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117 pages

English

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Causes in Common tells the compelling and revealing story of women's politics in modern Wales. Its panoramic sweep takes the reader on a journey from the nineteenth-century campaigns in support of democracy and the right to vote, and in opposition to slavery, through to the construction of the labour movement in the twentieth century, and on to the more recent demands for sexual liberation and LGBTQ+ rights. At its core is the argument that the Welsh women’s movement was committed to social democracy, rather than to liberal or conservative alternatives, and that material conditions were the central motivation of those women involved. Drawing on an array of sources, some of which appear in print for the first time, this is a vivid portrait of women who, out of a struggle for equality, individually and collectively became political activists, grassroots journalists, members of councils and parliaments, and inspirational community leaders.

List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Women and Politics Before the Vote
2. A Women’s Labour Party
3. Between the Acts
4. Against Austerity and War
5. Raising Consciousness
6. Women’s Liberation, Now!
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

Sujets

Histoire

20th century

Great Britain

History

Wales

Europe

Informations

Publié par	University of Wales Press
Date de parution	01 avril 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781786838568
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0750€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

CAUSES IN COMMON

Daryl Leeworthy, 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
E-PDF: 9781786838551 EPUB: 9781786838568
The right of Daryl Leeworthy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The University of Wales Press acknowledges the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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Contents
Figure
Abbreviations
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 . Before the Vote
CHAPTER 2 . A Women s Labour Party
CHAPTER 3 . Between the Acts
CHAPTER 4 . Against Fascism, Austerity and War
CHAPTER 5 . Raising Consciousness
CHAPTER 6 . Women s Liberation, Now!
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Figure
Branch attendance at Tynewydd Women s Section, 1925 compared with 1926
Abbreviations
AL
Aberdare Leader
ABTC
Anti Bread Tax Circular
ACLC
Anti Corn Law Circular
BDN
Barry Dock News
BH
Barry Herald
BLSA
British Library Sound Archive
CHE
Campaign for Homosexual Equality
CPA
Communist Party Archive
CPGB
Communist Party of Great Britain
CT
Cardiff Times
DH
Daily Herald
DM
Daily Mirror
DW
Daily Worker
EEx
Evening Express
FCH
Flintshire County Herald
GA
Glamorgan Advertiser
GG
Glamorgan Gazette
GLA
Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff
GLF
Gay Liberation Front
GN
Gay News
ILP
Independent Labour Party
IWD
International Women s Day
LHASC
Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester
LL
Labour Leader
LP
Labour Party
LSE
London School of Economics
LW
Labour Woman
NEC
National Executive Committee
NLW
National Library of Wales
MEx
Merthyr Express
MM
Monmouthshire Merlin
MP
Member of Parliament
MPn
Merthyr Pioneer
MSG
Miners Support Group
MT
Merthyr Telegraph
NG
Neath Guardian
NS
Northern Star
NWWN
North Wales Weekly News
PO
Pontypridd Observer
PTG
Port Talbot Guardian
RBA
Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University
RDC
Rural District Council
RGASPI
Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, Moscow
RL
Rhondda Leader
RS
Rhondda Socialist
SCOLAR
Special Collections and Archives, Cardiff University
SpR
Spare Rib
SWCC
South Wales Coalfield Collection
SWDN
South Wales Daily News
SWDP
South Wales Daily Post
SWE
South Wales Echo
SWG
South Wales Gazette
SWMF
South Wales Miners Federation
SWML
South Wales Miners Library
TNA
The National Archives, Kew, London
TV/TS
Transvestite/Transsexual *
UDC
Urban District Council
WCG
Women s Co-operative Guild
WGA
West Glamorgan Archives, Swansea
WM
Western Mail
WLL
Women s Labour League
WLM
Women s Liberation Movement
WWP
W. W. Price Collection, Aberdare Library
WV
Western Vindicator

