THE FIRST WAVE of LIBERAL WOMEN in LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP 1918–1939 the Period Before the Second World War
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Largely forgotten today, a remarkable group of some two to three hundred women achieved positions of significant political influence and power in British local government in MADAM MAYOR THE FIRST WAVE OF LIBERAL WOMEN IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP 1918–1939 the period before the Second World War. A substantial number of them were Liberals. lection to the office of of the new mayors listed by party This article examines mayor or to the aldermanic every November throughout the 1 this first generation of Ebench is taken as the yard- interwar years. These lists provide stick of achievement of influence the principle source for determin- Liberal women pioneers, and power. Appointment to these ing individuals’ allegiance. Some offices recognised the status and listed by the press as Independents where they came to capacity of the recipients, their or ‘party not specified’ have also acceptance into the local politi- been counted as Liberals because of prominence, what their cal elite, and their public profile in their known Liberal links or back- social and economic the community. Typically it went grounds. Of course the degree of with service as chair or vice-chair Liberal commitment varied – rang- background was, what of council committees and other ing from active officers of the party important local roles in public and to others who were only loosely political outlook they political bodies and organisations. connected – and over time some had, and why there Details of all the female mayors gravitated to the Tories or Labour. and most of the aldermen during were not more of them. the period have been collected for the English and Welsh County and Female participation in local Their story sheds light Municipal Boroughs, the London government on an important issue Metropolitan Boroughs and the Although women’s electoral rights Scottish burghs (which had prov- at Westminster level were only con- of women’s history osts and bailies instead of mayors ceded at the end of the First World and aldermen). The County Coun- War,5 the history of female partici- in Britain: how far cils are not included.2 Even if not pation in local authorities goes back the campaigns of the every prominent female figure in a half-century before that. The local government met these crite- right to vote and to become a mem- previous decades for ria, the vast majority of them are ber of different branches and levels caught.3 of local government was granted women’s political rights Defining who amongst them piecemeal at various stages well and participation bore was a Liberal is not always simple. before 1918. Large stretches of local government Single women ratepayers gained fruit in the interwar at this time were non-political, or the vote in local authority elections operated on a Labour-versus-the- from 1869 and soon constituted period. It also teaches rest basis, with candidates standing between one-eighth and a quar- as non-party or Independents or ter of the electorate.6 They could us much about the using some other invented label.4 vote for county councils from 1888. character of the Liberal The line between Liberals and Women could be elected to the Conservatives was often blurred school boards from 1872, until these Party at local level and became increasingly so over were replaced in 1902 by the edu- Top: Ethel time as the Liberal Party declined cation committees of county and during the years of Colman, Annie and entered into alliances with county borough councils, to which decline. By Jaime Helme the Tories. Nevertheless the party women could be co-opted. They Bottom: Florence alignment of most mayors was suf- could also, from 1875, be elected to Reynolds. Keynes, Juanita ficiently clear forThe Times and the boards of guardians that admin- Phillips other newspapers to publish details istered the Poor Law and remained 6 Journal of Liberal History 89 Winter 2015–16 MADAM MAYOR THE FIRST WAVE OF LIBERAL WOMEN IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP 1918–1939 Journal of Liberal History 89 Winter 2015–16 7 MADAM MAYOR a separate branch of local govern- terms in the decade 1919–28 and three times after completing her ment until 1930. Women ratepay- 157 in the decade 1929–38. Even husband’s term. Elizabeth Kenyon ers both married and single were in the best year, 1937, the propor- was mayoress to her husband seven allowed to vote for urban and rural tion of women mayors in England times and to her son again shortly district councils from 1894, as well and Wales reached only about 6 per before her death in 1935. Miss as stand for election to them. It is cent. Gwenllian Morgan’s status derived estimated that by