Working-Class Women and Labour Politics in South Wales, c1945-1970 – An Overview

In this blog, Micaela Panes shows how working class women’s contribution to labour politics in south Wales after the Second World War has often been overlooked, and argues that women played a significant part in  local labour politics.   

  

The experience of working-class women activists in post-war Wales is a particularly neglected area in British political history. Scholarship has predominantly focused on what has been considered the ‘golden era’ of women’s labour activism - the interwar years. Unlike scholarship on the interwar period which often has a regional focus, most studies exploring women’s Labour politics in the post-war period tend to take a more national and institutional approach. Although these studies are valuable for our understanding of British Labour and women’s politics, there is a tendency to overlook the significance of grassroots politics and the experience of rank-and-file women.

The period 1945 to 1970 is one of great political, cultural, and economic change, particularly for working-class women in south Wales. South Wales has often been characterised as having an overtly masculine landscape due to the prominence of heavy industry dominated by men, such as work in coal and steel, and a political culture built on the back of male-dominated trade unions. The changing economic contexts following the war, such as the growth in manufacturing in Wales, resulted in industry throughout south Wales becoming less masculine with the large-scale entry of married women into employment and their domination of factory production lines.

Women’s participation in political organisations in south Wales had been growing throughout the early to mid-twentieth century, especially following the Labour Party’s decision to allow women to become official Party members in 1918. Labour Party women’s sections became significant organisations in local communities throughout south Wales, and women contributed to a significant portion of individual membership between the wars.

Despite a steady growth in women’s activism and Labour Party involvement throughout the interwar period, the post-war period saw some decline in working-class women’s participation in party politics in south Wales. Historians, such as Neil Evans and Dot Jones, have argued that in Wales the end of the ‘golden era’ of women’s activism was marked by Elizabeth Andrews retiring from her role as Women’s Labour Organiser for Wales in 1948, leaving the grassroots movement in south Wales weakened due to a lack of focus and unity in constituencies.

 

Advertisement for new Labour Woman Organiser for Wales, The Labour Woman, November 1947

Furthermore, women’s organisations struggled to maintain and increase membership in the post-war period. This was due to a range of factors, perhaps most predominantly the aging demographic of women members and the struggles in appealing to and recruiting younger members. The aging membership and difficulty in recruiting younger members led to Labour women worrying about the growing sense of apathy amongst the younger generation of voters and feared that their efforts and achievements would be undone.

Although there was an increase in women in paid employment following the war, Sections and Guild branches in south Wales also struggled to keep up with rising annual membership fees – leading to a number of branches attempting to amalgamate or closing.

While historians have seen the post-war period as one of decline for the women’s sections, my research has revealed that Labour Party women’s sections, and non-party organisations such as Women’s Co-Operative Guild branches, continued to be the main form of organisation for labour women; membership was often shared between both organisations.

Following Elizabeth Andrews’ retirement in 1948 and Ismay Hill’s short stint in the two-years following, Megan Roach led the Welsh women’s sections as Wales’s Labour Party Women’s Organiser throughout the post-war period. Roach focused much of her efforts on organising rural areas and north Wales, regions which had caused previous organisers difficulty due to political and cultural issues. Roach did successfully establish branches in areas defined by Labour as ‘politically backward’, such as Brecon and Pembrokeshire, however again many of these were short lived. Despite this, women still maintained approximately 40% of individual party membership throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

There are many continuities in the campaigns local labour women were promoting throughout the post-war period. Like the interwar period, mother and child welfare was still very much on the agenda for labour women. The Labour Party’s 1945 election success and the birth of the National Health Service inspired a growth of labour women’s political confidence, and many were keen to note how it was their influence and campaign efforts in the decades between the wars which contributed to the reforms in welfare and health. It was this confidence which ensured the fight for improved women’s health services was on the agenda in south Wales throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

In addition to health and welfare campaigns, there was also a continued focus on growing services such as childcare and nursery schools. Despite these being continued campaigns, Section and Guild minute books highlight how this renewed focus on improving and expanding childcare and education was now motivated by a new focus on women’s paid employment as opportunities expanded in the post-war period.

The changing attitudes towards married women and employment resulted in concerns regarding the discrimination against women in employment, notably media debates over ‘latch-key children’. Women’s sections did not use this as a factor in arguing against married women and mothers right to work, but rather as a case for why it is important that local authorities extend day nurseries and play schools.

Although only an overview of labour women’s activism in south Wales following the Second World War, this blog has hopefully demonstrated that despite the area being historiographically neglected and depicted as one of great decline, labour women’s activism was still very much alive and active in local communities. Working-class women remained a significant force in grassroots labour history, a factor which has perhaps contributed to the one hundred years of Labour Party dominance in Wales.

Many thanks to the WESWWHN for awarding me the research bursary which has supported me in gathering much of this research.

 

Biography

Micaela Panes is a PhD student at Cardiff University. Her research explores emotion, belonging and political identities in working class women’s political activism in south Wales and south-west England, c.1928-1969.

 

Sources

Co-operative Women’s Guild Records, West Glamorgan Archives, D/D Co-op CWG

Minute Book of the Llanelli Federation of the Labour Women’s Advisory, National Library Wales

Minutes of the Annual South and North Wales Conference and Summer School of the Labour Women’s Advisory Council, National Library of Wales

Minutes of the East Glamorgan Labour Women’s Advisory Council, National Library of Wales

Papers of Penderry Labour Women's Section, West Glamorgan Archives, D185

Women's Archive of Wales/Archif Menywod Cymru: Records of the West Wales Labour Women's Advisory Council, West Glamorgan Archives, WAW6