Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 1

NATIONAL LIFE STORIES

FAWCETT COLLECTION

BEATRICE NANCY SEEAR

Interviewed by Betty Scharf

C468/04

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Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 2

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Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 3

Fl220 Side A

So, first of all this is an interview of Baroness Seear, by Betty Scharf, on the l2th of February. [Now that's on the tape, we shall go ahead].

Right.

I think that everybody is interested to relate their family beginnings to their subsequent career, so that we would like to ask you something about your family; where it came from, what jobs they had, how they encouraged you, or discouraged you, for various activities. And anything more that you'd like to add about your childhood and the family background, as against school, which perhaps we could come on to later.

Yes. Well as far as I know the Seears are supposed to have been maraudering norsemen, coming across, settling in Lincolnshire. Where, I think, we were farm workers of one sort and another, for a very long time. You find that name there. They came up to London on the railway, when the railways were developed. Again, as far as I know. This is all a bit hazy. But my grandfather, which is the first bit I really know about, had a printing and wholesale stationer business. Which I think subsequently went broke.

In London?

In London. He had a works in... Is it Lower Thames Road, Upper Thames Road? Down there in the City. I never knew him at all. His wife was a Jewess. The name of Abrahams. You can't do better than that. Or half-Jewish, I rather think. And all this is very hazy. But I've always been told that her mother's name was King. Which is not normally a Jewish name. But she looked very Jewish. And there is quite a strong... My father looked Jewish. And one of my brothers is very dark. My mother's side is partly Irish. I don't know anything about where they came from. Except that there was someone called Discipline, who was, I think, my mother's grandmother. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 4

Because my mother's name was Catchpole, which is not Irish. But they were... I don't know a lot about them, except that I had a great aunt who was headmistress of a school in Hackney. And I don't know the dates, and I've never discovered the school in Hackney, and I've always rather wanted to. She was single. And she was an enormously enthusiastic Dickensian. And she was secretary of the Dickensian Society.

This is a great aunt now?

A great aunt. And she knew most of Dickens by heart. My mother thought her very vulgar because she loved repeating the bawdier parts of Dickens, which she did with great effect. But my mother thought that was all rather unrefined and didn't encourage her very much.

And this was done in front of the children?

This was done in front of the children. When she got the opportunity, which wasn't very often. I think she had struggled to make my mother into a more serious person than she was. My mother said she used to take her to the theatre, which I think she tried to educate her. But my mother was intelligent, but incurably light-minded. And I don't think any of it ever penetrated at all (laughs). My father was a mining engineer. And he had... was supposed to have had tuberculosis. And he had an uncle who had interests in South Africa. And so he went out, ostensibly for his health; well in fact for his health. Because it was considered that South Africa was healthier than the UK. And got involved in the mining industry out there. And then came back and was... He did quite well in South Africa. He... My mother was engaged to him for five years without seeing him. And then he came back and married her. She did once say to me that he did seem rather different when he came back. But it worked extremely well. Mind you, waiting five years for someone without really seeing them was a bit tough.

That would have been what date roughly?

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 5

They married in l9l0. She was a primary school teacher. Froebel trained. Both she and the old great aunt, and I wish I knew more about the old great aunt, they were both teaching training college trained. So the old great aunt must have been a very early one, 'cos there really weren't very many teachers training colleges. My great aunt would now be - oh heavens - I mean she must have been born somewhere around the l850's, mustn't she?

Late nineteenth century.

Late nineteenth century. And I don't known when the teachers' training colleges started.

Well, some of them started, I think, under the auspices of the National Society and the British and Foreign Schools Society. And the church ones. So I think that would have come in around the thirties.

Around the l830's? As early as that? Although she could have been to one of those, but I don't know. My mother went to the one at Saffron Walden. But they were more established by then. And she would have gone at about... Oh, she was born in l883. So I suppose she went around the turn of the century. And she taught for five years while my father was in South Africa. And, of course, always said that there were 60 children in the class. And that no doubt was true. And she always maintained that her children knew how to do the four basic arithmetics, to read and to write. Whether it was true or not, I don't know. She certainly believed it. I find it very difficult to believe, or why they no longer cared, with 60 in the class, how she managed it. And she was quite - as I say, she was bright and intelligent, but extremely light-minded. Anyway, that's them. Oh yes, my father came back. They came back in l9ll. My oldest brother was born in Rhodesia. They came back. I don't know what they intended to do. They'd made a bit of money. And they took a rather nice house on the edge of Epsom Downs, where I was born. They came back. He had been ill. He had a bad crack on his head. I don't know what had happened. And then, of course, the war came.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 6

You were the second child in the family?

I was the second child. My brother was born in Rhodesia. Then I was born in Epsom.

In l9l0?

No, I was born in l9l3. My brother was born in l9ll. They were married in l9l0. My brother was born in l9ll. I was born in l9l3.

I must have copied from the wrong...

Oh, you have. I was born in l9l3. Don't give me three years or more, I've got enough years without adding them on.

I'm sorry. So you were the second anyhow?

I was the second. And in l9l4 he volunteered and got a commission in the Royal Engineers. But fortunately for us he was turned down on the medical. Because practically all the Royal Engineers were obliterated. They were the people who built the trenches and so on. So instead of that he said he'd go farming. And we went down to Gloucester. And he went as a farm pupil on a farm in Gloucestershire, in l9l5. But in l9l5 they lowered the medical standard. And he got in, but only into anti- aircraft. So he didn't see service in France, which from our point of view was very fortunate. While in Cornwall we - my second brother was born.

So you went to Cornwall for the farming?

We went to Gloucester for the farming. Near Chipping Camden. And I remember very well, I've got a very good memory for that early time. And we used to go - we had a ponycart, which you called it a governesscart, I think the term was. And we used to go shopping in Stratford-on-Avon. Which was the great event. And I know I used to stand out in front, smelling the manure, which I thought was from market Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 7 gardens, which I thought was the most marvellous smell, I still do think good manure is rather a good smell. (Laughs). Anyway, my second brother was born.

In l9l6?

No, he was born in l9l9. l9l9. Yes, that's right. In Gloucestershire. And I remember one of the first - I am going... This is too much about the early times.

Well, no.

One of my first ceremonies that I remember, was going to his christening, all dressed up. I remember that very well. And what is so amusing is that years and years afterwards, you know, when I was 50, with a friend, Christine Cockburn actually. We were having a weekend there, and we went to look at this place. Mickleton it was called. And there's an old eleventh century church. And we went into the church. And I knew exactly where everything was. The whole - that had made such an impression on me. This christening ceremony, standing round the font. But as I went in the door I turned to where the font was and I could see us all standing round. Extraordinary how strong these early impressions are. Well then, at the end of the war my father, who had gone to Africa without qualifications in mining, decided that he wanted to get properly qualified. That's why we went to Penzance. Because he went to the Camborne School of Mines as a mature student, to get qualified, which he did.

And this was the three children now?

There were three. That's right. My oldest brother, me, and the second one. And then in Penzance we had my third brother. And my father went abroad twice while we were in Penzance. First he went off to do a rather exciting job for the Portuguese government, which was prospecting in Portuguese East Africa, looking for minerals. Which was a year's tour, on foot, through Portuguese East Africa. And I'm ashamed to say that he kept detailed diaries, and when the family - well, after he died I left it to my sister-in-law to clear up the house, and she went and burnt the diaries, which was not just quite what one would have wished. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 8

You had read them I suppose?

I hadn't. No.

That's really sad.

Awful. She was an absolute fool, I can't think how she came to do it. But it was my fault, I ought to have stood over it and see that it didn't happen. But that is not for the record. Anyway, and my fourth brother was born there. Then the other time he went to be under-manager, underground manager, for a mine in Cyprus.

Does that mean the whole family went out?

No, no, we were left.

I thought you said your brother was born there, meaning in Portuguese East Africa?

No, no, no. No, no, we were all left behind. Oh no, no, you couldn't take... This was walking through... He walked through the whole thing. Oh no, we were all left behind. And this is where I get a little bit impatient with people who find it difficult if their fathers or husbands are away for a week (laughs). I mean he went to Nyasaland, Portuguese East Africa, for a year. And then he came back and he got another job, after my last brother was born, in Cyprus. And the idea had been that if that went well we would all go. But we didn't. It didn't go well. It was an American mine. And my father was a fairly strong minded person. And he could not persuade the Americans to spend enough money on the ventilating equipment. And it was a very old mine, which had originally been run by the Romans. And it was very unsafe in many ways. And he used to often to have to go down, and of course fires would break out. And he was determined to get proper equipment in. But the Americans wouldn't spend the money. So he said, "To hell with that", and came home. And he didn't do a paid job after that. He fortunately had a reasonable amount of money, we were able to live reasonably decently on it. But it was very unsatisfactory for him. Mining, of course, Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 9 is not an older man's job. And it isn't at all easy after you're 50 to get going again. But it was rather a waste from his point of view. and he would have... You see there are two kinds of mining, you know. There's coal and there's metal. And all the metals work is overseas. And he was metals man. And that was overseas and it wasn't very easy. And I think he wasn't too keen to leave my mother to bring up four children on her own with him overseas. And this is a common problem with mining actually, yes, as to what you can do. Anyway, after that they were very determined to get... He was always very good about equality between me and the boys.

And your mother too?

Yes. They were. There was no nonsense about that. And my mother was very sensible. In Penzance I went to a boys' prep school. And I was the only girl in the class. I was absolutely a little beast. I mean I held my own by finding a little boy who was even worse at masculine things than I was, and being perfectly horrible to him, and getting on top of him, you know, I was even... He was even worse at cricket and running and jumping and doing things like that. So I established myself at his expense, poor little fellow.

When you say you were the only girl in the class, were you the only girl in the school?

No. They took sisters of the... But my friends were all little boys. They were very patronising to me at times. And I learnt quite a lot about relations between the sexes I think.

This would have been when you were about 7, 8?

I went to school - 6 I started.

At the prep school?

At the prep school. 6 to l0. Of course we worked enormously hard, because they were all being prepared for Common Entrance. And again, I mean I don't think it did Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 10 me any harm at all. We were doing French and Latin and algebra at the age of 9. And it was an awfully good start. I can't see what was wrong with it. We also did chunks of learning by heart. Some of which I can still remember. And again, I know it's terribly old fashioned, but I still think it's not a bad thing to learn chunks of poetry and chunks of the bible by heart. Very good for your English style.

