The Queen Margaret Settlement 1897 - 1914: Glasgow women pioneers in social work. Thesis presented for the degree of M.Litt. in History at the University of Glasgow by Catherine Mary Kendall September 1993 Department of Scottish History University of Glasgow Copyright © 1993 Catherine Mary Kendall. ProQuest Number: 11007780 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11007780 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 A bstract. This study concerns the origins and early years of the Queen Margaret Settlement (here­ after QMS) in Glasgow, from its foundation in 1897 until the outbreak of war in 1914. The QMS merits study because of its pivotal role in several related fields, all of which underwent crucial change in this period. The QMS was part of the wider Settlement movement which arose in the 1880s as part of the contemporary ‘rediscovery of poverty’. In the new thinking about the ‘organic’ nature of society, Settlements were a response to the alienation from each other of the urban social classes. The initial aim of the Settle­ ments was to restore the social balance within poor areas by enabling University students to live in Residences as neighbours to the poor; in time many Settlements developed a strong interest in educating workers to understand the conditions they encountered. This concern led the QMS to promote professional training for social workers and hence to work for the foundation of a School of Social Study affiliated to Glasgow University. The QMS owed much to its Glasgow origins. Amid the great wealth arising from vast industrial and commercial enterprises, the city experienced its own ‘rediscovery of poverty’. This was influenced by the teaching of Moral Philosophy by Professors Caird and Jones at the University, and reinforced by a new mood of social concern from the major Scottish denominations, and further by the publication of reports detailing Glasgow’s huge problems of housing and public health. Glasgow’s social and economic elite had a tradition of active involvement in the public and philanthropic life of the city, and many of the women who worked in the QMS came from this motivated, wealthy class. Furthermore, the QMS owed its foundation to Queen Margaret College, the first in­ stitution for women’s higher education in the west of Scotland. Most of the women noted above attended the College to gain ‘higher culture’ and (later) degrees, making them a remarkable group by the standards of the time. The experience of College education com­ bined with the self-confidence of their middle-class backgrounds, prompted these women to take whatever opportunities became available for service in professional and public life. These women also conferred a unique character upon the QMS. They were intellec­ tually and practically capable, and were pragmatic in their approach to the problems of the area. Their initial work centred on the encouragement of thrift and financial indepen­ dence. However, their expressed concern for the welfare of women and children led them to pioneer several ventures (including the first Invalid Children’s School in Scotland) which were later taken over by the State as part of the Liberal Welfare reforms in the Edwardian period. In order to remain relevant, the QMS had to keep abreast of the rapidly-changing circumstances of the times; the fact that it did so was due entirely to the ability of its remarkable women. i Acknowledgements. I am very grateful for all the help and encouragement given to me by the following people: — my supervisors Dr John McCaffrey and Dr Nick Morgan; — Mr Michael Moss (who suggested the subject of the thesis), Mrs Lesley Richmond, Dr Derek Dow, and all the staff of the Glasgow University Archives; — Mrs Mary Rankin, who introduced me to the current Settlement; — the many friends in Glasgow and Coventry who cheerfully child-minded; — Dr Wilfrid Kendall, my funding source and computer systems manager. D edication To Wilfrid, without whom this would never have begun, and to Edward, Rosalind, and James, without whom it would have been completed much earlier. Abbreviations: AR Annual Reports CAA Catholic Archdiocesan Archives COS Charity Organisation Society CSB Collecting Savings Bank GAHEW Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women GGHB Greater Glasgow Health Board [Archives] GR Glasgow Room, Mitchell Library GSST Glasgow School of [Social Study and] Social Training GU Glasgow University GUA Glasgow University Archives GUSS Glasgow University Students’ Settlement GUWW Glasgow Union of Women Workers ILP Independent Labour Party MRO Modern Records Office, Warwick University PL Poor Law QMC Queen Margaret College QMCSA Queen Margaret College Settlement Association QMS Queen Margaret Settlement QMU Queen Margaret Union RC Royal Commission SRA Strathclyde Regional Archives UF United Free Church UP United Presbyterian Church WEA Workers’ Educational Association WFL Women’s Freedom League WSPU Women’s Social and Political Union WSS Women’s Suffrage Society WUS Women’s University Settlement Contents: 1: Background and origins of the Queen Margaret Settlement. 