The National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) was a trade union representing women
schoolteacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
s in Great Britain. It originated in 1904 as a campaign for equal pay for equal work, and dissolved in 1961, when this was achieved.
History
Women teachers in the
National Union of Teachers
The National Union of Teachers (NUT; ) was a trade union for school teachers in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It was a member of the Trades Union Congress. In March 2017, NUT members endorsed a proposed merger with ...
(NUT) first formed a Ladies' Committee in 1896. In 1900, this became a standing committee, consisting of the women members of the executive of the union, and some male executive members in an "ex officio" role. However, the committee focused on recruitment drives and, for example, in 1906 refused to sign a petition for
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
. The union's journal, ''Board Teacher'', was opposed to equal pay for women teachers, but the Ladies' Committee was unwilling to campaign on the issue. This inspired a small number of members to form the Equal Pay League in April 1904.
The main founders of the league were L. E. Lane, a London-based teacher who had previously campaigned to equalise payments from the union's benevolent and orphanage funds, and Joseph Tate, based in Birmingham, who became its first honorary secretary. Other founder members included
Teresa Billington
Teresa Billington-Greig (15 October 1876 – 21 October 1964) was a British suffragette who helped create the Women's Freedom League in 1907. She had left another suffrage organisation – the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) – as s ...
, who soon became the group's main organiser, and her Manchester branch became the most important section of the organisation. But growth was initially slow, with only 34 members by November, and an effort to pass an equal pay policy at the NUT conference that year was unsuccessful.
In 1906 the organisation was renamed the National Federation of Women Teachers, and it adopted a new policy of opposing increases in membership dues for women, on the grounds that they received lower benefits than male members. It successfully sponsored Isabel Cleghorn's campaign to become vice-president of the NUT in 1909. Failing to persuade the NUT to support women's suffrage, many federation members were founders of the
Women Teachers' Franchise Union in 1912.
Ethel Froud became honorary secretary of the federation in 1913, the position being renamed "general secretary" in 1917; she remained in post until 1940.
![The woman-teacher-26 September 1919 edited by Emily Phipps](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/The_woman-teacher-26_September_1919_edited_by_Emily_Phipps.jpg)
By 1916, the federation's membership had grown significantly, and its members had become increasingly frustrated with continuing male control of the NUT. It decided to prepare to break away from the NUT after the conclusion of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Although the NUT finally adopted a policy of equal pay in 1919, it did not prioritise this during subsequent pay negotiations, and this was the final straw.
In 1920, the federation broke away to form an independent
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
, the "National Union of Women Teachers" (NUWT). From this date, members of the central council of the NUWT were not permitted to hold membership of the NUT. Rank-and-file members were initially permitted to also join the NUT, as the union feared that otherwise its members in rural areas would be isolated. However, the union discouraged joint membership, and prohibited it in 1932.
The NUWT was a
feminist organisation, maintaining close links with other groups and individuals in the
Feminist movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such ...
.
Its main aim was to obtain
equal pay for women
Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the ful ...
but also interested itself in the wide range of issues affecting women teachers including the marriage bar,
maternity rights
Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, Paternity (law), paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" and ...
and family allowances. It was also concerned with
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
in its widest sense and took an interest in many issues such as class sizes,
corporal punishment, the
school leaving age
The school leaving age is the minimum age a person is legally allowed to cease attendance at an institute of compulsory secondary education. Most countries have their school leaving age set the same as their minimum full-time employment age, thu ...
, teacher training, and wider social and political debates such as
capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, the
minimum wage and health policy.
Membership of the union peaked at 8,500 in the mid-1920s, and thereafter gradually declined.
In 1961, when equal pay had been achieved, the union wound up.
Members either joined the NUT or the
Association of Assistant Mistresses
The Association of Assistant Mistresses (AAM) was a trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their ...
, while the anti-feminist
National Association of Schoolmasters arranged for the formation of a new
Union of Women Teachers
The Union of Women Teachers (UWT) was a trade union for female teachers in the United Kingdom.
The National Union of Women Teachers dissolved in 1960, and women teachers thereafter could choose to join either the National Union of Teachers or th ...
.
[Mike Ironside and Roger Seifert, ''Industrial Relations in Schools'', p.92]
Presidents of the union included
Emily Phipps,
Agnes Dawson
Agnes Dawson (7 March 1873 – 20 April 1953) was a British politician and trade unionist.
Life
Dawson was born in Peckham, she became a pupil-teacher in Camberwell before qualifying as a teacher at Saffron Walden Training College. She c ...
,
Nancy Stewart Parnell and
Nan McMillan.
Secretaries
:1904: Joseph Tate
:1913:
Ethel Froud
:1941: Muriel Pierotti
Primary sources
The archive of the National Union of Women Teachers is held in th
UCL Institute of Education Archives a partial list can be found on th
online catalogue Some material from the collection has been digitised and is available to view online at UCL'
Digital Collectionswebsite.
Published histories
*
Kean, Hilda
Hilda Kean (born August 1949) is a British historian who specialises in public and cultural history, and in particular the cultural history of animals. She is former Dean and Director of Public History at Ruskin College, Oxford, and an Honora ...
, ''Deeds Not Words: The lives of suffragette teachers'', Pluto, (London, 1989).
* Phipps, Emily, ''A History of the National Union of Women Teachers'', National Union of Women Teachers, (London, 1928).
* Pierotti, A.M ''The Story of the National Union of Women’s Teachers'', (London, 1963).
See also
*
Equal pay for women
Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the ful ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:National Union Of Women Teachers
Defunct trade unions of the United Kingdom
Education trade unions
Women's organisations based in England
1904 establishments in the United Kingdom
Trade unions established in 1904