Usually sticks more easier then....?

Sticks, yes. Anyway, there was the question of education. And they decided they would go and live in a place where there were really good day schools for boys and girls. So we went to Croydon, and my brothers went to Whitgift and I went to Croydon High School. And that was no doubt a very good move from our point of view.

So you were at least ll by now? Or later perhaps?

Yes. l0.

You could get into GPDST at l0?

To GPDST School. Oh yes, they take them at 4 and you can go upwards. And that was an absolutely ideal school for me. It's not an ideal school for everybody. Very academic. Big by the standards of those days. Over 800. And you needed to be pretty elbowy, academic and able to look after yourself. And I was all those things.

It didn't matter too much about hockey and games?

I spent a great deal of time avoiding hockey and games. I did it rather successfully. I loathed all those things, and I loathed gym and all the... And I was quite the worst at gym. I made a great feature of being the worst. I intended to be the best in quite a number of other things. And so if I couldn't be the best I decided to be the worst. And I did it very successfully. (Laughs). Anyway, that was that. And then I got a major scholarship to Cambridge, for history. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 11

Could I just interupt for a moment? You are an Anglican?

Yes.

In more than the formal sense.

Yes.

Was that a family background of which you all...?

My mother was Anglican and my father was an agnostic.

You were at Sunday school and going to church from school, or...?

No, not a lot. Not a lot. I think it was more the staff at school. My mother kept her end up on it. And my father didn't interfere.

But you weren't despatched to Sunday school, the whole four of you?

No. No. None of that. No. And I think that was a help. There wasn't anything much to react against. We were genuinely left free to... go our own way on it. My father used to make some rather caustic remarks at times, but...

So you got an open scholarship to Cambridge?

Yes.

And I suppose your brothers were also encouraged to go to university?

No, they didn't. They didn't.

They could have done. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 12

They could have done. My eldest brother started to be a chartered accountant, which was a disastrous decision, and then went into the Airforce. My second brother went to Keyham and went into the Navy as an engineer. And has been an engineer ever since. Well no, that's not true. He went over into industry after he came back. He was a regular in the Navy. He was in the Navy all through the war, as my brother was. They were both regulars. My youngest brother was a doctor. But none of them went to university. They all went... Unless you regard Keyham, but they all went through the professional...

They all went on to further training [inaudible]

Yes, they went through the professional trainings rather than university route.

Was it very unusual among all your wider family for a girl to go to university?

Yes, I was the first one who had.

But the school would encourage you?

The school was very encouraging. I had a remarkably good history mistress who made an awful [inaudible] to me. A woman called Susan Harper, who was an Australian. Scots Australian. Of course we were so lucky. You're a bit younger, you may not have benefited in quite the same way. You see we got the first generation really of a large number of university trained women, for whom there were no jobs virtually, except teaching. And who were surplus in the marriage market because of the First World War. So that I remember the staff at school nearly all of them were the same throughout the whole time I was there. And that made an enormous difference. They were very high calibre.

I had the same experience. One of our maths mistresses was a Wrangler.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 13

Exactly. And you see you wouldn't get them now. You wouldn't get them. And I don't think people realise just what a difference that made.

So your school days were happy?

Oh yes. Yes, they were. Yes, I made friends. Yes, they were.

And university too?

Yes. Oh, I adored university. And I was so excited by it. I do sometimes feel now that they're not excited by it anymore, they take it so for granted. I can remember standing in my room at Newnham the first day, and the bells ringing, you know, and thinking, you know, "It's begun, it's begun", being terribly excited about it. And I also remember I had this battle over games, which I loathed. But nonetheless I had taken my hockey things to Cambridge. And I put them on to go for a match, and I looked at myself in the glass and I said, "You've hated this all your life. What on earth do you think you're doing?" And I took them all off and I never put them on again. (Laughs).

You went to university straight from school with your scholarship?

Yes. Yes.

And did well there?

Yes, I got a lst. Yes.

So then came the point.... Sorry, you want to say some more about university.

Yes, I started being political. I was on the university Liberal Club committee. I was on the League of Nations committee. And I will confess to you, which I've always been very ashamed of since, I was asked to stand to be chairman, or whatever it was, of the University League of Nations Union. And I said I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to have a woman. I can't believe it. But I do remember I did this terrible thing. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 14

(Laughs). And I can't think now why. Mind you, I do remember the first speech I ever made was in a school's debate in which I opposed equal pay. So I mean the transformation came some time. And I can't think why I did those two things, but I did. Extraordinary. Anyway. But you see we're back now. I mean I was at Cambridge '32, '35. It's a pretty long way back. Anyway, then I went to LSE.

Straight from Cambridge?

Yes, straight from Cambridge. For a year. The thing was that...

For that single year's course?

Yes. There had been a woman who was a tutor called Anne Robertson.

At Newnham?

At Newnham. She was tutor of Oldhall, I was in Cedric. But she was Oldhall. She had been in industry during the war [telephone rings].

So sorry.

[We've lost it, have we?]

Could we go back to Anne Robertson? I'd forgotten to release the fourth button after your phone call.

Anne Robertson, who had been a welfare officer in the Ebbw Vale steelworks. And subsequently at Clarks. Yes. And she said that she thought this was the sort of job for me. And I was fascinated by what she talked about industry. And have always been fascinated. If I'd been a man I would have stayed in industry. And so that's how I came... Then I went to LSE. Because LSE provided, through that social science course, social... whatever they called it in those days. They laid on industrial psychology and industrial law as well, which one needed. And that was very useful Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 15 indeed. And a lot of practical work, which was very important. And then I went to Clarks immediately after. And was there for l0 years. Apart from the time when I was seconded to the Ministry of Aircraft Production during the war.

That was a full time secondment?

No, it was a part time secondment. I used to go up and down. That was quite fun. But that was extremely useful, and it's been very useful since. I think, you know, by luck, I really don't think it would be possible to devise a better training for politics than I had. You see Cambridge history is very good as a base for politics. Because you do these big periods of... You do a lot of constitutional history as well as economic history. And that gives you a very good political base, apart from the political history. And then l0 years in industry the introduction to the other subjects, which of course one could only do very superficially in a year at LSE. But it was the introduction to subjects which if you were alert opened your mind to a whole lot of other aspects. And then l0 years of industry which included a period seconded to a government department, gave me a background, politically, which very few people have got. So there's so few who've actually had the nitty gritty of industrial experience, especially industrial experience, during the war, which had all sorts of opportunities and problems (laughs). And I know for instance, this is where I started getting angry about women's issues. Because in the shoe industry we lost two... We were what was called 'essential works'. We were operating under essential works order. Which meant that we kept most of our people, but we lost two or three years of people to the services. And we had therefore to look at how to fill the jobs of the men who had gone. And we moved women from the women's jobs onto the men's jobs. But what infuriated me was that we always moved the women who had been unsuccessful on the men's jobs. Because we couldn't spare the women from... the successful women, who were in the bottleneck, which was the closing room, which was the most... very highly skilled work in the closing room. We couldn't spare good closers. So we took the ones that weren't any good, put them on the youths and men's jobs where they earnt much more than the women, because who had been successful on the women's jobs. And then the minute the war was over, by tacit agreement between the union and the management, those women, and with great pressure of Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 16 course from the union, the women had to be out of those men's departments at the speed of light. Not because there was the slightest danger the men wouldn't get their jobs back, there was absolutely no excuse for it, except male determination not to have women in their departments, to have the status quo. I mean there was such a lot of work available. There was no question that anybody was going to lose their job. It was just sheer status quo. And back these women had to go, because the men...

Was Clarks then a unionised labour force?

Oh, it's always been very heavily unionised, yes. Shoe trade is a very... it's been a very mild union in the... And after the war there was the general secretary of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, a man called Crawford, who was very, very productivity minded and was extremely... I think he had the sense to see that the shoe trade had got to get itself absolutely up top, otherwise it was going to be in real difficulties, as it now is. So that they were very technically progressive, with a lot of union backing for being technically progressive. And that was a great help. But they had had - they had had very sensible people on both sides in the industry. And they had two year agreements, which was a very useful thing to have. You know, it worked very smoothly.

Could I ask you two questions? Getting the women out in l945, that was a union policy, not Mr Clarks?

Oh, both. Oh yes. There was no question. Mind you, I do also have to say that the women themselves accepted a great deal of this. Of course in those days the agreements, the national agreements, only had two rates, one for women and one for men. I never had a query from a woman about this. They took it for granted.

[inaudible]

Oh yes. You see we had married women working. You have to remember that while textiles had married women working, married women before the war were out in most cases. We had married women working. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 17

Even before the war?

Yes. We had to, because we needed... It was just sheer economics. I don't know about the shoe trade elsewhere if they did. But we certainly did. And we had women... typical thing, we had some very good women supervisors, who if they'd not been women would have been called managers. I mean they were managing sections, anything from 30 to 50 people, with a variety of different jobs to control. It wasn't straight forward like a lot of jobs where everybody was doing the same thing. I mean they were doing a variety of different work. It was a very complicated balancing process to get the work through.

Yes, the flow right.

The flow right. And it wasn't a straight forward job. But they were regarded as chargehands, not managers. If they'd been a man they would have been managers.

The other question, if I may just butt in? When you went to Clarks in '36, was this a pioneering appointment or stepping in to one that had been vacated?

No, there had been a woman director, a member of the family, Alice Clark. Alice Clark, who was at LSE for a year, for a while, and wrote a book about...

Oh, a magnificent book.

Yes. She was a director. I've never read it. Is it good?

'Working Women in the Seventeenth Century'. Very good read.

I must read it sometime. I never have. She went back to Street, and was on the board. And she set up the department. And that's why it was right from the beginning much more than the old style welfare department. Because she'd been on the board. You see the same thing happened at Cadburys. Dorothy Cadbury was on the board. And I Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 18 think in those days it could only start, if a woman member of the family. But you see they're both Quaker firms. And Quaker women have never had the same problems of asserting themselves. Some people would say that the problem is with Quaker men (laughs). I mean the Quaker women have always been extremely outspoken. And those Clark women were really rather remarkable. I mean... What was her name? Alice was on the board, and there was another one whose name has gone out of my head, who was the doctor who ran the refugee medical stuff in Vienna. They did all sorts of very progressive and interesting things.

