Table Of Content‘Red Ellen’
Wilkinson
This study delves beyond the familiar image of Ellen Wilkinson as the leader of the
Jarrow Crusade. It has unearthed new evidence to provide a richer understanding
of her remarkable achievements, her acquaintances and her witnessing of history’s
‘
great turning points. From a humble background, she ascended to the rank of W
R
Minister in the 1945 Labour government.Y et she was much more than a conventional
Labour politician. She wrote journalism, political theory and novels. She was both
ie
a socialist and a feminist; at times, she described herself as a revolutionary. She l
d
met Lenin, Trotsky and Gandhi. She experienced first-hand Soviet Russia, the GM
k
sit-down strikes, the Indian civil disobedience campaign, the Spanish Civil War
and the Third Reich. While viewed in the collective imagination as ‘Red Ellen’, iE
whose politics were as red as her hair, her ideas were not static and present a n
series of puzzles. This study deploys transnational and social movement theory l
perspectives to grapple with the complexity of her ideas and her relationship with sl
the movements for social transformation. Interest in Wilkinson remains strong
oe
among academic and non-academic audiences alike. This is in part because her
principal concerns – working-class representation, the status of women, capitalist n
n
crisis, war, anti-fascism – remain central to contentious politics today.
’
Matt Perry is Reader in Labour History at Newcastle University
P
e
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r
y
Cover image from The Daily Herald, 1 April 1936.
ISBN 978-0-7190-8720-2
By permission of the British Cartoon Archive
Cover design: www.riverdesign.co.uk
9 780719 087202
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
‘Red Ellen’ Wilkinson
‘Red Ellen’ Wilkinson
Her ideas, movements and world
Matt Perry
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively
by Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © Matt Perry 2014
The right of Matt Perry to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Preface page vi
Acknowledgements vii
List of abbreviations viii
Introduction 1
1 Socialist ideas and movements 18
2 Feminism and the women’s movement 69
3 The trade union movement 115
4 Against imperialism and war 155
5 The Commons and the Parliamentary Labour Party 201
6 A journey through the crisis years: the slump, travel and 251
anti-fascism
7 ‘The hope of the world’: Spain in revolution and war, 299
1933–39
8 In government, 1940–47 350
Select bibliography 403
Index 409
Preface
This book has germinated over many years beginning with my research into
the Jarrow Crusade. If that event attained a mythical status, Ellen Wilkinson
appeared to be equally elusive and enigmatic. She remains a potent symbol
in the local Labour movement and of female achievement. Yet despite
her celebrity, the destruction of her personal papers and the need to piece
together fragments from a multiplicity of sources has discouraged biogra-
phers. The present renewal of scholarly interest in Ellen Wilkinson is both
overdue and timely. Her principal concerns – working-class representation,
the status of women, capitalist crisis, war, anti-fascism – remain central to
contentious politics in this decade and will most likely in the one to come
as well.
Moreover, a new conceptual repertoire allows biographers to ask
questions about her ideas, her relation to social movements and her trans-
national orientation with a new precision. This book cannot be the last
word in the study of Ellen Wilkinson. Her thought and political practice
was too wide-ranging, too complex and the evidence too partial to allow
that. This project has concentrated on unearthing new evidence in relation
to Wilkinson, particularly her political activism beyond Britain in the belief
that this would allow greater insights into her political itinerary and moti-
vation. Hopefully, it will help to stimulate more interest and discussion into
this fascinating and contradictory character.
vi
Acknowledgements
It is impossible to thank all those who have helped me with this project
and I apologise to all those who I fail to mention here. Transnational his-
tory requires reliance on the generosity of strangers and I have encountered
considerable amounts of this in my travels and enquiries in foreign archives
and libraries.
I feel a particular privilege working in the intellectually stimulating and
friendly atmosphere of the history department at Newcastle University. I
could not put a price on the support and encouragement of Joan Allen,
Claudia Baldoli, Lara Cook, Martin Farr, Tim Kirk, Alejandro Quiroga,
David Saunders, Felix Schulz and Samiksha Sehrawat. Members of the
Labour and Society Research Group – Máire Cross, Daniel Laqua and
Nicole Robertson – have provided a vibrant and supportive environment
for labour history. I must thank also Hester Barron for her kindness. Old
friends Steve Cannon and Tony Dabb have also lent a hand with reading
and criticism of my manuscript. I would also like to take the opportunity to
thank Paul Preston with help in tracking down more elusive Spain-related
sources. The editorial board at the International Review of Social History
and anonymous readers provided insightful criticism.
I owe the greatest debt to two people. David Reid accumulated materials
in the expectation of publishing a biography that never materialised. He
allowed me access to these materials when he was very ill. They are now
deposited in Newcastle University Special Collections. His spade work and
generosity was of considerable help. And finally, thanks to Christine.
vii
List of abbreviations
AEC Association of Education Committees
AUCE Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees
CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain
CWS Co-operative Wholesale Society
ILP Independent Labour Party
IWSA International Woman Suffrage Alliance
LRD Labour Research Department
LSI Labour and Socialist International
NEC National Executive Committee (Labour Party)
NJC National Joint Council (of the TUC General Council
and the Labour Party NEC)
NSDAP National Socialist (Nazi) German Worker’s Party
NUDAW National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers
NUSEC National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship
NUW(C)M National Unemployed Workers’ (Committee) Movement
NUWSS National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies
PLP Parliamentary Labour Party
PPS Parliamentary Private Secretary
USDAW Union of Shop, Distribution and Allied Workers
WCWF World Committee against War and Fascism
WFL Women’s Freedom League
WILPF Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom
WPSU Women’s Political and Social Union
viii
Introduction
Ellen Wilkinson left a profound impression upon the collective imag-
ination. She has reappeared in all manner of representations: plays,
paintings, union banners and various acts of commemoration. Housing
estates, blocks of flats, beers, a metro train, miners’ lodge banners,
offices in Labour Party Headquarters all bear her name. Subsequent
campaigns, protests and movements against the closures of the steel-
works, mines and shipyards of the north-east (sometimes carrying
the very banner under which she walked) invoke Wilkinson’s memory.
Several Labour women or north-east MPs summon her name as inspi-
ration.1 At the same time, pressures have moulded the social memory
of Wilkinson into a more conventional simplified shape. Biographer
David Reid complained after a BBC documentary in 1983 about the
programme’s misrepresentation of her as ‘a Labour Party worthy’,
which, he argued, was wide of the mark. The programme omitted her
early commitment to the Independent Labour Party’s (ILP) brand of
socialism, her work in the suffrage campaign, her Wesleyan Methodism,
her revolutionary commitment, her campaigns for India, Spain and
anti-fascism and her love affairs.2 Perhaps, the most remarkable effort
to appropriate Wilkinson for mainstream Labourism is Graham Dale’s
God’s Politicians (2000). Concerned with the influence of religion on
her politics, he assimilated her into a teleology of Christian socialist
values that has culminated with Tony Blair and his ‘modernising’ New
Labour agenda.3 A more plausible recent Labourist assessment iden-
tified the specificity of her ‘socialism with a northern accent’ (the ILP,
Victor Grayson, the Clarion Clubs and so on), which was marshalled to
make the case for regional assemblies and greater devolved powers to
the north.4
For a woman born in Victorian Ardwick (Manchester), Wilkinson’s
career is remarkable. From a humble background, she became one
of the first female MPs. Indeed, of her nineteen years at the House
of Commons, four were as Labour’s solitary female MP.5 Kenneth O.
