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Women Civil Servants at the Board of Trade and the Factory Inspectorate, 1893-1919

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Women Civil Servants at the Board of Trade and the Factory Inspectorate, 1893-1919 Wheeldon, Christine Elizabeth. MPhil/PhD. Goldsmiths College, University of London. Title: ‘Pioneers in the Corridors of Power’: Women Civil Servants at the Board of Trade and the Factory Inspectorate, 1893-1919. June 2014 1 Acknowledgements. This study developed from the discovery of Clara Collet’s work, whilst reading Jane Miller’s ‘Seductions’. I thank her for that inspiration. Early retirement from my teaching position allowed me to return to academic study and I am profoundly grateful to my supervisor, Sally Alexander for all the help and support she has provided throughout the preparation of this thesis. I am forever in her debt. For their generous support and encouragement, I should like to thank my colleagues, Imogen Lee and Kate Murphy; long discussions in the British Library were invaluable motivational factors. I should also like the staff at the Women’s Library and the British Library and in particular, Carole Jones, archivist at the Modern Records Library, University of Warwick, for her tireless photocopying of the Collet and Streatfeild papers, which made life so much easier for a partially sighted student. I should like to thank my sister, Gillian Wilson, for her expertise as a proof reader, and the rest of my family; children and grandchildren, for their superb listening skills. A special mention goes to Roger, whose endless support and patience was priceless. Finally, I should like to thank the women of this study, whose memoirs and diaries provided much of the material for the thesis. 2 Abstract. In the early 1890s university educated women who were considered experts on women’s issues were appointed to the Home Office and the Board of Trade. This thesis investigates their work, lives and the impact of these appointments within the political context of the period (1893-1919): the expansion of the women’s movements, the rediscovery of poverty and the development of social conscience. A select group of nine women have been identified. They were pioneers in the establishment of a position for women in the professional grades within the Civil Service. Their numbers expanded during the First World War but contracted sharply afterwards. The study reconstructs the ‘life histories’ of this cohort, their working practices and investigates their legacy for the civil service, for feminism and for the industrial working lives of women. It examines the influence of their work on legislation and on improvements in the working lives of women in industry and workshops throughout Britain. Sources include Parliamentary papers, select committee reports, census returns and directories as well as biographical sources and some private papers to reconstruct their working practices. In improved sanitary conditions, the reduction of hours, the gradual elimination of truck violations, increased protection against injurious industrial processes, this cohort were effective. Clara Collet’s work played a significant part in the investigative process resulting in the first Trade Boards Act in 1909 and her statistical analyses of the effects of industrial work on women and their children informed both government and the public. These women civil servants’ war work was also impressive and they served on several reconstruction committees. However, post-war politics seriously impeded the progress that such a distinguished beginning might have indicated. Chapter six explores the way in which the women’s achievements were obfuscated after 1919. 3 Contents. Page: Abbreviations 7 Chapter 1. 8 Introduction: An élite group of senior women civil servants, 1893-1919. 1. Pioneering women enter the civil service. 2. An élite group: well educated, experienced and ambitious. 3. Feminism and the professional woman in the 1890s. 4. Politics, poverty and social reform. 5. The development of the civil service as a profession for women. 6. Conclusion. Chapter 2. 36 From philanthropy to the Civil Service; the emergence of the higher ranking civil servant. 1. The development of ad academic, liberal education for girls. 2. A place at university: the broadening of horizons. 3. The making of a woman civil servant: influences and experiences. 4. Philanthropy and social service. Chapter 3. 72 An Efficient Woman: the work of Clara Collet. 1. A background in economics. 2. Economic independence: there is no hardship in women working for a living, the hardship lies in not getting a living when they work for it. 3. Four Lady Assistant Commissioners: The Royal Commission on Labour, 1892-1893. 4. An Odd Woman: Clara Collet at the Board of Trade. 5. The working environment for a woman at the Board of Trade. 6. Conclusion. 4 Chapter 4. 119 The Lady inspector’s Visit: Women in the Factory Inspectorate, 1893-1902. 1. A joyous adventure: the daily life for a woman factory inspector. 2. Prosecutions. 3. Laundries. 4. Truck (payment in goods) and fines: the gombeen men and women. 5. Hazardous substances: working in the dangerous trades. 