End of Fl220 Side A Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 19

Fl220 Side B

I think we can start now again Nancy, thank you.

I never did have any sense of discrimination. The man who I reported to, the director I reported to, had after all been brought up by a woman who made him ride on a donkey with 'Votes for Women' on it. And I suppose that does help!

This was again one of the Clark family?

Yes. (Laughs). Yes.

Could you just - unless you want say some more about Clarks - a little bit about the MAP work during the war, and how that influenced your views on women working?

Yes. Well there I was very fortunate, because when Sir Stafford Cripps became Minister of Aircraft Production, he collected a small board called the Production Efficiency Board, of four people, a trade unionist, an employer - or was it three, three I think. And a woman called Anne Shaw. Anne Shaw was a very remarkable woman, who was a psychologist who had worked, had been to America, to Bryn Mawr. She was Edinburgh University and then Bryn Mawr. And she worked for Mrs Galbreith of 'Cheaper by the Dozen' fame. Lilian Galbreith. Who was a consultant in motion study and industrial methods.

What does 'Cheaper by the Dozen' mean, sorry?

A book called 'Cheaper by the Dozen'. Which is a rather well known book. She was widowed. Her husband was in with Taylor and those people that are regarded with great disfavour.

Oh yes.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 20

But she was a psychologist, and she was very much involved in modifying the Taylorite approach. Her husband died when she was 45, after she'd had l2 children. And she brought them up running her own business. And that's why the book, which was written by her daughter, was called 'Cheaper by the Dozen'. I've seen a film of it.

I don't know the title.

Lilian Galbreith. And Anne Shaw was her assistant. And she'd worked in America with this woman, who was at Purdue University, but also running a very wide spread consultancy. Delightful, very gentle woman, very effective. But not militant. But very much achieving things. And then she came back, Anne came back, and she got a job at Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford, on methods work. But she combined methods with personnel. And Sir Stafford Cripps had been round Metropolitan Vickers and had met her and seen her work. And when he set up the Production Efficiency Board he put her on it, on methods and personnel. She wanted an assistant and she asked for me. So the factory seconded me here. So that was wonderful experience. And of course it gave enormous confidence, because I mean she was reporting direct to the ministers, Secretary of State, and we used to get stuff down from Cripps, "I've been round such and such a factory, can you find out what's going on?" It was absolutely fascinating. So that was a wonderful... contrast in a way, with the sort of nitty gritty work in the factory.

Were you able to advise? You were asked to advise?

Yes.

So you had no executive power directly?

No, no, no executive, it was advisory, it was entirely advisory.

But they often took your advice?

They did. Oh yes. And going round works with her was absolutely marvellous. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 21

And this was for the whole workforce, not just the women who were coming in, and no doubt in large numbers?

Oh no, no, the whole workforce. The whole workforce. It was wonderful experience that. And of course the confidence of working with a woman who was so respected and accepted. That combined with the greater background in the factory, meant that I had no hangups about being a woman. Having had a father who wanted to give equal opportunities, without talking about it. I mean he wouldn't have known that that is what he was doing, it just seemed sort of obvious to him. And then l0 years in a Quaker firm, where there had been a woman director of the Alice Clark kind. And then working for Anne Shaw in the Ministry, with Cripps who was good about these things anyway. I mean that's why he'd had a woman on. Really meant that I... And I'm bound to say that I found more discrimination at LSE than I found anywhere else up to... anywhere else. I won't say more about that now (laughs), but that was where I first encountered it let me say.

What about relations with trade unions in the MAP work? Did that develop with your knowledge of engineering unions a lot?

Oh yes, it did. Because one of the other members. What was the man's name? Was an AEU man. It was an AEU man, an employer, and Anne, Anne Shaw, that was the three.

So you did a lot of travelling around then?

Yes. It was fascinating.

And quite hard work in wartime conditions?

Oh yes, because I used to go back to Street. (Laughs). I used to leave my car at Templecombe and drive through at midnight back. Or else at Bristol. And on one famous occasion when... I was never a very good driver. I was coming back from Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 22

Bristol, I was on the top of Mendip. It's extraordinary now. I got out. And not only had the tyre gone, it had just disintegrated and I was on the rim. I was stuck on top of Mendip in the middle of the night. But that's a long story (laughs).

You didn't stay there for ever obviously?

I didn't stay there for ever. It was the talk of the town, I can tell you, afterwards. (Laughs).

So what determined you to come to LSE in '46?

Why did I come to LSE?

It was l946 I think.

Well, I was fascinated, I loved the works and I loved the work. But Street is a very small place. I was then in my early thirties. There was no social life. And that hadn't mattered during the war. I mean nobody had a social life. But I had to make up my mind whether I was going to stay there for a lifetime, or branch out and do something else. And I had always been fascinated by politics. And in the l945 election I was meetings secretary for Lady Violet Bonham-Carter who fought the Wells division. That was... I suppose I fell for it. But she was a magnificent speaker. Mind you, it was very funny, because (laughs) it was the days when candidates did five meetings a night you know.

And got audiences too.

And got audiences yes. But she would go round talking somewhere on the top of the Mendip Hills, to a dozen locals, in exactly the same way as if she'd been addressing the Albert Hall. And you could see they realised something remarkable was happening, they hadn't a clue what it was. (Laughs).

How did she do? Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 23

Oh, she came third of course. But she ran a magnificent campaign, as you would expect. But she was beaten by some ne'er-do-well Tory (laughs). But I think that revived all my early experience. Because what I haven't said is that before I went to Cambridge I spent the summer in Germany, teaching English in a German family. And that was the summer the Nazis came up from being an illegal organisation to winning a very big vote in the July elections.

July '32 it would have been?

That confirmed me in being a Liberal. Not so much for the sort of human rights angle, although that was always important. But what I saw then, and it's never left me, was the horror of what happens when you concentrate power. One just watched one of the countervailing forces after another going down. The judiciary, the universities, the unions, the churches, the press.

You could see that even in a short stay of two or three months?

Well, and then one watched it over the years at Cambridge when it was growing and growing and growing. And the realisation that once all power is concentrated in hands, even if they're good hands to start with, there's no way of getting it back. And it's that distribution of power thing which has always been at the heart of it as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, sorry.

So you came to LSE with us. [Sorry, how much time have you...?] You came to LSE. They advertised a post, or you put the proposition to them for a new course?

No. Janet did so. She said, "I'm not going on doing the personnel management side, I've been out of it too long, we shall have to have a new one, a new person. Will you put in?" And I put in. And the chance of coming to London and the realisation with LSE, I could combine politics with the job. And the fact that I wanted a wider life than Street could give me. I was sorry in many ways.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 24

But when the course was organised and you came to teach it in '46. Was then it not more a full time course of personnel management only, and more specialised than it had been when you were a student?

It was becoming that, yes. Well, what had happened was that Janet Kydd had run for the Ministry of Labour, in Cambridge, three months courses for people going into industry. And she was asked to develop that into a full time course. And she did that with me. She started it off, with me helping her. And then she moved out and I took it over. I mean that wasn't entirely a personnel management course. It stayed in the Social Administration department, but it was separate from it.

Yes, it was very separate as I remember it. But I wonder quite how it separated off?

As separate as I could make it.

Yes. And then the next landmark that I would like to ask you about is the Peek Frean studies, which came in the early sixties. Published in '62 I think?

I think it was '62, yes.

What sparked that off?

Well, I had been on the DSIR, Department of Scientific Industrial Research Human Factors Panel. And that was dishing out money, American money, 'counterpart money' it was called, to various projects for social industrial research, that kind of thing. And I wanted to do something on women. I didn't get it from counterpart because the Department of Employment gave me money to do this thing about married women working. And this was set up, it started at the end of '54, with DE money. And my line had always been that if this thing was going to work there had to be something very positive in it for all the parties. That industry had to feel that despite the disadvantages it was really worthwhile. And the women had to feel that despite the tensions it was really worthwhile. So it had to be a study run simultaneously from the end of... the factory end. How was it working out from the Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 25 point of view of the works? And how was it working out from the point of view of the women and the families? People we rather neglected was the husbands, we never did anything about the husbands, which I think was a mistake. We looked at the children. Everybody was worrying about what happens to the children when mothers worked. And Pearl Jephcott did the families and the children. And John Smith and I did the factory.

But you interviewed the women in their homes, or at the factory?

We interviewed the women in the factories, and she interviewed in the homes as well.

So she would have met some of the husbands I suppose?

Oh yes, she would have met the husbands.

Got a feel for it.

And she got to know... she lived in Rotherhithe, and she got to know some of the families very well, and she got them to keep diaries and all that sort of thing. And we did the stuff in the works. And that was fascinating. And what we came up with really was that, you know, there are bad mothers who work and there are bad mothers who don't work, and there are good mothers who work and there are good mothers who don't work. And I think we saw something like 53 schools and the juvenile courts and the medicals. And I remember of the head teachers only seven said, out of the 53, that they knew which were the children of mothers who worked. And their view was very much overwhelmingly the good mothers make sensible arrangements. The thing that impressed me so much with it though, was, yes, the good mothers make sensible arrangements, but my goodness me, you have to be able to plan and keep to your plans. And if anything goes wrong in the plan you're in trouble. It was the lack of flexibility. Although they had the advantage of a whole variety of part time shifts. Because there was such a shortage of labour at that time, that the women could almost dictate how they were going to handle... what they would do and what they wouldn't do. And you see there was the full daytime shift, which I think was 7.30 to 5.30. And Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 26 there was the morning shift which was 7.30 - it may have been 8 - I think it was 7.30 - till l2.30. There was the afternoon shift which was l.30 to 5.30. There was the mid- day shift which was 9.30 to 4. And there was the twilight shift which was 5.45 to 9.30. So that they could go on any of those shifts which suited them. And the one they liked, but which of course was wildly uneconomical really, was the 9.30 to 4. They could get the children to school and the children had school dinner, and they could take them home. But of course it meant that the machinery was idle from 7.30 to 9.30 and from 4 to 5.30, which wasn't terribly efficient. And of course it was terrific for the women trying to be in control of the department, because they were women, because they never had the same labour force there for more than four hours at a time. They'd start with one lot at 7.30 and then there'd be more people coming in at 9.30. A different lot coming in at l.30. Some people going at 4. And then it was a complete lot on the twilight shift.

