The National Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations was an organisation representing women active in the
labour movement in the United Kingdom.
The organisation was founded in 1916 by the
National Federation of Women Workers
The National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW) was a trade union in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland active in the first part of the 20th century. Instrumental in winning women workers the right to a minimum wage for the first ti ...
,
Women's Co-operative Guild,
Women's Labour League
The Women's Labour League (WLL) was a pressure organisation, founded in London in 1906, to promote the political representation of women in parliament and local bodies. The idea was first suggested by Mary Macpherson, a linguist and journalist who ...
,
Women's Trade Union League and
Railway Women's Guild
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pr ...
, as the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations (SJCIWO). It aimed to represent women workers, by helping them gain representation on relevant bodies at the local, national and international level.
It became closely aligned with the
Labour Party, and the Chief Women's Officer of the party acted as the group's secretary.
By 1932, the group's constitution stated that the following organisations could become affiliates: "the Labour Party, the
Trades Union Congress, the Women's Co-operative Guild, and the Railway Women's Guild; and organisations affiliated to the Labour Party or the Trades Union Congress, of which a substantial number of the members are women, which are national in character, and are accepted by the committee".
In 1941, the group was renamed as the ''Standing Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations, and then in 1952 it adopted its final name.
By 1993, the group's members believed that its purposes were better served by other organisations in the labour movement, and it dissolved.
[Peter Barberis, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, ''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations'', pp.462–463]
Secretaries
:1916: Mary Longman
:1917:
Marion Phillips
:1932:
Mary Sutherland
:1960:
Sara Barker
:1962: Constance Kay
:1967:
Betty Lockwood
:1975:
Joyce Gould
:1985: Anne Wilkinson
Chairs
:1916:
Mary Macarthur
Mary Reid Anderson (née Macarthur; 13 August 1880 – 1 January 1921) was a Scottish suffragist (although at odds with the national groups who were willing to let a minority of women gain the franchise) and was a leading trades unionist. She ...
:1921:
Margaret Bondfield
:1923:
Florence Harrison Bell
Florence Nightingale Harrison Bell (8 October 1865 – September 1948) was a British socialist and suffragist activist.
Life
Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 8 October 1865 as Florence Tait. She was the illegitimate daughter of Isabella Tait. ...
:1925:
Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, s ...
:1928:
Jennie Lee
:1930:
Clara Rackham
:1931: Dorothy Elliott
:1931:
Barbara Ayrton-Gould
Barbara Bodichon Ayrton-Gould (née Ayrton; 3 April 1886 – 14 October 1950) was a British Labour politician and suffragist who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hendon North from 1945 to 1950.
Background and family life
Ayrton-Gou ...
:1932:
Susan Lawrence
Arabella Susan Lawrence (12 August 1871 – 24 October 1947) was a British Labour Party politician, one of the earliest female Labour MPs.
Early life
Lawrence was the youngest daughter of Nathaniel Tertius Lawrence, a wealthy solicitor, and ...
:1934:
Eleanor Barton
:1935:
Anne Loughlin
:1937:
Anne Godwin
:1938:
Grace Colman
:1940: E. Martin
:1943: K. M. Shade
:1944:
Florence Hancock
:1946: Margaret Allen
:1949:
Mabel Crout
:1952: Jessie Smith
:1967: Millie Miller
:1969: T. Hinchey
:1971: J. Lipson
:
:1983: Rita Stephen
References
Political advocacy groups in the United Kingdom
Labour movement in the United Kingdom
Women's organisations based in the United Kingdom
Organizations established in 1916
1916 establishments in the United Kingdom
Organizations disestablished in 1993
1993 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Labour Party (UK)
History of women in the United Kingdom