Women's Labour League

The Women's Labour League (WLL) was a pressure organisation, founded in London in 1906, to promote the political representation of women in parliament and local bodies.^[1] The idea was first suggested by Mary Macpherson, a linguist and journalist who had connections with the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants,^[2] and was taken up by several notable socialist women, including Margaret MacDonald, Ada Salter, Marion Phillips and Margaret Bondfield.^[3][4] The League's inaugural conference was held in Leicester, with representatives of branches in London, Leicester, Preston and Hull. It was affiliated to the Labour Party.^[3] Margaret MacDonald acted as the League's president,^[5] while both Margaret Bondfield and Marion Phillips served at times as its organising secretary.^[6]

Much of the League's campaigning effort was devoted to the issue of women's suffrage. When the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave a partial women's franchise, the League decided to disband as an independent organisation. It became the women's section of the Labour Party, which had reorganised under a new constitution that year.^[3]

The Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People's History Museum in Manchester holds the records of the Women's Labour League in their collection.^[7]

Members of the Executive

The following were members of the executive of the Women's Labour League:^[8]

• Bertha Ayles^[9]
• Jennie Baker ^[10]
• Miss Bell
• Miss Bellamy
• Ethel Bentham
• Margaret Bondfield
• Katharine Bruce Glasier
• Marion Curran
• Charlotte Despard
• Louise Donaldson
• Mary Gawthorpe
• Florence Harrison Bell
• Mabel Hope
• F. James
• Edith Kerrison
• Mary Longman
• Eveline Lowe
• Mary Macarthur
• Margaret MacDonald
• Miss McKenzie
• Clarice McNab
• Mary Macpherson
• Edith Macrosty
• Mary Middleton
• Mary Muir
• Minnie Nodin
• Marion Phillips
• Edith Rigby
• Ada Salter
• Grace Scholefield
• Lisbeth Simm
• Margaret Smith
• Maud Ward

Notable members

• Agnes Dollan

See also

• Christian socialism

References

1. "Women, the Vote and Labour 1906-1918". National Co-operative Archive. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
2. Collette, Christine (1989). For Labour and for Women: The Women's Labour League 1906–18. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 31. ISBN 0-7190-2591-5.
3. "Labour History Archive and Study Centre". Archives hub. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
4. Williamson, Philip (2004). "Bondfield, Margaret Grace". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31955. Retrieved 21 August 2014. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. June, Hannam (2004). "MacDonald, Margaret Ethel Gladstone". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/45462. Retrieved 23 August 2014. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
6. Collette, Christine (1989). For Labour and for Women: The Women's Labour League 1906–18. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 132–34. ISBN 0-7190-2591-5.
7. Collection Catalogues and Descriptions, Labour History Archive and Study Centre, archived from the original on 13 January 2015, retrieved 12 February 2015
8. Christine Collette, For Labour and for Women: The Women's Labour League, 1906-1918, p.54
9. appears in the 1911 census at 12 Station Road, Ashley Down, Bristol no occupation shown aged 34 living with her husband Walter Ayles.
10. appears in the 1901 Census at 24 Victoria Avenue Stockon on Tees shown as a Socialist Health Lecturer aged 36 with her husband a trade union organiser