1 Women and Lancashire Conservatism between the Wars N.C. Fleming Abstract The activism of women Conservatives helped Tory democracy to adapt and survive in inter-war Lancashire at a time when it was under strain by the arrival of Labour as a significant electoral force. This article utilises the surviving records of the party in Lancashire to examine the various ways that women entered, navigated, justified and expanded their membership and function in inter-war Conservatism. It acknowledges the limits on women’s advancement and influence, but it also highlights how some women made significant progress in rising through the party structures, and how women’s branches facilitated this political mobility. It challenges the assumption that women Conservatives were preoccupied with sociability and discussing domestic issues, and reveals their contribution to the electoral success of the party at local level, and interaction with Lancashire’s distinct tradition of Conservatism. Author Bio N.C. Fleming is Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of Worcester, UK. He is the author of The Marquess of Londonderry: Aristocracy, Power and Politics in Britain and Ireland (I.B.Tauris, 2005), and co-editor with Alan O’Day of Ireland and Anglo-Irish Relations since 1800: Critical Essays (Ashgate, 2008), and Charles Stewart Parnell: A Bibliography (Praeger, 2011). Correspondence to: Dr N.C. Fleming, Institute of Humanities and Creative Arts, University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ, UK. Email:
[email protected] 2 On 7 July 1934 Sylvia Assheton was elected the first woman chairman of the Northwestern Area Council of the Conservative party.1 Referred to in party records as Mrs R.C.