Does the same thing happen as at Clarks, that the women chargehands, or perhaps they were called forewomen, were in fact managers?

Very much so. Very much so. And I did a study with... it was an Enfield student or something of the kind, in the cotton industry. Exactly the same thing came out. When you analyse the jobs, for any way that you could like to measure them, they were managerial jobs. The women in that textile study done by a girl called Doris Stanes I think her name was, showed that... and she went to about 35 companies, that absolutely standard, the women's job description was a grade below the work content. Typically. Then after that... the book "Married Women Working". After that the next one of that sort I did was... what was his name?... Oh, I can't remember his name. He was Guinness.

Not Brock? Brock was a woman.

No, Brock was a man. No. A leading industrialist from Guinness. His name's gone out of my head for the moment. Came along and said he was worried that women were so under utilised in industry. And he produced the great sume of £l500 to do Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 27 this. But it was enough to do this study which produced the book "Careers for Women in Industry?" With Ben Roberts, his wife...

Veronica, yes.

Veronica. And John Brock. John Brock was to do the... I wanted a man on it. He had been a student and he was between jobs. So I took him on to do it. And he had worked in Courtaulds.

He had been one of your students?

Yes. And he was available. He had been ill and he was available for doing the work. So I got hold of him. And he'd had good experience in Courtaulds. To do the interviewing with the men. And Veronica did... We did the 6th form girls' choice of jobs. What they knew about. Their attitude towards industrial jobs.

I remember that.

And I didn't do the fieldwork. John did the fieldwork in, I think it was eight companies. And I wrote it up with him. And that produced that book. And then a thing that I haven't got enough credit for really was the OECD asked me to do a study in nine countries. This was in the sixties. Of returners.

Is that the one whose title was "Position of Women in Industry"?

No. No. "Re-entry into Employment". And I have never known quite why it never got any publicity worth speaking of.

Well again, unless your "Who's Who" entry is... unless I can't read it straight, it's not mentioned in the list of publications.

It should be.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 28

Well, I don't think it is. I must go back and look. Anyhow, you tell me about it please.

Well, they came along and said they were concerned with the re-entry problem. As well they might be. And here was the money and would I do the job? So I popped off and did it. And that was the one time I got a summer sabbatical to do it. Because I went to the States and Canada, France, Italy, Holland. Now was it...? France, Italy, the Netherlands. Not Belgium for some reason. Denmark.

Sweden?

I should have thought so, wouldn't you? Certainly Denmark. Anyway, it was nine. And it was a very good report.

What date was this done?

It came out in about '68. I've got it somewhere.

I'm sure you have.

Oh, I lose most of these things. That was fascinating. So they asked me to do a cost benefit. And there was a funny man on the staff at LSE. Began with an 'M'. Mish...

Mishan?

Mishan.

Ed Mishan.

That's right. Who was a cost benefit wallah. And he helped me with it. That was very useful.

You did that single-handed. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 29

Yes. I did.

On one term's leave?

Oh no, well I did it before, I got times off. I must have some notes about it somewhere. But the book's out. It was an OECD publication. And everybody talks about it. About, you know, re-entry now. But really I was on to it ages ago. And that was the one I enjoyed the most. Well, it wasn't as detailed. No, they were very different. The Bermondsey one was fun in lots of ways. But I did more fieldwork there myself, I did a lot in the factory. I didn't do anything... Veronica Roberts and John Brock did all the fieldwork for the other. But I did all the fieldwork myself for the OECD. And that was quite a job.

Are you a linguist too?

No. I can cope with French and a bit of German. But I'm not a linguist.

They had to help you out with...?

Yes. Well, Canada and the States, of course, were all right. The Dutch all speak English better than we do.

The French usually prefer to speak French.

The French prefer to speak French. The Danes spoke English.

Could I just ask one question and then we must stop? Your political interests obviously ran in parallel with all this academic work. Did you play any part in the... prominent part? I know you were behind it so to speak, in the first equal pay campaign. Not the one that ran up to l955 effectively.

No. Not '55, no. Because I was in industry all that time. No. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 30

You sympathised, but you weren't playing a part, so to speak?

No, I wasn't playing a part and yes, I sympathised in general. I don't remember ever being approached about that.

I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find your name. But I was surprised.

I was down in Somerset. And the war years. No, I got involved.

But it ran up to '55.

And I'd been back in London nine years.

Well, you were busy setting up the new course and doing all sorts of other things. But I just wondered. Presumably you wouldn't actually have opposed a motion to .....? at that stage?

No, because [inaudible]. I wasn't... Wait a minute. I fought my first election in l950. It can't have been a very big issue or it would have come up then.

Well, I gather from...

You see I don't think it really took off until that woman at the Trade Union Congress. What was her name? Jones. A woman from the Civil Service Unions, who forced the Trade Union Congress to pass the thing about teachers' equal pay. And they brought it in, didn't they? In a seven year phase.

Yes.

That's when it really hit the headlines.

That's when it hit the headlines. And then it seemed rather to... Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 31

Then it became a much more general... Yes, but that was the first time. You know it had been awfully a middle class thing up till then. And she took it to the Trade Union Congress somewhere in the middle fifties. And then it got publicity of a different kind and it spread to a different range of women.

So you weren't involved with Fawcett then?

No. I wasn't involved.

Because I think they were quite involved with that first campaign for equal pay in the public sector.

Yes, I wasn't involved with Fawcett at all. And I don't know why Fawcett... They may have read some of the things, I don't know. Why they got hold of me. I mean they came to me and said, you know.

What, when the new campaign for equal pay, for a legislation and from sex discrimination act?

Two people came to see me. Clink. Do you remember Clink? [Clink - Hilda Clinkard; a prominent member of the Fawcett Society; Admingrade Civil Servant. Died l988 or '89]

Oh, I remember Clink, yes.

And Kathleen Halpin.

Oh yes. Yes, yes.

They got me in. But I hadn't done anything with Fawcett until then.

[So it is in fact quarter to. So should I let you off?] Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220B Page 32

End of Fl220 Side B Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 33

Fl22l Side A

.... in February l970. And I chaired it. I suppose I chaired it as Fawcett. I can't remember. I honestly don't remember. But I think it was as Fawcett I was chairing it. It was when the Equal Pay Bill was going through the House of Commons. And these sixteen women's organisations produced unanimous resolution which we sent to Barbara Castle, saying, "Equal pay is fine, but what we want is equal opportunity. Will you try to get an equal opportunity clause incorporated into the bill?" And as a matter of fact, Robert Carr moved such a clause. But of course it wasn't accepted. And I remember we lobbied Barbara Castle about this. And she said, which I now realise was in fact very reasonable, she said, "Look, I'm having enough difficulty getting equal pay through. If you ask me to add a clause on equal opportunity I shall lose the whole bill. And half a loaf is better than no bread". I have always thought that it was the wrong way round really. That unequal pay is a symptom of unequal opportunity. And the opportunity was the line we ought to have gone for. And sooner or later if you've really got opportunity, the pay would have followed. However, we didn't. And the equal pay act went through. And that was certainly a step, a very important step. Now...

Did they have all party support when the crucial votes took place in the house?

It was before I went into the house. Into the Lords. And I don't remember. It was just before, it was the November of '70, and I went in in May '7l. It got through anyway, without any difficulty. I daresay there were some. I'm sure people like Ronnie Bell - do you remember Ronnie Bell? - voted against it?

It wasn't a whole party?

It wasn't a whole party, no. No, it wouldn't have got through I think. I think one of the things which that showed, and certainly the subsequent legislation showed, which was how wise the women's movement was. To concentrate on its work as a lobby and not to try to turn itself into a party. A message I'd like to pass onto the Greens. Because what helped so much you know, was that all the parties felt they had to adopt Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 34 it, to a greater or lesser degree. And once you've got it on the agenda of all parties you're bound to get something. Whereas if you start turning yourself into a party, then you start quarrelling about a whole lot of other issues. And spearheading for one thing is much, much more effective. And I think the women's movement, the women's groups, that managed to come together, although they were very diverse, and they spread from most respectable Heath-hatted ladies in tweed suits, down to some very radical young women, not certainly in tweed suits, or sometimes not any suits at all. They managed to combine as a pressure group. And I would like to say here, undoubtedly, and I heard this back from politicians, very effective with the women in media. The women in media were well organised and they had a big impact. And a lot of politicians told me that. Anyway...

So you wouldn't say there was a division between the middle class? Pressure groups and women's lib coming up.

Not at that point. That's when they came together. That had been the weakness in the past. And it had never been a working women's movement. I mean all the time I was in industry no woman ever raised the issue of equal pay with me. No working woman. But then they were coming together and that's why they had so much power. And it was the success with which the very varied different women's groups. Different class, different educational background, different parts of the country, and all the rest, nonetheless managed to combine. And I think that was a very, very important lesson. How to be an effective lobby. Of course I think there's not the slightest doubt that if it had a referendum on it we'd never have got it.

There were one or two equal pay strikes among manual workers, weren't there, in the late sixties?

Yes, there were, but... Yes, there were, it had begun.