6. The structure of the women’s inspectorate and working relationships. 7. Conclusion. Chapter 5. 160 Women Servants of the State: the expansion and development of the Women’s Factory Inspectorate, 1902-1921. 1. ‘One of the greatest public services rendered by women’: the expansion and development of the women’s factory inspectorate. 2. An English inspector in Ireland, 1905-1912. 3. Pressure for change: the work of the women’s department to1914. 4. The wider field: secondment to other sectors of public service 5. widens women’s spheres of interest. 6. Conclusion. Chapter 6. 196 The Ethos and Politics of Women’s Equality in Industry and the Civil Service, 1914-1919. 1. The impact of the First World War on women in industry and in the factory inspectorate. 2. Post-war politics and partial franchise. 3. Reconstruction and the implications for women in the workplace. 4. Post-war politics: an uncertain future for women civil servants. 5 Chapter 7. 234 Conclusion: An Assessment of the Legacy of Women Civil Servants. 1. Professional achievements, 1893-1919. 2. Improvements for women in the workplace, 1893-1919. 3. Conclusion: a lasting legacy. 6 Abbreviations. BEA: British Economic Association (later Royal Economic Society). COS: Charity Organisation Society GPDSC: Girls’ Public Day School Company. NUSEC: National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship NUWSS: National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies RCL: Royal Commission on Labour. RSS: Royal Statistical Society. SCSS: Select Committee on the Sweating System SDR: Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. SJCIWO: Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women’s Organisations WCC: War Cabinet Report on Women in Industry WCG: Women’s Co-operative Guild. WFL: Women’s Freedom League WSPU: Women’s Social and Political Union WTUL: Women’s Trade Union League. 7 Chapter One: Introduction: An élite group of senior women civil servants, 1893- 1919. 1. Pioneering women enter the civil service. ‘It is now at least admitted that the rather-above-the-average woman is quite on a level with the average man:’ Clara Collet, 1890. The economist, statistician and career civil servant, Clara Collet summarised the position in which some well educated women found themselves in the 1890s and the early years of the twentieth century in ‘The Economic Position of Educated Working Women’ in 1890.1 In the 1890s women began to be recruited as civil servants, not solely in the lower grades but in higher positions as, for example, education inspectors for girls’ schools. A select group, including Collet were appointed to investigate the working conditions for women in industry. Clara Collet and Frances Durham were appointed to the Board of Trade in 1893 and 1915 respectively. Mary Paterson, May Abraham, Adelaide Anderson, Rose Squire, Hilda Martindale and Isabel Taylor joined the Factory Inspectorate between 1893 and 1909 and Mona Wilson was appointed to the National Insurance Commission in 1911. The social and educational backgrounds of all these women were similar. They were all well educated, experienced and ambitious - an élite group, or at least ‘above average’ as Clara Collet put it. They came from professional, educated homes and, with the exception of Mary Paterson, they all either lived or were educated in London. They were involved in social reformism: in the Charity Organisation Society (COS), the University Settlement Movement, the Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG). They were, in the wake of the Royal Commission on Labour (RCL), which proposed the appointment of women to the factory inspectorate, ideally placed to move from voluntarism to a professional career.2 This thesis is an assessment of the lives and work of a small group of women civil servants investigating women’s industrial conditions. It examines the contribution they made to the working lives of women and children between 1891 and 1919. The group 1 Clara Elizabeth Collet, Educated Working Women: Essays on the Economic Position of Women Workers in the Middle Classes, (London: P.S.King and Son, 1902), p.6 2 The Royal Commission on Labour (RCL), set up in 1891 to investigate the relations between capital and labour after a period of severe industrial unrest. 8 have been selected because of their impact as investigators and providers of statistical data, through select committees, Board of Trade and Factory Inspectorate reports, on the condition of industrial women workers. It examines their education, motivation and achievements, both in terms of the establishment of a professional structure within the civil service for women and in terms of their contribution to legislative reform. The thesis reconstructs the political and intellectual environment in which women were, for the first time, able to achieve professional status. Several dynamic historical factors, often in tension with each other, created this environment. The campaigns for education and employment, for women’s suffrage and married women’s property, the higher education of women, and social, political and industrial change in the second half of the nineteenth century moulded these women.
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