Women's Trade Union League (UK)

The Women's Trade Union League, founded in 1874 and briefly known as the Women's Protective and Provident League, was a British organisation promoting trade union for women workers. It was established by Emma Paterson, who had seen unions managed by working women in America.[1]

History

The league's principal founder was Emma Paterson. A member of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, she persuaded many of that organisation's patrons to serve in the same role for the new league. In 1872, she became secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Women's Suffrage Association, and although she was soon dismissed, these two roles gave her a keen interest in women's trade unionism. She visited the United States in 1873, and there studied the Women's Typographical Society and Female Umbrella Makers' Union. On her return to England, she wrote and article for Labour News, calling for an association of women trade unionists.[2]

In July 1874, a conference was called to discuss Paterson's proposal. Chaired by Hodgson Pratt, it agreed to establish the "Women's Protective and Provident League", not as a trade union federation, but as an organisation which promoted women's trade unionism. Initially, it had four objects: protecting wages and conditions of workers, providing benefits for sick and unemployed workers, serving as an employment bureau, and promoting arbitration in the case of disputes between workers and employers. An executive committee was also elected. Paterson still wanted to form a trade union for women, and this occurred later in the year, when she set up the National Association of Working Women.[2]

The WPPL facilitated the creation of several women's unions, including the Society of Women Employed in Bookbinding, the Society of London Sewing Machinists, the Society of Upholsteresses, the Dewsbury, Batley and Surrounding District Heavy Woollen Weavers' Association, Leeds Spinners' Womens Association and the Benefit Society for Glasgow Working Women. Many soon collapsed, but the bookbinders thrived, and the upholsteresses survived, bringing Jeannette Wilkinson into the organisation. The league also established the Women's Halfpenny Bank in 1879, providing loans to members, in addition to a reading room, library and employment register, a swimming club and trips to Epping Forest.[2]

In 1875, Paterson and Edith Simcox became the first women delegates to the Trades Union Congress. At this and subsequent conferences, WPPL representatives promoted women's rights, arguing against barriers to women's employment. Elsewhere, the league opposed Thomas Burt and Henry Broadhurst's efforts to stop women from working at coal mines, aligning with the Personal Rights Association and the Liberty and Property Defence League in order to do so. From 1876, the union published a monthly journal, the Women's Union Journal. However, this consumed nearly half its funds, and it struggled to survive. In 1879, it faced a £90 debt, but most was covered by a collection organised by Stopford Brooke from his congregation.[2]

Paterson died in 1886, and the league was thereafter led by Emilia Dilke, who also contributed about £100 a year from her personal funds.[2]

The league took an interest in working conditions for children. It formed a committee to look at the role of wage earning children and to advise on reform. Members included feminist Jane Brownlow, socialist Margaret Macdonald and Ruth Homan.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Gordon, Peter; Doughan, David (2001). "Women's Trade Union League". Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825–1960. London & Portland, Or.: Woburn Press. pp. 184–5. ISBN 0-7130-0223-9.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Norbert Soldon, Women in British Trade Unions: 1874-1976, pp.11-26
  3. ↑ Jane Martin, ‘Brownlow , Jane Macnaughton Egerton (1854/5–1928)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 accessed 16 Nov 2017

Further reading

  • Christine Bolt (2014). The Women's Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s. Routledge. p. 359.
  • Jacoby, Robin Miller. "Feminism and Class Consciousness in the British and American Women's Trade Union Leagues, 1890-1925." in Liberating Women's History ed. Berenice Carroll (University of Illinois Press, 1976) pp: 137-60.
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