In the car industry.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 35

There was the Ford Motor Company one. Although there were lots of arguments as to whether that was really an equal pay strike or whether it was really about their system of job evaluation. So it was very marginal, compared with the coming together. At last it had become something which working women supported as well as middle class women. Anyway, from that time a great many of us, I think, were convinced that what you had to go for was equal opportunity. Now I had personally two rather good opportunities at that time. After the act had gone through, the Department of Employment asked me if I would set up a programme to monitor the impact of the Equal Pay Act. This was in l974. You remember it was due to come into force at the end of '75. And I had a team of, I think it was four people. And we operated in 26 organisations. It couldn't be... I mean it wasn't of course a statistical satisfactory sample, but we did our best to pick organisations which covered a wide range of different kinds of industries, in different parts of the country. And these research workers used to visit these organisations every six weeks. They got access to all their pay data. The problem had been getting it set up, as you can imagine, that was the thing. I didn't do the fieldwork. But I did the setting up. I got them in to the organisations. And they monitored the changes taking place. And produced a report at the end of it. Now that was equal pay, it wasn't opportunity, though at the end we incorporated a little about opportunity. I'll come back to that in a moment. Briefly, what we found, and it was reported back to the DE. Can't remember now. I think ultimately there were some publications which came out. But it was a report to the DE, who had paid for the work. What we found was that some employers, because they had five years in order to introduce equal pay, had rearranged matters so that equal pay would have a minimum impact. For example, in one or two cases where there were women who were doing jobs which really plainly were the same or broadly similar, they moved some of those women so that there would be no comparator. But these were very marginal. And on the whole we found very little in the way of overt breaking of the law. But that simply underlined to me the weakness of the law. And in particular the opportunity question. Because of course what weakened equal pay, and this was where we were caught out ultimately by the European Commission and lost the case, the government lost the case at the European Court much later on. Where the equal pay was so weak was that because of the segregation of women's jobs from men's jobs, and the absence of opportunity for women to get on to the well-paid Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 36 men's jobs, there weren't comparators. And there's only one third of women were working under job evaluation, which would have given them. Anyrate, nominally the opportunity to compare their jobs in value, although the jobs were different, that only applied to one third of the population. The other two thirds were left with the same, or broadly similar clause. And since there were no comparators they couldn't move. So that although the discrepancy moved in comparison on average hourly earnings, women moved from 63 percent to 75 percent, and then moved back 74 point something. This was not because employers were cheating, because they didn't have to cheat. There weren't the comparators there. And they could perfectly well comply with the act and not get the women above that figure. And, incidentally, I've always thought, though I don't know that anybody's ever done any detailed work on this, that that big jump - because it was a big jump, it was bigger than the Americans made from '63 to '75 - had much more to do with incomes policy than with equal pay legislation. Because incomes policy being a flat rate increase and not a percentage increase, helped the low paid workers, male or female. But because more of them were female than male, it helped the women more than men. This was totally unintentional of course. But that was the way it worked out. And I think probably that 75 percent, 74 percent figure, given the nature of the act, that given the absence of equal opportunity and given the absence of equal pay for work of equal value, was a perfectly valid result. That the employers weren't cheating to get this. They didn't have to in terms of that act. It was all right.

Did you think there was any chance of getting an equal value clause in the Equal Pay Act, or not?

I think we would have had the same response from Barbara Castle. "It's difficult enough to get it through as it is". And I'm more aware of this now than I was. I do think salami tactics work rather well in this country. If you do it a bit at a time and then come back and do a bit more and a bit more, people seem to be able to take it. Get it through much more easily when you do that. Anyway, because a lot of us were convinced, and had been really from '70 onwards, and my research in 26 organisations only confirmed what I'd expected, which was that it was the absence of getting into the jobs that mattered. The drive was on to do something about equal opportunity. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 37

And here I had an interesting bit of luck. Well, two things happened. One, I got involved in the legislation. And this was an amusing story. A woman who never gets enough credit for it, Joyce Butler. But who was a gentle, non-publicity seeking person. Worked enormously hard on equal opportunity. And put down private members bills after private members bills and lost them. And never seemed somehow to be able to catch the headline. And then Willy Hamilton came along, with a much better flair for publicity, should I say? And he worked up the publicity very well, and the women's organisations helped him to work it up. And in February of '72, that's right, his bill was talked out. But it was talked out with a very considerable amount of publicity. And that was on a Friday, as private members bills are. By that time I was in the Lords. And of course it was a non-party issue. And I went across to the Commons on the Monday, and I said to Willy Hamilton, "Look, your bill's been defeated. But can I take it and move it in the Lords? Because you've had a lot of publicity and it's an awful pity to let it die". So he said, "Yes". So I did just that. I simply took his bill, which wasn't a good bill technically. But that's another issue.

I think it was drafted by this group of women's organisations.

I don't know who drafted it. It wasn't a great credit to whoever drafted it. But that's another story. And I moved it in the Commons.

In the Lords.

In the Lords I mean. Yes, of course. In the Lords. In February. I forget the date. Now two rather amusing things, which you may have on the tape. But I don't know that one wants more publicity. Edith Summerskill was furious with me for doing it. She thought I was a new girl and was putting myself forward too much in doing it.

She was already a peeress?

Oh yes, she'd been a woman peer for ages. But I suppose she thought I was, you know, stealing her thunder. But that's by the way. She was very cross with me, she also said it was very impertinent of me. And I always remember Eddie Shackleton Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 38 saying to me - he was leader of the Labour Party at the time - I mean it wasn't a party issue - "Well, if she's furious with you that's fine, it'll stop her being so furious with me". (Laughs). But that's not for publication. The other thing which is public, was - Baroness Sharp, Dame Sharp, put down a wrecking amendment against it at second reading, yes. Because she said it was such bad legislation. It was bad legislation. But of that more anon. And she put down the wrecking amendment. She very rarely came to the Lords and she didn't understand the protocol really. Well, she understood the formal protocol, but she didn't understand quite the nuances. And she hadn't told me that she was putting a wrecking amendment down. And I let this be known. And people said, "Tut, tut, this is no way to behave". So that was fine. Because we never vote against second readings. We never vote against second readings of constitutional or government bills. But by convention we don't on private members bills either, we give them a proper hearing in a proper... Because this is one of the useful things the Lords can do, which is to bring forward issues that Commons people would find embarrassing to raise because of hornets nests in there constituencies. And therefore it's understood that if you want to move something about, you know, free abortion or something like that, which Commons people would find awfully awkward, we can do it. And we're given a hearing. So it wasn't considered a very suitable thing for Lady Sharp to judge. "She hardly ever comes, does she?" You know. Well then I had another bit of luck when her wrecking amendment was done. It was a night when there was a service in Westminster Cathedral for Northern Ireland. And the Tories were more given to going to services than the opposition. Neither Labour or Liberal. Though we are quite service-minded really, we weren't that night. And they were locked up for security reasons. So we got it through before they got out.

So you did have a vote on it?

We had a vote, but won it you see. Oh yes, we had a vote on it, because she'd put it down. We had to have a vote on it. But we defeated her. Now if the Tory back- benchers had been there we might have lost it. So you see, God's a woman after all! (Laughs). Anyway, it got through second reading. And then, and I wasn't at all familiar with how you manipulate, in the good sense, the house in those days. But Eddie Shackleton, who was leading Labour, was extremely helpful. And he said, Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 39

"The thing to do now is not to have an ordinary committee stage, but to have a Select Committee to examine it". And we got that set up. It is a procedure which isn't used very often in the Lords, because we always take our committee stages on the floor of the house. But he knew about this procedure. And this was very important. It meant a committee, a Select Committee, has half the committee who are ag'in the proposal and half who are in favour, with what is supposed to be a neutral chairman, whose name, I am ashamed to say, for the moment has gone out of my head. Lord Royle. A Labour Peer. Lord Royle. Who died soon afterwards. That's right. We can check that. Now when you have a Select Committee of that kind, it's open to the public. And what you have to do is to write round to all the interested organisations to say they have the opportunity to give evidence. And you let the press in, for giving evidence. And we took evidence from about May, taking out the period of the summer recess, to December.

It's all taken orally, or do organisations submit memos?

Both. Oh yes, memos. We had an enormous volume of evidence. We hired Sheila Rothswell from LSE, to sort through all this stuff and to act as an additional clerk to deal with it. Then we took verbal evidence, from people who had written papers. And it was excellent evidence. As I say, there was the loony stuff, which never got to the committee. But it came from everybody. It came from the trade unions, it came from the BMA, it came from the CBI, it came from women's groups, it came from the doctors. And, you know, it came from all over the place.

Did it come from educational organisations at all?

Oh yes, yes. And this has all been published. It's all available. And it is really the best source book of the state of women before the legislation came through, that you could possibly have. And I, I suppose I attended all the meetings. I was very interested in the press reaction. At the beginning the press all tended to regard it as a bit of a giggle. But then one noticed a very important change. And I can't remember what sparked it off or when it exactly came. But from being something where they were looking for a bit of a giggle, they started reporting it straight. As if it had been a Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 40 science and technology select committee. And so the public were getting regular reports throughout all that time. And it was all being recorded. And it's all published and it's all there. The evidence and the evidence, the oral evidence, taken. And it really is - at least I assume it's in the Fawcett Library. But for anybody wanting to look in detail at what it was like then, compared with the stages of change since, very important indeed. And then what happened was, that we got the bill through the Lords. But that done, private members bill has to be through by a certain date if it's got any chance of going to the Commons. And the government - it was Conservative government then, wasn't it? At that time. But they said, "We are not going to proceed this bill any further". Well, what actually happened - I don't know whether you want these technical details? That particular bill, Willy Hamilton's bill, did not come back. But they gave us a parliamentary draftsman, and we drafted a bill.

'We' being?

I suppose it was people from the Select Committee. I remember sitting with the parliamentary draftsman a lot. I think so. And that bill, the Sex Discrimination Number Two Bill. The Anti-Discrimination Number Two Bill... got through. I'm a bit hazy about this. Anyway, something got through. The government then said, "We're not passing this through the Commons, this won't become law, but we will produce our own bill". And all parties had then said they were in favour of the bill. So it was that that led to the Sex Discrimination Bill l975. And I think this history is quite important, it's a bit of history. And that got through, with all its strengths and all its weaknesses, in '75. In order to come into force at the end of '75, together with the Equal Pay Act.

Was Jenkins, who was Home Secretary of the Labour government at that time, was he the leading person on the government side to shepherd the bill through, or even to draft it?

Well, that I don't know, I say no. I suppose it came through from the...

It was the Home Office rather than the Department of Employment, from what I read. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 41

That's what I'm just wondering. Yes, I think it was. It was Jenkins' bill.

I wondered whether you negotiated with him.

I don't remember that stage, to be absolutely honest. But it came through. And by that time you see there was also all-party support. And there was no substantial problems in getting it through.

Was it very different from the one that you had in the Lords?

