Helen Cordiner – Labour Party Activist and Social Reformer

For our latest blog, we caught up with WESWWHN Treasurer, June Hannam. June was one of the speakers at our AGM in December 2020, when she spoke to us about her research into Helen Cordiner, a Bath Labour Party activist and social reformer between the wars.

Hallo, June, and welcome to the blog. First of all, tell us a little about yourself.  

I worked for many years at Bristol Polytechnic, subsequently University of the West of England, where I was always keen to promote women’s history through teaching, research and membership of the Women’s History Network, both locally and nationally. My research and publications focused on socialist women and feminism from the 1880s to c1930s, and publications include Isabella Ford, 1855-1924 (Oxford, Blackwell, 1989); Socialist Women; Britain c1880s-1920s (with WESWWN Committee Member Karen Hunt) (Routledge, 2002); and Feminism, (Harlow, Longman Pearson, 2012).

Since I retired, my research has had a more local focus on Bristol. I’ve looked at the women’s movement, the suffrage campaign and the Independent Labour Party during and after the First World War and have published a pamphlet for Bristol Radical History Group on Mabel Tothill: Feminist, Socialist, Pacifist. I’m treasurer of WESWWHN and, with Kath Holden, organize the Larkhall History Society in Bath. And I’ve been able to spend more time on history projects in Bath: I’m a trustee of the Museum of Bath at Work and a patron of the Cleveland Pools restoration project. 

Helen Cordiner, Bath Chronicle, 15 January 1921

Tell us a little more about your research topic, Helen Cordiner.

Helen Cordiner, the wife of a cabinet maker, was active in the Bath Labour Party and the Women’s Co-operative Guild in the 1920s and 30s. She was unsuccessful in her many attempts to get elected to the City Council but that did not mean that she was left without a voice. She campaigned tirelessly for better housing, education and welfare services for working-class people in the city using different spaces to get her message across. She was an elected member of the Board of Guardians, active in the Bath Infant Welfare Association, and was a co-opted member of the Education Committee and the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee. The aim of my talk was to explore the importance of one woman’s political activism in a small provincial city at a time when the local electorate had increased significantly and welfare issues had become more important for political parties. 

She sounds like a fascinating woman. Why did you decide to do this research about her?

I became interested in Helen Cordiner when Stuart Burroughs, Director of the Museum of Bath at Work, asked if I knew of any women who were active in public life south of the river in Bath for a project involving a theatre group. I had a vague memory that in preparing a talk about the impact of the 1918 Representation of the People Act in Bath I had come across a woman who had stood as a candidate in Twerton for election to the city council. When I looked in the local press I found that her name was Helen Cordiner. I was then surprised to see that there were numerous references to her over the next two decades and that she was described as a prominent or leading social reformer in the city. I thought it was unusual for a woman from a working-class background who was active in labour politics to have a high profile in the city such as Bath and this made me intrigued to want to find out more.

What sort of material was available to you?

I did the research during lockdown so I mainly had to use on line resources. Most material came from the Bath Chronicle and to some extent the Western Daily Press. There were detailed reports of meetings, Helen’s speeches, and of her different activities. Some personal information could also be gleaned from the newspapers. For example, when Helen’s husband died. Details of Helen’s family came from Ancestry.com, and especially the census, and were found for me by Linda Watts. I also had material from Labour Woman that I had used for previous research and I found references to Helen there.  

Newspapers are usually the best source anyway for researching local labour/socialist women.  

 

Oldfield Park Clinic, Bath Chronicle, 9 April 1921

Did you discover anything surprising or unexpected?

I was surprised to find that Helen was so active in pursuing social reform issues over such a long time – and I had never heard of her. Or rather, I had never noticed her even though she appeared in some of my research notes! So it’s a classic case of needing to focus on someone in order to get a broad picture of what they were doing. I was also surprised to see how significant the Women’s Cooperative Guild was in Bath. It was certainly more important than the Bath Women’s Section of the Labour Party. I was also interested to see the significance of the Infant Welfare Association. which drew women together across the different political parties.

Are you planning to do any more research on this topic?

I would like to continue with research on this topic to find out more about the Women’s Co-operative Guild in Bath; women’s role on the city council; and the different organisations they used to get their voices heard.

As libraries and archives open up I need to look at local directories; documents of the co-operative movement in Bath; etc. 

Available from Bristol Radical History Group

Women’s involvement in politics at a local level in the inter-war years needs to be explored so that we can test generalisations about what happened to the women’s movement in that period and, more specifically, what were the aims and aspirations of labour women once the vote had been achieved.  It’s important to look at these issues for small cities such as Bath, which are often neglected, not only to provide a more complete picture of women’s engagement in political life, but also to remind ourselves that there are different stories to be told about Bath’s history that are not just about Romans or Jane Austen.

Thank you, June! Your research certainly demonstrates the importance – and fascination – of local women's history.

 

Why not tell us about your research? You can find guidelines on writing for the WESWWHN Blog here.