the late 1890s Some ninety women aldermen from ‘old wealth’, her family being some 1,500 women were holding who sat between the wars have local landowners for more than elected local office and probably been identified; about half of them three hundred years and promi- some 3,000 women were elected to also served as mayors. In addition nent churchmen and philanthro- the various bodies between 1870 some twenty Scottish women- pists in Brecon. Lavinia Malcolm’s and 1914.7 Many post-1918 women bailies have been identified. background was more modest. Her mayors and aldermen first entered family were tradesmen and she local government in this way. married a teacher. They were heav- The key breakthrough as far Women Liberals in local ily involved in the small-town elite as the subject of this article is con- government of Dollar, with both her grandfa- cerned came in 1907. Women rate- The majority of women active in ther and husband serving as provost payers secured the right to stand local government before 1914 were before her. for election to borough councils in Liberals, but many were Conserva- After the First World War, Lib- Britain, and thus to become mayor tives; very few were Labour. All six erals continued to be prominent or alderman. Nevertheless shortly pre-1918 women-mayors14 can be amongst the female local govern- before the First World War the classified as Liberals. ment elite, though their numbers Local Government Board identi- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was declined as the party weakened fied just twenty-four women out of the first, in tiny Aldeburgh in 1908, nationally. As Table 1 shows, 11,140 councillors. followed in 1910 by Sarah Lees in almost 30 per cent of women- It might have been expected that the large county borough of Old- mayors in the 1920s were Liberals female participation in local gov- ham, and Miss15 Gwenllian Morgan and about 12 per cent in the 1930s. ernment would mushroom after in Brecon. Lavinia Malcolm served Looking at the terms served (Table 1918, but in fact progress remained as provost of the small burgh of 2), almost one-third of terms served very modest. Only 278 women Dollar in Clackmannanshire from by women in the 1920s were by councillors were elected in the 1913 to 1919. Mary Alice Parting- Liberals and 16 per cent of the terms boroughs in 1919.8 Anne Baldwin ton served as mayor of Glossop in served in the 1930s.17 identifies some 950 women who Derbyshire from May 1916 to 1920; Amongst the aldermen, fifteen were elected to London and county and Elizabeth Hannah Kenyon for were Liberal or Liberal-inclined borough councils between 1919 Dukinfield in Cheshire between The key Independents, ten of them also and 1938.9 Perhaps another cou- May and November 1917, both suc- serving as mayor. In all, then, some ple of thousand were elected in the ceeding their deceased husbands. break- thirty-plus Liberal women held municipal boroughs in England and Garrett Anderson was the first prominent office in local govern- Wales and the burghs in Scotland. woman to qualify as a doctor and through ment between the wars. Baldwin estimates that the pro- the first woman to be elected to a portion of councillors who were school board, and was one of the … came in women rose in London, where it grandes dames of the women’s move- Where did they come from? was by far the greatest, from 8 per ment. She came from a wealthy 1907. Women One of the most striking features cent in 1919 to 17 per cent in 1938, Liberal family of corn merchants. of the entry of women into local but only from about 3 per cent in Her sister, Millicent Fawcett, was ratepay- government after 1918 is its very 1922 to 7 per cent in 1938 in the founder and leader of the suffra- uneven geographical spread, and county boroughs.10 The proportion gist movement. Sarah Lees was a ers secured this was particularly pronounced as of women councillors in the Eng- fabulously wealthy widow from a regards our leadership cohort. lish and Welsh Municipal boroughs mill-owning dynasty. She devoted the right to There was a marked divide and the Scottish burghs was, it her very long life to progressive between southern and eastern Brit- seems certain, even less than this. causes and philanthropy in Old- stand for ain, where many more women The number of women who ham, where she was a lynchpin of came to the fore, and northern and entered the local government elite the town’s Liberal Nonconform- election to western Britain where far fewer was much smaller. Six women ist elite. Such was her munificence did. In fact some 80 per cent of served as mayor or provost before and status that her fellow local borough women-mayors came from south- 1918 and a total of 147 more as Congregationalists treated her ‘as councils ern and eastern England including mayor during the years 1918–39,11 if of royal blood’.16 The Parting- London.