Oh yes, it was much more detailed. I mean as you probably know, it is a very technical business getting a bill properly drafted. This is why for opposition parties it's terribly difficult to do, because you have to have parliamentary draftsmen doing it. There aren't enough of them, they're overworked. And that's another story. Anyway, that got through. And the important thing about it; very considerable symbolic importance, of course, that you had a bill. And it set up the EOC. Which no other European country did. They may have something now. They had very little indeed. Well, then this was through. The enforcement procedures are weak. And too much depends on a woman being prepared to take a case. And she stands to risk a lot in terms of turmoil and hostility. And not to getting very much. I mean the famous Belinda Price case. By the time Belinda had won that case, which the Council of Civil Liberties took for her. I don't know why the EOC didn't take that case? But they didn't. It was the National Council of Civil Liberties that backed her and paid for it. But of course by the time she'd won it she'd got another job somewhere else, she didn't want the job in the Civil Service that was available. It was a very valuable victory. Because it forced the Civil Service, against union opposition, to open up jobs above 28 to 45, they settled for, in the end. And that was extremely useful. Because those with jobs all over the country in things like Social Security offices and Departments of Employment, which returning women all over the country could now then apply for. And Ruth Michaels at Hatfield Polytechnic, who has pioneered the New Opportunities for Women courses, has told me often how valuable that's been to her ex-students. So it can work. But the enforcement machinery is weak. Well, that was l975. Then you Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 42 have to pick up on the European front. Which the Article ll9 of the Treaty of Rome, Equal Pay for Equal Work, had been a dead letter, until that Belgian air hostess, Mademoiselle Defresne, took a case to the European court, against the Belgian Airlines, and won it. She took two cases and lost them, then she took another case and won. I think it was two she lost. Anyway, she was a real battler, because she did lose cases and then she won. And people began to wake up to the possibilities of Article ll9. Of course as people I think now forget, Article ll9 was an economic clause in what was really an economic treaty. The French wanted it in, because they flattered themselves, and flattered really was the word, that they had equal pay. And they said, "If we have it and nobody else has it, we shall be at an economic disadvantage, won't we?"

But the phrase in ll9 "In equal treatment", isn't it?

No, that's in the Directive. It's not the Article. That's the point. It had been a dead letter. Nobody had bothered. Then in l975, and I like to think perhaps our legislation had some effect on this, because it pre-dated it you see. All the work that we had been doing. And of course what had gone on in the States had a much bigger impact. But still I think ours probably had a bit. Because I remember I was asked to go, and I went several times, to Brussels, with a woman called Eve Crask, from the Department of Employment, who was the woman's officer dealing with the Equal Pay Act. And we had a number of meetings with people who were working on this in the EEC. And they had just begun to get a very small, under-staffed, under-financed, Women's Bureau. I can't remember now the dates that the Women's Bureau was set up. It was a woman called Jacqueline Nonon. Yes, Jacqueline Nonon was there from the time that I first started going over. And I can't remember when I started going over; some time between '70 and '75. Anyway, we then had the three important EEC initiatives. The first one equal pay, then the one on equal treatment and then the one on social security. And the interest of that in a way, is that that reflects how they'd realised, as we have realised, - I think we realised it rather faster - that equal pay without the other things isn't any good. That you have to have the equal treatment, you have to have the equal opportunity. And then they even went further, you see, and were saying, "Well, unless there is supporting social services of one kind or another, you don't get this far, Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 43 you only get a little way". And then the important thing, and I think this has been the biggest achievement of our EOC, and you have to thank Anthony Lester for this really. Well, that's perhaps unfair, the EOC too. But they began to use the European Court. Against the directives. And that has been very important indeed. And you get more and more important as the Common Market... as the Single Market develops closer and closer. And that's where it all began to take off, as it were. Now as far as my own personal work was concerned, after the Equal Pay Act was through, and after I had done the job in the 26 organisations. I mean I steered that. And, as I say, I didn't do the donkey work there at all. I was entirely convinced that it was opportunity that mattered. And I managed to persuade the German Marshall Fund in Washington, that opportunity was what mattered. I think they were coming in America to the same. And they said - I can't even remember the name of the man I got the money from now. I said, "I want to do some detailed work on opportunity. And will you give me some money to do it?" And I pointed out what we'd been doing on pay and so on. And this chap, whose name now escapes me, accepted the idea. He called together a group of us. What's her name? Sullerot was one of them in Paris. We had a meeting in Paris. Sullerot and the people.

Evelyne Sullerot.

Evelyne Sullerot, that's right. And other people from the Commission, and I forget who else was there. And I sold him this idea; that we wanted some detailed work done on opportunities.

On an international or a European basis?

Well, yes. And well that had to be European, because it was German Marshall. Apparently, when Willi Brandt put up the German Marshall money, which was a German thank you for Marshall. I mean obviously minute in comparison with Marshall, but a gesture. He at some time said that he was particularly interested in women's issues. And so there was money earmarked in German Marshall for women's work. And to cut a long story short, I got money for women in banking. And we set it up. And there are some nice stories about this. This is when I... I think Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221A Page 44

I told you about the NatWest man? Did I tell you? In Paris. The German Marshall condition was that it had to be... you had to link American activities, a Continental European country, and two Continental and European countries. So I had to get a bank to let us work in the UK. And I went along - I went along to the Midland. And was turned down because they were already doing something. And I'd rather hoped on the Midland, because it was Armstrong and I knew him, and I thought he'd let me in. But he couldn't, he'd committed himself to somebody else. And then I went to the NatWest, which I didn't know the people there. And to my astonishment I got a very warm welcome from a man called Gordon Jones, who was the Personnel Director, who I didn't know. And who afterwards became the Deputy Chief Executive. But it was while he was Personnel Director. Now Gordon Jones was a very smart chap. He knew that they had an awful lot of very good women in the NatWest, whom they were under-using very badly. But he also knew that he'd got a very conservative, slow moving organisation. And he was ferreting around to find ways to stir them up. And I appeared on his doorstep, sent apparently, you see, in his eyes, from heaven, because if I could do anything useful, that would help his problem. If I made a mess of it, it wasn't his fault anyway, was it? And what was more, I had German Marshall money to do it, so it wasn't going to cost him anything. And so I got in to the NatWest. And I hired Margery Povall, who had worked on the equal pay study for the DE.

End of Fl22l Side A Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 45

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 46

F1221 Side B

So we got NatWest. Well, then the German Marshall people were extremely helpful with the American contacts. And we got very good introductions to banks in America. And Margery Povall went over for three weeks, I think it was, and was allowed to go through what had been going on in equal opportunities in, I think I'm right in saying, City Bank and First Pensylvania. And I went for shorter periods and met a lot of banking people. And they already had a women in banking organisation, which both Margery and I saw, and were very impressed with. And we'd learnt a lot about how they'd handled it, things which have succeeded and things which hadn't by long chalks. But they were ahead in what they were doing and thinking. So we drew on that, to help us. We got into the NatWest, but then I had to go to a bank in Continental Europe. And I said to Gordon Jones, "Look, I can't use this money unless I can get a Continental bank. Can you help?" And he said, "Yes. We've got a fifteen percent holding in Credit du Nord. And we will try and get you in". And we haven't got time on the tape for me to tell you the story of getting in, which was very funny. But there was a terrifically good Irishman running with NatWest International. And he wanted to help. And he laid on a lunch. Oh, I should also say that of course doing a research of this kind, inside the bank, you had to have locals doing it. So we linked up with a research team in Paris, an industrial psychology research team, Centre d'Emploi Industrielle, something or other, I think, or, anyway, we got them along. And they said they would do it, and we got help from somebody else, a Civil Servant. Anyway, NatWest laid on this lunch for us to meet the personnel director from Credit du Nord. And it was crystal clear to me when I met him, that he thought there were two jobs for women, and two jobs only, and that I was going to get absolutely nowhere with him. So my problem was how to get through the lunch without him turning me down. And the NatWest chap kept saying, "Tell him exactly what it is you want to do". Well, I knew if I told him exactly what I wanted to do, the answer (laughs) would be an absolutely straight no. So I kept flannelling away like anything, wondering what I was going to do. And then somebody suddenly said, "Of course the President of Credit du Nord, you know, would be very interested in this. He's rather a radical in his thinking". So I thought, hi, that's what I've got to do, I've got to see him. So I flannelled all through the lunch. And finally the director went away without Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 47 actually having said no. But obviously totally unimpressed. And I said to the Irishman, "Look, you kept telling me what I wanted to do, it's the last thing I want to do. What I want to do is to get to that President. You've got to get me to the President, see..."

And I'll tell him.

"And I'll tell him". And they said, "Oh, you'll never get in". Well, he got the idea and he rather liked a battle, so he went to town and he got me an interview with the President. With this woman Civil Servant, who was quite sure we couldn't do it. And when I got in I realised we were going to win, and I couldn't understand why. And then it came out, he'd got a daughter. The daughter was in banking. His wife was dead, his daughter was terribly important. His daughter was in banking, and he was not going to tell his daughter he'd turned us down. And we got in. So we got the money. It was lovely. (Laughs). Anyway, then we started work. Now what we were doing in NatWest was to say, it was a three or four year assignment. We started about '78 and we finished with an international conference in '82. '8l, '82. Anyway, we said it was a two phase thing. "We must do a fact-finding thing first". You can't do anything, that's what people always forget, until you know exactly what the existing position is. "And when we've looked at the existing position, which will be purely fact-finding. We will put a proposition to you for a changed programme. Which will be modest and sensible". So that was agreed. And because he wanted change, you see, he was prepared to back us. So Margery Povall... We were only going to... because you can't do the whole thing like NatWest. We did two divisions of the domestic bank. We didn't do international at all. And I forget now which they were. But that's usual, and that was plenty enough.

Was that mostly little High Street branches, or some of the head office personnel as well?

Both I think, in those divisions. But only in those divisions. So Margery Povall set to work on collecting the data. Now the things which you need are statistics about the distribution, by jobs and grade and pay. And a detailed study of the personnel Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 48 practices that they are supposed to have. What their laid-down procedures are, how you recruit, how you promote, how you train, who gets what. And then decide really what's happening. And that of course is very time consuming, but you must have that. Because on the face of it they're nearly always whiter than white. They weren't even whiter than white on the face of it. Because they were quite openly saying, "We have two different systems for recruitment. We recruit boys for careers, and they must have four 'O' levels, and we don't want girls with 'O' levels because we want them to leave. We recruit girls for the factory jobs. And we recruit..." What they call the 'factory jobs', which is just handling... you know, passing the cheques through and all that. "And we recruit boys for careers". We said, "You know that's breaking the law straight away, you can't really go on doing that". And we started from there. But you have to work through a whole lot of stuff. And that took about l8 months, and Margery pretty well full time on it.