_____________
* Note that these are legacy terms and appear here only in reference to historic material.
Introduction
J ust after six o clock in the evening on 13 March 1950, Dorothy Mary Rees rose to her feet in the House of Commons. She was 51 years old; the first working-class woman sent by a Welsh electorate to represent them in Westminster. Just over a fortnight earlier, at the general election, she had defeated her Conservative opponent in the Barry constituency by a margin of more than 1,000 votes. Notes in hand, she explained to her colleagues that I speak as a housewife . This was to be her first parliamentary identity. She had intervened in a King s Speech debate on the Labour government s housing policies. Women , she said, appreciate the fact that the houses built since 1945 have better accommodation, better fitments, better kitchens, better bathrooms, and better floor finishing . She then praised the high standards which the minister, Aneurin Bevan, had insisted upon during the 1945-50 government. Eschewing the traditional form of parliamentary maiden speeches, with their renditions of constituency details, Dorothy Rees instead asserted her own knowledge and authority as a politician. She told those in the chamber that she had been a local councillor and heavily involved in the delivery of public housing, and thus, I feel that I know something about the problem and the need of people for homes, and about the administrative end of providing those homes .
The speech was received warmly by commentators, and the following morning newspapers reported both its contents and Dorothy Rees s appointment as parliamentary private secretary to the veteran Labour MP and Minister for National Insurance, Dr Edith Summerskill. 1 In this role, Dorothy Rees joined the British delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Dublin, speaking on recent reforms to child welfare services in the UK - as part of a lengthy debate on a child protection resolution. 2 Other topics discussed during the week-long conference included the teaching of history, how to restore and maintain world peace (the Korean War had recently broken out), and the global response to famine and food supply shortages. 3 However, it was the fair sprinkling of women parliamentarians, deputies and senators who were present which caught the imagination of journalists sent to cover proceedings. 4 Alongside Dorothy Rees, who was the only woman in the British delegation, were women from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Israel and Pakistan, as well as from observers such as the International Labour Organisation. Their participation symbolised the growing influence of women in national parliaments and at the inter-governmental level.
For her second major parliamentary speech, delivered in December 1950, an increasingly confident Dorothy Rees added to the public portrait of her life. I am , she told members, a docker s daughter and have lived among the dock workers all my life . Much of what that meant - and the experiences entailed - was left to one side, although the assertion of a working-class identity was plain enough. When parliamentary activities attracted the attention of journalists, a long career in public service and nearly two decades in electoral politics was often minimised; in such portraits Dorothy Rees was merely a widow and housewife . 5 Only rarely was her career as a schoolteacher mentioned. 6 She was born on 29 July 1898 and grew up in a Welsh-speaking household in the shadow of Barry docks, when it was the largest coal port in the world. Her father, Henry Jones, worked as a boilermaker s assistant for one of the port s numerous ship-repair businesses - an industry to which Dorothy made deliberate reference in her parliamentary speeches. Catherine Jones (n e Evans), Dorothy s mother, remained at home looking after her daughter and a much younger son, John. As a child, Dorothy proved herself a gifted pupil and progressed, on a scholarship, from Holton Road School to Barry County School for Girls.
In 1916, having completed secondary education, Dorothy Rees went to Barry Training College. She qualified as a schoolteacher just as the First World War entered its final stages. Her career ended abruptly when she married David George Rees (1898-1938), a merchant seaman and Barry native, in 1926. Rees had been decorated with the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for his service in the Royal Navy during the war. 7 Not yet 30 years old and with no children, Dorothy Rees now devoted herself to public service. She was co-opted on to Barry Education Committee, making use of her practical experience in the classroom to shape local policy; she became steadily more active within the Labour Party, and its women s section in particular, which she joined just after the First World War; and then she began to run for office in the early 1930s. 8 In 1934, she succeeded and was elected on to both Barry Urban District Council (for the central ward) and Glamorgan County Council (for the Barry dock ward). 9 She specialised in education, health and housing, and was a prominent fixture of the respective council committees. During the Second World War, she was appointed to a post with the Ministry of Food and was subsequently appointed agent for the Barry and Llandaff Constituency Labour Party ahead of the 1945 general election.
After the war, Dorothy Rees resumed her career in local government. Before her eventual retirement, she served on almost every major public body in Wales, from the Welsh Joint Education Committee, to the Welsh Teaching Hospitals Management Board, to the BBC. She was only the second woman to be elected chair of Glamorgan County Council, following in the footsteps of her friend, Rose Davies. In 1964, Dorothy Rees was awarded a CBE for services to local administration. A damehood followed in 1975. No wonder that, in his portrait published in the centenary history of Barry in the 1980s, Peter Stead observed of Dorothy Rees that she seemed almost to be the local spokesman of the Welfare State . 10 For all that, as Deirdre Beddoe has pointed out, Dorothy Rees was an ordinary woman whose parents, Henry and Catherine, had once lodged with the historian s own