Gertrude Isabella Morton Horton, born Gertrude Isabella Morton Robertson (26 August 1901 – 19 May 1978) was a British feminist who ran the

Townswomen's Guild Members representing their Federation at the 2009 AGM in Birmingham The Townswomen's Guild (TG) is a British women's organisation. There are approximately 30,000 members, 706 branches and 77 Federations throughout England, Scotland, Wales an ...

for over 25 years and then took a leading role in the Fawcett Society. She led a campaign for equal pay for women which led to parliamentary agreement for all public workers by 1955.

Life

Horton was born in Chelsea. Her parents were the miniaturist Jane Faulkner (born Walters) and the painter Charles Kay Robertson. She was good at science and attended the North London Collegiate School before taking a degree at London University. She was active in the National Union of Students and she would have liked to have become a teacher but she had married a research chemist named Harold Vivian Horton and women teachers had to be single. It was expected that women would be supported by their husbands but Horton was determined to be independent. She used her experience of the NUS to obtain job with the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC). In 1927 Eva Hubback left the organisation and Horton became NUSEC's parliamentary and organizing secretary. Here she would learn to lobby parliament. In 1928 all women over the age of 21 were given the vote as a result of the Equal Franchise Act irrespective of their property, education or previous interests. The following year the idea of urban Guilds was launched by Margery Corbett Ashby, for women to meet and learn about citizenship and how to use the vote. The idea was to be based on the successful Women's Institutes, but the new guild was designed to appeal to urban women. In 1932 the organisation had 146 guilds and it became the National Union of Townswomen's Guilds and Horton became its National Secretary.

Alice Franklin Alice Caroline Franklin OBE (1 June 1885 – 6 August 1964) was a British feminist, secretary of the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage and The Society for the Oversea Settlement of British Women, and a key figure in the running of the Townswomen ...

became the honorary (ie unpaid) secretary in 1933. The two of them worked closely together. They both had suffrage backgrounds. Horton's mother had been active and Alice's brother was the first suffragette to be released under the Cat and Mouse Act. Horton would lobby member's of parliament. She and Franklin published a national handbook from the central offices in Cromwell Place in London in 1938. The handbook included rules, regulations and advice on finance and democracy and how to organise a meeting. By 1939 she was the national secretary to 544 guilds with 54,000 members. In 1939 her father died and during the war the central guild organisation was reduced to just Franklin and Horton. They would shelter from bombing in the cellar of their offices during raids. One night in April 1941 while sheltering Horton lost four more members of her family to a bomb in Hampstead. 1948 saw reorganisation when Mary Courtney was elected as a new national secretary by a group who disapproved of Franklin and Horton's leadership style. Franklin resigned after a dispute over who would chair committees. Horton refused to resign in protest and she was forced out in 1949. In 1951 she became the secretary for the Equal Pay Campaign Committee (EPCC). That year

Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, h ...

said that equal pay for women would drive up prices. Horton realised this “distressing statement” required a reaction and she wrote to Irene Ward, Barbara Castle and Liberal politician Jo Grimond asking that they raise this in parliament. Irene Ward raised the matter on 2 August pointing out that Gaitskell had "caused great resentment and bitterness" with his "unfair and inaccurate” claims. Labour MP

Charles Pannell Thomas Charles Pannell, Baron Pannell, PC (10 September 1902 – 23 March 1980) was a British Labour Party politician. He entered local politics in the outer London suburbs: he was a member of Walthamstow Borough Council from 1929 to 1936 an ...

called on the government to make a definite decision on equal pay and Horton as EPCC called for a petition with a target of a million signatures. A petition was organised for "equal pay for equal work" and it was combined with a rival petition to create a joint demand signed by over 80,000 people. The first page was signed by Irene Ward,

Muriel Pierotti Muriel Pierotti (7 July 1897 – 25 October 1982) was an English feminist and trade unionist. She was a leading figure in the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT), for which she worked for more than 35 years. Life A. Muriel Pierotti was born ...

Ethel Watts Ethel Watts Mumford (1876/1878 – 1940) was an American author from New York City. The surname Mumford came from her first husband, George D. Mumford, a lawyer (married 1894–1901). After her first husband grew intolerant of her prolific writ ...

Philippa Strachey Philippa Strachey, CBE (19 April 1872 – 23 August 1968) was a British suffragist. She organised major suffrage demonstrations and went on to lead the Fawcett Society. Life Pippa was born in Knightsbridge as the fifth child of the large St ...

and Horton. By 1956 the Equal Pay Campaign Committee disbanded having achieved agreement to the introduction, in stages, of equal pay in the public sector. Full Equal Pay by law did not happen until it was introduced Barbara Castle the Equal Pay Act in 1970.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Horton, Gertrude Isabella Morton 1901 births 1978 deaths British feminists People from Chelsea, London British suffragists