[inaudible]

They had their own staff in. In France. The French were a bit difficult, they didn't have quite the same understanding of what we were doing. But that's another issue. And Margery went several times to the States and got more data and helped. And then we put a proposition to them. But, of course, what was so helpful was that we had the backing all the time of Gordon Jones. But he wasn't going to show his hand. And we collected a lot of American information. And then he said, "I have a... Every two years, down at our staff college at Heythrop... Heythrop... what is it? It's a sort of great country house. Near Oxford. "We get together all the personnel people from all over the bank every two years. And I want you to come and give a presentation about what you think the present position is and what you... suggestions of what might be done". And what we did was to tell them all about what the American banks were doing. And very little about the law and all that. And it was very interesting and educative, because if we had said, "We are research workers from LSE, and this is what we are finding". They would have said, "Oh my God". But when we said, "Manufacturers Hanover are doing this and City Bank are doing this and Chase Manhattan are doing this", you saw them look up, you know, as if they'd had a sort of dose of a strong whiskey. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 49

When you said LSE. LSE had no formal part in that?

Well, we had the money, based at LSE.

The Marshall funds came through LSE. And they knew you were teaching there of course?

Well, by that time, you see I retired in '78. And that's why I took the money to the City [University] in the end you know, because they wouldn't let me keep Margery Povall. They had this awful thing that if you'd had a research officer for five years they had to go. This was restrictive practice by the academics. Because they thought that research people would publish more. So I said, "Sorry, she's now so useful to me, if you won't let me keep her I'll take my money somewhere else". And I went along to the City [University] and said, "Look, I've got money in this project. Can I dump it here?" And they said, "Yes".

[inaudible]

It was based on LSE. And you know how we all got money from one thing and another. The Department of Employment had been just the same. The money had all come through the LSE. And we had the office there and all that. So we were squeezed out.

So your bankers were listening to the experience [inaudible]

Yes.

They hadn't heard about it on their own account? They hadn't got to know on their own account?

And it was great news to them. And I'm sure that Gordon Jones had gone to that meeting with two plans in his hand, in his head. According to how they reacted. That Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 50 he would let us go through to stage two, and do the change programme, if they agreed. But he couldn't force it on them. And he was right, you can't force it, you've got to take them with you. You've got to take them with you. Otherwise they can sabbotage you, all the time.

And was there a single woman among the bank employees assembled?

There might have been one or two. Yes, there were one or two, there were. But a minute proportion. And I heard him say, almost to himself, "Now I can begin to start turning this great old steamer around". Because he reckoned they'd accepted it. So, he also did some very sensible things. We laid on... and he began to start paying for this sort of thing; we laid on a two day residential thing for a bunch of his bright women, and said to them - this was his idea - "You come up with what you think we ought to do". And they came up with some very useful ideas. And then what we had done by that time, by studying the procedures and looking at the data, was... There were four grades, clerical grades. Clerical grade four is a jumping off ground for office and managerial work. And when you're doing something of this sort you've got to focus quite specifically. You can't, you know... and you've got to say, "That's where we've got to work". So our programme was to say, 'that by a given date you had got to increase lots of women in grade one, lots of women in grade two, far fewer in grade three, none in grade four. But you'd got to get them from five percent to l5 percent by a given date. And you must have both a target and a date'.

This was following some American practice?

Yes. And I'm sure without that you can't do anything. It's no good having good intentions and equal opportunity policies unless they're backed by targets and timetables, are useless, they're just a fig leaf. I'd rather not have them. Because they say, [inaudible] and they do damn all. And you've got to have them. Have a modest target, move in the right direction, don't frighten everybody. And of course you've got to carry your middle management with you. And we had a lot of sort of discussions, groups. Because they can sabotage. It's done in so many ways. For instance, today - not in the past - but today, you're not going to get anywhere unless you take the Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 51

Institute of Bankers exams. Now the boys were being kicked out to go to attend their classes and take the exams. The girls were patted on the head and say, "Don't bother". In the end when it came to promotions they hadn't got the qualifications, had they? That sort of thing you have to find out. That's why it takes a long time. You have to get them to trust you sufficiently to talk. We were keeping the people, Jacqueline Nonon in the bureau, in touch with what we were doing. She brought in the Bank of Belgium. And we found a woman who was working in a Dutch bank. So that by the time we finished it was Holland, Belgium, France, the UK and the American links. And then... And they accepted the programme and they worked on it. I mean Anne Watts for instance.

From the Midland? She was with the Midland then, was she?

No, no, she wasn't. She was NatWest. Midland bought her. She was the number two person that they put in. I forget the name of the first woman. They moved a woman in, rather sensibly, into part of their personnel department which dealt with career development generally, and not just for women. But she had a mandate to look particularly at women and to monitor the progress. And this I thought was very important, because I'd seen far too much, for instance, in the States, where they find a girl, put her in an office, put Equal Opportunity Officer on the door, nothing happens. Whereas if she was in the mainstream, where they were doing the work on careers development anyway, but with a particular mandate to watch out and develop the women's things. And this was interesting. It was a woman whose husband, she'd been in the Midlands somewhere, they promoted her into this job. Her husband had to move job to come to London and did. He was a schoolmaster I think. She got a job in London. And she started. And then when she was moved on, I think she was moved on to be a branch manager, a couple of years later they brought Anne Watts in. And Anne was a very vigorous person and developed it. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, it's gone perfectly in that way. But they did set a pattern. And the other thing that we did, which we were very keen on, was the returners thing. The retainer scheme. That was... now it was only for selected women. But again salami. Do it a bit at a time, don't try and do anything that frightens them. Though for women that they regarded as being worthwhile trying to retain, so that they would have a job, not Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 52 obviously the same job, but a job at the same level, for five years. On condition that they came back two weeks in every year. And that was copied from the National Health Service, which had done it for... That's where we got the idea from. And they jumped at that. And that started. And then other people have done that, on a much bigger scale. And Midland's doing much more. Where was I told the other day? Cheshire County Council gives eight years I think, and they have them back. And this has spread very much. But that's where it started. And Margery did a survey of the women who were about to leave. We hired people in to do survey work. We bought survey... if we needed them, on that basis. And eighty percent of them said that they could cope. They were about to have babies. That they could cope with the two weeks. And that worked. And then they went on from there. And at the end - and this was rather a sad story at the end. Well, it wasn't really I suppose, but it was irritating. Jacqueline Nonon, who had been a very good friend in Brussels, said, "Look, this is now European. We'll put on a conference at the end for you, and finance it by the EEC". We were thinking of having a conference and running it ourselves. They had facilities, and we said, "That's marvellous". But before they got it on, Jacqueline moved her job. And so did the other chap who had been interested in it, a man called Tevitian. He moved too. And dearly as I love the French, I have to say the French Mafia took over. And they wanted to say that this was an EEC effort. And I had great difficulty in keeping the name German Marshall anywhere, although they had done... the EEC had done a bit of funding of the odd training thing, and they had brought in the Bank of Belgium, the Belgian Bank. Not the Dutch Bank, we'd found them somehow.

Or even the French Bank?

Oh, the French Bank, of course, we'd done entirely. They'd never heard of it until we started. Anyway, it was to be a conference for European bankers. And it was a three day conference in Knocke in '82.

In where, sorry?

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 53

Knocke. Belgium. And they found the work out and they tried to marginalise us, they really did, they were very naughty about it. And, as I say, I love the French, but it was a French conspiracy to up them and to down us. However, and they couldn't even bring the Italian banker... they couldn't find the Italian bankers. I had to find the Italian bankers. So an old friend of mine who was an Italian banker. And there were some lovely moments. We insisted on them doing what we'd done at NatWest, which was to get bankers talking to bankers. We said, "We don't want to be up-front on this. We want the bankers to come and say what they have done and why. And then other bankers will listen. They won't listen to a lot of women research workers".

To the American bankers only?

American and... American bank. And of course this where having Europe helped, because they were prepared to pay an awful lot you see. And we had American and Canadian. And there was one marvellous occasion, it's a phrase that I've used a lot, which was great fun. There had been an American - I can't remember even now which bank it was - Oh, it was a Canadian bank. Where the President had genuinely been very enthusiastic. Like my French President at Credit du Nord; for personal reasons I expect. And he had said he would come and then he couldn't come and he sent his number two. (Laughs). And the number two gave a paper about what they had been doing. And it had all come from the President and his enthusiasm. And he said, "And you know", he said, "what interests the President, fascinates the Vice-president. (Laughs). And that really was quite a take-off. Well, that's that.

Could I ask you one final thing? You mentioned, just as we came into your room, that you thought the way forward was through contract compliance. Which doesn't feature much in British practice at all.

No, it doesn't.

Not equality practice.

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 54

It doesn't. But, you know, it worked... The ILEA... no, the GLC, used it, and it was effective. And I, early on when we were doing this, when in Washington, went to see a very diligent black who was running their contract compliance, a man called Marsh. But he was as black as you could be. Running contract compliance in Brussels. No, in Washington.

[inaudible]

[inaudible]. And he said, "What we do, is we say to the companies, we don't attack them, we say, look, your practices aren't up to what they have to be if we're going to be able to keep a contract. But we've got some very able, experienced people here. We will send them in and we will help you to get things so that you can get contracts". Not a bludgeoning approach. An alongside approach. And I'm sure that's the way to do it. And this is why I wanted, when the legislation went through for race, that there should be for both women and race, one very high powered, tough, enforcement body. But outside that, not doing the same thing, only doing enforcement. Because, as I say, the weakness of the '75 Act, was that the enforcement machinery is weak. But that there should be an addition doing something like contract compliance. But other things on the educational side. Where you get inside and tell people, "Look, this is the way you can get it right". And if you back that with contract compliance. Now you still can have contract compliance for race. But you can't for women. We tried to get it in for women quite recently, about a year ago.

An amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act?

Yes. Yes. When that was going through. But they wouldn't have it.

Was that tacking on an amendment to some bill that was going through?

Yes, I think that was it. I remember talking to it. And it's never... I think my own view is that it's been a great mistake to put too much effort into trying to revise legislation here and there, instead of saying contract compliance is the thing to go for. (We) as a top advisory service, who will come in and say, "Look, you can get this Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 55 contract if you do this and this and this". And based on what we did at NatWest, you could do it like this you see, you could put someone like Margery in and say, "Look, to have this sort of target, these are the things you have to do to get it".

