The Development of Working Girls' Clubs in London 1880-1939
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1492345 SISTERHOOD OR SURVEILLANCE? THE DEVELOPMENT OF WORKING GIRLS' CLUBS IN LONDON 1880-1939. IRIS DOVE A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Greenwich for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. September 1996. E -ç Abstract This thesis investigates the Girls' Club Movement in multi-cultural London from the l880s to 1939 and situates it within the context of gender, class and race. Part One places the clubs in their historical context and critically examines issues of poverty, sexual purity, morality, femininity and ethnicity. The ways in which ideas about race superiority interacted with class superiority in the formation of middle class values are also discussed as is the contemporary perception of working class and ethnic minority cultures. The cultural gap between the social classes is highlighted as are the forms of surveillance including disguise, which were undertaken in order to gain knowledge of working class life. Part Two looks at clubs in relation to the concerns discussed in Part One. Chapter Six (and the Appendix) survey the provision of clubs in London. Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine examine the clubs under the overlapping themes of protection, discipline and empowerment. The nature of this empowerment is examined in the context of the dominant ideology of married motherhood. Drawing on little-used club records and oral evidence, the thesis suggests that the clubs were part of a middle class initiative which aimed to re-make working class culture. The interaction between the club organizers and members is examined and it is suggested that a straightforward imposition of middle class values was not possible as a variety of factors were operating. Questions are raised about the possibility of 'sisterhood' within unequal class relations and 'social mothering' is considered as a form of humanized policing. CONTENTS List of Illustrations and Maps. Acknowledgements. iii List of Abbreviations. iv Introduction. 1 Part One - The Context 16 Chapter One - Poverty and Purity 17 Chapter Two - Moral Ethos 28 Chapter Three - Femininity and Girlhood 43 Chapter Four - Ethnicity 51 Chapter Five - Women in Disguise 66 Part Two - The Clubs 81 Introduction. 82 Chapter Six - Development of Provision for Girls 1875-1939 83 Chapter Seven - Protection 11] Chapter Eight - Discipline 127 Chapter Nine - Empowerment 158 Conclusion 198 Appendix 217 Bibliography 228 LIST OF ILLUSTPATIONS AND MAPS. Plate 1. Poverty Map, 1889. 27 Plate 2. Cover of Signpost, 1933. 50 Plate 3. Jewish London, 1900. 64 Plate 4. Black Families in London, 1935. 65 Plate 5. Lucy Guinness as a factory girl. 75 Plate 6. Olive Malvery. 76 Plate 7. Olive Malvery as a flower seller. 77 Plate 8. Olive Malvery as a factory girls. 78 Plate 9. Olive Nalvery as a waitress. 79 Plate 10. Olive Malvery as a shop assistant. 80 Plate 11. Time and Talents in Bermondsey. 106 Plate 12. Oxford and St George's Clubs, 1930s. 107 Plate 13. Heartsease Club, 1906. 108 Plate 14. Alexandra Club, 1928. 109 Plate 15. Princess Club, 1908. 110 Plate 16. A 'Successful Girl'. 154 Plate 17. The Girls' Club, Albany Hall, 1908. 155 Plate 18. International Rally, Hamburg, 1938. 156 Plate 19. H.F am Montag, June 13, 1938. 157 Plate 20. Logo of Girls' Club News, 1912. 197 Plate 21. Map of London, 1900. 225 Plate 22. Location of clubs in Bethnal Green, 1930. 226 Plate 23. Three girls' clubs in 1905. 227 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. This thesis arose partly out of a chance meeting with Sarah Daniels who was writing a play about the Deptford Gut Girls and partly out of the pursuit of academic courses at the University of Kent and at Thames Polytechnic now the University of Greenwich. I would like to thank Angela John of Greenwich University for her careful supervision and support. My thanks also go to the staff of the following libraries and institutions: the British Library, the Fawcett Library, the local libraries of the London Boroughs of Greenwich, Hackney, Lambeth, Lewishain, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Newham, the Greater London Record Office, the Chester County Record Office, Church House, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Westfield College, London, the Girls' Friendly Society, the Settlement of the Holy Child, Mayfield, Sussex, the Museum of Jewish Life, the Church Army, the Moderns Record Centre, University of Warwick, the Time and Talents Settlement, the London Union of Youth Clubs, the Women's League for Health and Beauty. I would particularly like to acknowledge the support of the Jewish community and all those who responded to my request for information and I would like to thank especially all the interviewees and their relatives who gave their hospitality and time. My thanks also to those who wrote their autobiographies and to those who carefully kept and preserved their organizations' records. I have also been supported in a variety of ways by members of History Workshop and by Alison Buckley, Julia Carley, Norma Clarke, Ann Dingsdale, Richard Dove, Pat and Roy Preston, John Tosh, Dan Weinbren. