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 The National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) was a trade union representing women schoolteachers 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 te ...

(NUWT), for which she worked for more than 35 years.

Life

A. Muriel Pierotti was born in Bristol in 1897, and moved with her family to London when she was ten years old. Soon after, her mother joined the suffrage campaigning organisation the

Women's Freedom League The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access ...

, involving her daughters from an early age. Muriel remained a member of the Women's Freedom League throughout the 1920s and was an active suffragist. Pierotti's father was a socialist, who worked in the postal service. Pierotti was educated at elementary schools, leaving at 18 to work in the Civil Service. She qualified as a secretary, working for a number of years at a hospital school run by Mrs Kate Hervey, a friend of

Charlotte Despard Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the I ...

. In 1925, Pierotti moved to the National Union of Women Teachers, becoming Assistant Secretary in 1931. Also in 1925, she authored a suffrage pamphlet titled ''What We Have and What We Want!'' In September 1941, she took over from

Ethel Froud Ethel Elizabeth Froud (11 April 1880 – 21 May 1941) was a British trade unionist and feminist born at The Willows, Loose, Maidstone, Kent. She helped create the National Union of Women Teachers as a British feminist autonomous union. Early l ...

as General Secretary of the NUWT, remaining in post until the organisation disbanded in 1961. A history of the NUWT, written by Pierotti, was published in 1963. Pierotti was a devoted trade unionist, and took an active role in the Equal Pay Campaign of the 1940s and 1950s, acting as vice chair of the committee. Hers was the first signature on the 1954 petition requesting equal pay for men and women in the public services. During the 1940s, she was a member of the Joint Standing Committee of Women's Organisations, which considered questions relating to women's status, and from 1945 to 1978 was a leading figure in the Status of Women Committee. Pierotti deposited her papers with the

Women's Library The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...

. She died in Oxfordshire on 25 October 1982. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Pierotti, recorded by Brian Harrison in August 1974, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled ''Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.'' Pierotti talked about her mother’s suffragism, including her involvement with the Women’s Freedom League, and her friendships with

Teresa Billington-Greig 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 ...

and

. She also discussed her own involvement in the National Union of Women Teachers, and the London Children’s Care Committee.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pierotti, Muriel 1897 births 1982 deaths 20th-century British women British trade unionists British trade union leaders British suffragists British socialist feminists British feminists People from Bristol