservatives: Women's Gathering at Hindlip,” Berrow's Worcester Journal, 23 May 1914.

118 Stanley Baldwin, “Why I Support the Irish Agreement,” Home and Politics, January 1922; “Mrs. Stanley Baldwin at Home: A Talk with the Premier's Wife,” Home and Politics, August 1923.

119 Stanley Baldwin, “Why the Sugar Duty Was Not Reduced,” Home and Politics, June 1923.

120 Mrs. Hudson Lyall, “Why Women Support Mr. Baldwin,” Home and Politics, December 1923; Caroline Bridgeman, “Some Reflections on the General Election,” Home and Politics, January 1924.

121 “The Bradford Contests: Fight Against Socialism,” Yorkshire Post, 1 November 1921; “Remember! Conserve Conservatism” and “Messages for the Parliamentary Election (Central),” both in The Conservative Woman (Leeds), November 1924.

122 Maguire, G. E., Conservative Women: A History of Women and the Conservative Party, 1874–1997 (Basingstoke, 1998), 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Graves, Pamela M., Labour Women: Women in British Working-Class Politics, 1918–1939 (Cambridge, 1994), 41Google Scholar; Pugh, Martin, Women and the Women's Movement in Britain, 1914–1999, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, 2000), 140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

123 Todd, Selina, Young Women, Work, and Family in England, 1918–1950 (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

124 See, e.g., NUCA, Women of Today and Tomorrow (1928), Wolverhampton Conservative Association MSS, Wolverhampton Archives, Wolverhampton, D/SO/27/23.