Table Of ContentLA B O U R
W O M E N
I N
Cabinet Ministers in
the Twentieth Century
PAULA BARTLEY
P O W E R
Labour Women in Power
Paula Bartley
Labour Women
in Power
Cabinet Ministers in the Twentieth Century
Paula Bartley
Stratford-upon-Avon, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-14287-2 ISBN 978-3-030-14288-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14288-9
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Cover images: Margaret Bondfield © GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo; Barbara Castle ©
Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy Stock Photo; Judith Hart © Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy
Stock Photo; Ellen Wilkinson © Chronicle/Alamy Stock Photo; Shirley Williams © Trinity
Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo
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For Dóra, Kata and Réka Dudley; and Eva and Kate Karalius.
A
cknowledgements
Every historian is indebted to archivists and librarians whose specialist knowl-
edge smooths the way for researchers. I am especially grateful to Emma
Pizarro, Gemma Read and their colleagues at the LSE library; Carole Jones
and the staff at the library and Modern Records Centre, University of
Warwick; Jess Dunnicliff at Stratford-upon-Avon public library; Sophie Welsh
and Nicola O’Toole at the Special Collections, Bodleian Libraries; Debbie
Horner and the library staff at the British Library. Judith Hart deposited
her constituency papers in Glasgow which would have been impenetrable,
but for the help, I received from Michael Gallagher and Barbara McLean at
the City Archives. The archivists at the People’s History Museum, especially
Darren Treadwell and Julie Parry were, as ever, exemplary, always welcom-
ing, always helpful, always knowledgeable about their splendid collections.
Dean Rogers at Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library not
only helped me find my way around its archive on Margaret Bondfield but
helped me with my hotel and travel plans and told me about another col-
lection held at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Library. Thanks to Patrick
Fahey, archive technician at FDR Presidential Library for forwarding letters
between Margaret Bondfield and Eleanor Roosevelt. Thanks too to the staff
at the National Archives who have digitised its collection of Cabinet papers
making the life of this researcher a lot easier. Lastly, I am grateful to Terry
George for his technological help.
I would like to thank Robert Dudley, Karl Sabbagh, Kathy Stredder and
the three anonymous reviewers who usefully commented on my book pro-
posal. Thanks to Emily Russell and Oliver Dyer at Palgrave for their patience
and for seeing the book through to completion. Thanks to the many histo-
rians who have helped in various ways, including Maggie Andrews, Diane
Atkinson, Lucy Bland, Lucy Delap, Richard Carr, Anna Davin, Neil Fleming,
Hilda Kean, Janis Lomas, Kate Murphy, Angela V. John, Stephanie Mair,
Jenny Mathers, Mary Jane Mossman, Paul O’Leary, June Purvis, Mari
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Takayanagi and Stephanie Ward. My long conversations with Sue Morgan
have been most enlightening, and I thank her for her insightful analy-
sis. Thanks to Keith Jenkins and Peter Freeman for their comments on the
chapters on Judith Hart; to Cathy Hunt for her comments on Margaret
Bondfield; and to Cathy Loxton and Dawn Rumley for their comments on
the entire book. Finally, thanks to Réka Dudley for helping me with the
statistics.
Special thanks to Clare Short for her interest and her abundant generos-
ity. She was always willing to share her insights into life at the political top,
recommended books I should read on overseas aid, read the manuscript in
full and made many useful suggestions to improve the text. She introduced
me to Peter Freeman who in turn introduced me to Maggie Sidgreaves and
Peter McLean, all of whom worked closely with Judith Hart when she was
Minister for Overseas Development: their insights into her character were
inestimable in helping me understand what she was like both as a person and
as a Minister. Clare Short also introduced me to the late Rodney Bickerstaffe,
former General Secretary of UNISON, who worked tirelessly all his life to
improve the lives of low-paid workers, most of whom were women, and
convinced me by his actions that trade unions and women’s equality were
interlinked. Thanks also to Jane Clarke and Rachel Reeves who put me in
contact with Steve Hart and to Shirley Williams for letting me read an unpub-
lished account of her life as a female MP. Steve Hart shared some of his mem-
ories about his mother, and I am grateful to him for this.