1 2: The QMS women: background and social profile. 23 3: The QMS women: education, politics, and professions. 36 4: The work of the Queen Margaret Settlement 1897 - 1907. 60 5: The work of the Queen Margaret Settlement 1907 - 1914. 87 6: Developing Professionalism in the QMS 1907 - 1914. 109 7: Conclusion. 128 Bibliography 135 Street map of Glasgow. 143 Tables: 2.1: Occupation of fathers of women involved in the Settlement 26 2.2: Results of Settlement and comparative studies 28 2.3. Estates at death where known for QMS/QMC non-QMS fathers 31 3.1: Experience of Higher education among QMS women. 44 3.2: Effect of University marriage upon social mobility. 52 3.3: Career destinations of QMS women, where known. 54 Figures: 5.1: CSB collections and withdrawals. 99 5.2: Destinations of Invalid School leavers. 104 5.3: Proportion of pupils proceeding to ordinary life. 105 5.4: Distribution of cases in Anderston Invalid School. 106 Street map of Glasgow. 144 1 1: Background and origins of the Queen Margaret Settlement. The Queen Margaret Settlement (hereafter QMS) was founded by the women of Queen Margaret College in 1897, the third of three Settlements established in Glasgow in the 1880s and 1890s and arguably the most successful.1 These Settlements, along with about forty others in Britain and over four hundred in the United States, owed their foundation to the inspiration of the first University Settlement, Toynbee Hall, established in London in 1883. The Settlement movement began as a response to the problem of breakdown of community because urban development had resulted in the separation of social classes; however, each Settlement developed along different lines in response to local conditions and to the motivation of its members. ‘The central idea of all Settlements is to establish a home in a poor locality and make true friends of the people who live there. But while all Settlements have this as their “raison d’etre”, they have ... developed on many different sides - there is no stereotyped Settlement method. Religious, educational, social purposes - in most all three find a place.’2 Furthermore, the origin of Settlements was closely linked to the national debate in the 1880s concerning the ‘rediscovery of poverty’, in which the continuing immensity of the problem drew conflicting views on the way it should be tackled. The problem and the attention were not confined to the urban poor, but since Settlements were invariably based in cities, this discussion centres around their condition. This chapter examines first the contemporary national concern about the breakdown of society in the 1880s by the alienation of the poor from the better-off which prompted the foundation of the first Settlement; it then considers the particular intellectual, religious, and social influences operating in Glasgow which gave rise to the QMS. In the course of the nineteenth century, there was a grudging acceptance of the city as an enduring fact of industrial life. It may have been dirty, overcrowded, and blighted the lives of its inhabitants, but it would not disappear so the citizens had to make the best of it.3 The teaching of John Ruskin, Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford University, greatly influenced a number of people who tried to improve the quality of industrial life, including Edward Denison (see below), Octavia Hill and Arnold Toynbee. Ruskin believed that all aspects of society - beauty, art, religion and morality were interrelated, and that a corrupt society could not produce good art. He hated cities because all the beauty and meaning had been driven out of them.4 Civic enterprise as seen in Birmingham, Glasgow, and Leeds, could do much to enhance the quality of life in the city and generate pride in its achievements, but the sheer scale of some problems was immense. Half a century of improvements, clearance of the worst slum districts and various legal measures designed to improve living conditions had made inroads into the poorer districts but they failed to overcome the problems; indeed, sometimes they had exacerbated them. ‘What is happening in Glasgow is this: sanitary science is advancing, the standard of overcrowding 1 The two earlier ones were Toynbee House, founded in 1886 by Prof.