Do you think if we had a contract compliance this would make the training provisions, the sort of positive training provisions, work much better than they have in fact worked?

Yes. Much. Much. You see the weakness with changing it through legislation is legislation invites a minimalist approach. You do just what is necessary to comply with the law. Contract compliance doesn't. Contract compliance encourages you.

Does the experience in the race field encourage you to feel that some amendment would work?

Not a lot. The time that the GLC were doing it, they were making progress. An old student of mine - old students are a very great help and they feed all sorts of things into me - who was at Nestles, said - (laughs) they had, Nestles of course, had big GLC contracts for biscuits and chocolates and stuff. And his director said to him, "My goodness", he said, "contract compliance. What percentage of our employees are women?" And Peter said, "Fifty one". And then he said, "Oh, we're all right then, aren't we?" I mean that's the level of what they don't know you see. This is what women forget, the degree of ignorance, and nobody stirred them up. He genuinely thought if he could say they had fifty one percent they'd be all right. Now if you had contract compliance really working, someone would go in and say, "No, no, look you're equivalent to my grade four. You've really got to get women up there and this is what you've got to do. Training programmes and all the rest of it". Oh, and Margery also... It was Margery Povall who got Women in Banking going. She came back. I had met the Women in Banking over there. We both had, separately, because we didn't go together, we went separately. To look at different things. And said, "I'm sure this is a good idea. This network of women who can support each other". And she started it, and that has taken off in a big way. And I'm sure the supportive network... Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 56

Sparked off other such networks for other professions.

Supportive networks and good returner schemes. And then of course childcare facilities. We didn't do anything on childcare. These are the big things I'd go for.

And do you think that the French banks and the Belgians and the Dutch were following suit?

The French banks, they ran into all sorts of difficulties. They never got a change programme in. But they were unlucky, they had a strike which had nothing to do with them.

Not even in Credit du Nord?

No, Credit du Nord didn't. It wasn't successful in Credit du Nord. It was partly the fault of the research workers. There was a big... They've got a different attitude in the Latin countries, from the Nordic countries. And the different approach to research. It was a rather detailed, rather individualist approach. They didn't understand about bringing about organisational change. They don't think in those terms, in the same way. And it's an organisational change programme really that you need.

End of Fl22l Side B

End of interview Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 57

BRITISH LIBRARY NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVE

NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION

INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET ______

Ref. No.: C468/04Playback Nos: F1220 & F122l ______

Collection Title: Fawcett Collection ______

Interviewee's surname: SeearTitle: Baroness

Interviewee's forenames: Beatrice Nancy

Date of Birth: 7.8.l9l3Sex: Female ______

Date(s) of recording: l2th & l5th February l99l

Location of interview: Interviewee's home

Name of interviewer: Betty Scharf

Type of recorder: Marantz

Total no. of tapes: 2Speed:

Type of tape: C60Noise Reduction: Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 58

Mono or stereo: StereoOriginal or copy: Original ______

Additional material: None ______

Copyright/clearance: Full clearance ______

Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 59

Fl220 Side A

Father was a Londoner descended from a Lincolnshire farmworker's family. NS's paternal grandfather had a retail business in the City. She remembers a great aunt who was head of a school in Hackney. Mother was partly Irish, trained as a teacher in Saffron Walden College. Highly intelligent but not intellectual.

Father, as a young man, thought to be tubercular, so went to South Africa, worked in mining. Engaged before going out to SA. Returned after 5 years and married in l9l0. Son born in l9ll; NS in l9l3. Father rejected for Royal Engineers in l9l4 on medical grounds, but served in England in anti-aircraft unit. Then took up farming apprenticeship in Gloucester where a second son born in l9l9. NS clearly remembers christening. Family then moved to Penzance, where father obtained professional qualification in mining engineering at Camborne School of Mines. Third son born at Penzance, where family lived while father worked overseas, first prospecting in Portuguese East Africa, then as manager of an American-owned mine in Cyprus. Returned to England after a dispute with owners over safety at mine. Professional career then ended. Parents keen on as good an education for NS as for her brothers. She attended in Penzance a prep school which admitted sisters of boy pupils, so she was only girl in her class. All friends were boys, and although she disliked and was bad at games, she made her way at school all right. Hard work as all boys were being prepared for Common Entrance. Moved to Croydon in l923 to get good schooling for all the children. NS went to Croydon High School for Girls (GPDST), a very big and highly academic school which suited her well. Religious background? Mother Anglican, father agnostic. NS is Anglican, but no pressure at home. Some influence from school. l932 NS awarded a major scholarship in history to Cambridge. Excitement and enjoyment of university life. No more hockey! Joined Liberal Club and League of Nations Union. l935 lst class degree. Persuaded by a Newnham tutor, Anne Robertson, who had worked at Bebbw Vale steelworks and at Clarks (shoes), that she should train for career in personnel management. So went to LSE which offered a one year course with options in industrial law and industrial psychology, together with practical work experience. l936 took post as personnel manager at Clarks of Street (shoes). Stayed till l946, with secondment during war years to Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 60

Ministry of Aircraft Production (part time). Looks back on her university training plus industrial experience, plus knowledge of government through MAP work, as excellent training for politics. War time at Clarks. Transfer of women to men's jobs. Began to get angry over women's issues. At end of war women out of men's jobs at speed of light; Clarks and TU agreed on this and women did not complain. Women chargehands at Clarks had complex and responsible job. If they had been men they would have been called managers and been paid accordingly. Personnel work at Clarks had been introduced by Alice Clark who was a director of firm. More than just welfare work. Quaker ethos of sex equality allowed women of the family a prominent role.

Fl220 Side B

Work for Production Efficiency Board of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. NS asked to join a team of one employer, one trade union officer (AEU), and Anne Shaw, a methods consultant. She had worked in US and Britain and had impressed Stafford Cripps (Minister) when he had seen her work at Metropolitan Vickers. Shaw asked NS to join the team which visited factories and advised on productivity. NS felt no hang-up about being a woman; early encouragement by father reinforced by experience at Clarks and watching A. Shaw at work. MAP work involved a lot of difficult wartime travel. l946 NS left Clarks for post at LSE to teach personnel management, first with her pre-war tutor Janet Kydd, then on her own. Moved to job in London because Street offered little social life and no scope for her political enthusiasms. Had been a confirmed Liberal ever since witnessing rise of Nazism in Germany from l932 when had taught English in a German family. Impressed with the horrs which followed concentration of power. Fought l950 election. In l945 had helped Violet Bonham-Carter in her campaign in Wells division. In l954 got funds from Department of Employment to study, with Pearl Jephcott, the dual roles of married working women at Peek Frean's biscuit factory in Bermondsey. Worries over effects on children of married women now being employed because of labour shortage. How managements had altered factory shifts to get married women recruits. Results published in "Married Women Working". Two further studies on women in employment followed. First, "Careers for Women in Industry" with Veronica Robers Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 61 and John Brock. Based on interviews with 6th form girls on their career aims, and interviews with men in industry about their attitudes to women workers. Second, "Re- entry into Employment", a pioneering study of married women returners carried out for the OECD, in USA, Canada, UK and six other European countries. NS not active in campaign for equal pay in the public sector (l944-55); does not remember it coming up as an election issue in her l950 campaign. Remembers campaign developing on a wider front in sixties after women's pressure on TUC. Fawcett Society, in persons of Hilda Clinkard and Kathleen Halpin, approached NS to help in campaign. l970 Equal Pay Act achieved, but already apparent that what was needed was equal opportunities. Unequal pay a symptom of inequalities in education, training, promotion prospects, etc. So campaign for equal opportunities and against any form of sex discrimination began.

Fl22l Side A

Department of Employment commissioned NS to carry out research in l974 into the preparations of employers for the implementation of Equal Pay Act in l975. Enquiry into 26 different organisations showed that evasion of the new law by moving men into different grades or slightly different jobs, to avoid comparisons of men's and women's pay, was infrequent and marginal. The sex segregation of jobs was in any case such that most women could not find a comparator. Job evaluation covered about one third of women employees. Few of the remainder could make a direct comparison with a man. Nevertheless, after l975 women's earnings went up from sixty three percent to seventy five percent of men's, then dropped back to seventy three percent. Incomes policy a factor in this. Obvious need for law on equal opportunities, especially as there had been no chance of getting a "work of equal value" clause into the Equal Pay Act. Joyce Butler MP introduced several anti- discrimination bills into the House of Commons without effect. Then, in February l972, Hamilton introduced an Equal Opportunities Bill with much greater publicity. Talked out. But NS took over bill to introduce it in Lords (having been made a peer in l97l). Sharp's wrecking amendment defeated and bill referred to Lords Select Committee. Many months of taking evidence with increasingly favourable press publicity. After bill's passing in Lords, was redrafted and expanded. Eventually a bill Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/02 F1221B Page 62 with all-party support was introduced by government and became Sex Discrimination Act l975. Equal opportunities commission set up. Enforcement procedures weak. Usefulness of Price case to women returning to work after a break.

Fl22l Side B

Importance after l975 of European Community, though equal pay article of the treaty was dead letter for many years. But Women's Bureau eventually established in Brussels. Commission began to understand that equal pay, equal opportunities and appropriate social service together provided package of equality measures, three directives on these subjects. Britain took cases to European Court. NS wanted to study problem of equal opportunities internationally; got money from the German Marshall Fund to finance research into banking, one British bank, one French, with visits to USA to study promotion of equal opportunities in some American banks. Margery Povall as research officer. Studies of NatWest and Credit du Nord, also eventually a Belgian and a Dutch bank. Fact finding leading to advice on new equality policies with targets and timetables. Importance of carrying middle and top management with you to make change effective. NatWest's retainer scheme copied by other banks and other employers. Results of research presented at European bankers' conference at Knocke in l982. The way forward in equal opportunities field - contract compliance. USA experience helpful; methods educative as well as coercive. NS wanted, in SD Act, a tough enforcement body, and alongside an advisory and educative body. There was an unsuccessful effort to get contract compliance into legislation a year ago. Also importance of networks of women in particular fields of employment, e.g. Women in Banking, started by Povall.