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. AJY Association for Jewish Youth. CIA Clubs Industrial Association. GFS Girls' Friendly Society. ILP Independent Labour Party. JAPGW Jewish Association for Girls and Women. JLB Jewish Lads Brigade. LMH Lady Margaret Hall. LSE London School of Economics. NCGC National Council of Girls' Clubs. NOGC National Organization of Girls' Clubs. NUWW National Union of Women Workers. T&T Time and Talents Settlement. WIC Women's Industrial Council. WSPU Women's Social and Political Union. WUS Women's University Settlement. YWCA Young Women's Christian Association. NOTE. The place of publication of all books quoted is London unless otherwise stated. iv INTRODUCTION The English suffragette and socialist Sylvia Pankhurst spoke at a Working Girls' Club in Woolwich, south-east London in October 1915. She talked of her work with women in Bow, of married women's right to work, of low wages and of the need of women to organize. She went on to name capitalism as the cause of the war. This talk raised all sorts of questions for me. What exactly were girls' clubs? Were they a kind of women's centre where feminists hoped to lead girls to independent thought and action? Were they evidence of a separatist female culture? Perhaps they were simply a response to war-time conditions which meant that there were more young female workers in munition towns like Woolwich. Could they simply be recreational or could they function as places of surveillance and control? Did they have any relationship with boys' clubs? Throughout this thesis I have used the term 'qirls' to describe young working women. This was the usage of the day and seemed to apply to all unmarried working females under thirty. The clubs started from fourteen years and no maximum age was stated. Clubs for working girls startea .n t'rie seon 31 of the nineteenth century with an upward surge in the 1880s and 1890s. Working with girls was part of the philanthropic women's 'mission' to women. As Edith Sellars observed: There is not a town, hardly a village but women are on the watch [my emphasis] there to shield from danger the unstable and make rough places smooth for the weak. All ranks and all creeds are at one in striving to lighten the burdens of our girl toilers and bring into their lives brightness and hope 2 1 The Pioneer, 15 October, 1915. 2 E. Sellars, 'Woman's work for the Welfare of Girls'in A. Burdett Coutts, (ed.), Woman's Mission, 1893, p.35. 1 Women of all creeds were 'on the watch' for girls. Christian Edith Sellars admired the Anglo-Jewish community which put 'an English Jewess, until she is eighteen...under the surveillance [my emphasis] of a committee of Ladies'. 3 By the turn of the century,it was noted that 'in a poor part of London. .there were four girls' clubs in one street'. 4 The literature of the time suggests that it was almost fashionable for leisured philanthropic women to have some experience in running girls' clubs during this period. Margot Tennant,who later married the future Prime Minister, Asquith, helped her sister Laura run a club in Scotland. When she came to London, she visited a factory in Whitechapel three times a week during the lunch hour. She did this for eight years until her marriage in 1894. Margot and Laura also started a creche in Wapping.5 Margot's half sister Katherine, also worked with poor girls after she 'came out' during the 1920s. 6 Some clubs lasted until the end of the thirties growing into larger institutions whilst others had a small membership and disappeared. The clubs were run by individuals, by University Settlements and by religious organizations and are detailed in Chapter Six and the appendix. The clubs were places where girls who had left school could engage in 'improving' activities during their leisure time. There were hostels attached to some of them and all were girls-only until 1939. Boys' clubs also developed from the 1880s through the period. Some were exclusively male but in some cases women helped to run them. Men, it would appear, did not help at girls' ibid, p.44. F.Freeman, Our Working Girls and How to Help Them, 1908, ch. 3. M. Asquith, Autobiography, edited by M. Bonham-Carter, 1962. 6 unrecorded conversation with I. Dove, July, 1992. 2 clubs. There were moves towards mixed activities during the inter-war period but it was not until after the Second World War that most clubs became mixed. Studying the period from 1880 to 1939 has enabled me to include evidence from oral history of the inter-war years, thus giving space to working class voices which are inevitably absent from the history of the early part of the period.