Labour Women in Power could not have been written without the sterling
work of others. I have drawn on the work of scholars working in a variety of
fields, in particular women’s history, Labour history, political history, political
biography, religious history, political science and the history of Empire. I am
grateful to all the historians and political scientists mentioned in this book
for their research and for their insights into—for me—sometimes unfamil-
iar areas. Historians rely on conferences too: I am grateful for the comments
made by delegates at the various Women’s History Network Conferences and
the Vote 100 Conference 2018.
I could not have researched this book without financial support. Thank
you to The Society of Authors’ Foundation for awarding me a research grant
to visit the various archives and to Professor Ronald Patkus and colleagues
for awarding me the Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library
grant which was sponsored by Charlotte Hall.
As ever, I am most grateful to my husband, Jonathan Dudley. He accom-
panied me on my research trips to London, Manchester, Glasgow and New
York and helped me with my work on each trip, the only reward being a glass
of wine or a plate of pasta in the evening. He was always willing to listen to
my ideas, always happy to read and comment upon my drafts. However, it is
his unwavering support of me, his joyous sense of humour and his love which
I value most. The book is dedicated to the younger generation of our family.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 A Woman in a Man’s World: Margaret Bondfield’s Early
Career, 1873–1929 21
3 Over the Glass Cliff: The First Female Cabinet Minister,
1929–1953 55
4 The Mighty Atom: Ellen Wilkinson, 1891–1945 87
5 The First Female Minister of Education, 1945–1947 115
6 A Political Apprenticeship: Barbara Castle, 1910–1964 135
7 In and Out of Cabinet, 1964–2002 159
8 From Burnley to Lanark: Judith Hart, 1924–1968 189
9 The First Woman Paymaster General and Beyond,
1968–1991 217
10 Climbing the Parliamentary Ladder: Shirley Williams,
1930–1974 249
11 In the Cabinet and Out of Labour, 1974–2018 273
ix
x CONTENTS
12 Conclusion: From 1997 Onwards 299
Bibliography 309
Index 317
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 Women MPs in twentieth-century Britain 2
Fig. 1.2 Number of female and male candidates standing for election
from all parties 2
Fig. 1.3 Number of Labour women and men standing for election
(Compiled from David Butler and Gareth Butler’s Twentieth
Century British Political Facts, 1900–2000, Macmillan, 2000) 3
Fig. 1.4 Governments formed following general elections 9
Fig. 2.1 Margaret Bondfield as a young trade unionist
(Courtesy of Vassar College) 22
Fig. 2.2 Kicking off a football game in her constituency
(Courtesy of Vassar College) 45
Fig. 3.1 Margaret Bondfield, the first woman Cabinet Minister, 1929
(©Chronicle/Alamy Stock Photo) 56
Fig. 4.1 Ellen Wilkinson as a young trade unionist
(Courtesy of People’s History Museum) 88
Fig. 5.1 Ellen Wilkinson in the Labour Cabinet, 1945
(Courtesy Peoples History Museum) 116
Fig. 6.1 Barbara Castle and Irene Ward with Equal Pay Petition,
March 1954 (©Dave Bagnall Collection/Alamy Stock Photo) 143
Fig. 7.1 Barbara Castle in Cabinet (©Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy
Stock Photo) 160
Fig. 8.1 Judith Hart visiting Uganda (Courtesy of Peoples
History Museum) 205
Fig. 9.1 Judith Hart in the Cabinet (©Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy
Stock Photo) 218
Fig. 10.1 Shirley Williams as Minister of Education, 1967
(©Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo) 262
Fig. 11.1 Shirley Williams on the Front Bench (©Keystone Pictures
USA/Alamy Stock Photo) 274
xi
