Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Wilkinson | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Minister of Education | |||||||||||||||||||||
In office 3 August 1945 – 6 February 1947 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Clement Attlee | ||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Richard Law | ||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | George Tomlinson | ||||||||||||||||||||
Chairman of the Labour Party | |||||||||||||||||||||
In office 4 January 1944 – 3 August 1945 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Leader | Clement Attlee | ||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | George Ridley | ||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Harold Laski | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Ellen Cicely Wilkinson 8 October 1891 Manchester, England | ||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 6 February 1947 London, England | (aged 55)||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Labour | ||||||||||||||||||||
Other political affiliations | Communist Party of Great Britain (1920–1924) | ||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | University of Manchester (BA) | ||||||||||||||||||||
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, she became a national figure when she played a prominent role in the 1936 Jarrow March of the town's unemployed to London to petition for the right to work. Although unsuccessful at that time, the March provided an iconic image for the 1930s and helped to form post-Second World War attitudes to unemployment and social justice.
Wilkinson was born into a poor though ambitious
During the Second World War, Wilkinson served in
Life
Background, childhood and education
Early years
Ellen Wilkinson was born on 8 October 1891, at 41 Coral Street in the Manchester district of Chorlton-on-Medlock.[2] She was the third child and second daughter of Richard Wilkinson, a cotton worker who became an insurance agent, and his wife, Ellen, née Wood.[3] Richard Wilkinson was a pillar of his local Wesleyan Methodist church, and combined a strong sense of social justice with forthright views on self-help; rather than espousing working-class solidarity his view, according to Ellen, was: "I have pulled myself out of the gutter, why can't they?"[4] Entirely self-educated, he ensured that his children received the best schooling available, encouraged them to read widely, and inculcated strong Christian principles.[5][6]
At the age of six Ellen began attending what she described as "a filthy elementary school with the five classes in one room".
Teaching was one of the few careers then open to educated working-class girls, and in 1906 Ellen won a bursary of £25 that enabled her to begin her training. For half the week she attended the Manchester Day Training College, and during the other half taught at Oswald Road Elementary School. Her classroom approach—she sought to interest her pupils, rather than impose learning by rote—led to frequent clashes with her superiors, and convinced her that her future did not lie in teaching.
University
Determined to carve a career for herself outside teaching, in 1910 Wilkinson sat for and won the Jones Open History Scholarship, which gave her a place at
In her final year at university Wilkinson was co-opted to the executive committee of the University Socialist Federation (USF), an inter-institutional organisation formed to bring together socialist-minded students from all over the country. This brought her new contacts, who would typically meet at Fabian summer schools to hear lectures by ILP leaders such as Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Henderson, and trade union activists such as Ben Tillett and Margaret Bondfield. Amid these distractions she continued to study hard, and won several prizes. In the summer of 1913 she sat her finals and was awarded her BA degree—not the First Class honours that her tutors had predicted, but an Upper Second. Wilkinson rationalised thus: "I deliberately sacrificed my First ... to devote my spare time to a strike raging in Manchester".[22][24][n 2]
Early career
Trade union organiser
On leaving university in June 1913, Wilkinson became a paid worker for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).[25] She helped to organise the Suffrage Pilgrimage of July 1913, when more than 50,000 women marched from all over the country to a mass rally in Hyde Park, London.[26][27] She began to develop a fuller understanding of the mechanics of politics and campaigning, and became an accomplished speaker, able to hold her own even in the most hostile public meetings.[28]
When the First World War began in August 1914, Wilkinson, like many in the Labour movement, condemned it as an imperialist exercise that would result in the deaths of millions of workers. Nevertheless, she took the role of honorary secretary of the Manchester branch of the Women's Emergency Corps (WEC), a body which found suitable war work for women volunteers. With the advent of war the NUWSS became divided between pro-war and pro-peace factions. They ultimately separated, the peacemongers (including Wilkinson's Manchester branch) eventually aligning themselves with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WIL),[29] and included Agnes Harben.[30] With little suffrage activity to organise, Wilkinson looked for another job, and in July 1915 was appointed as a national organiser for the Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees (AUCE), with particular responsibility for the recruitment of women into the union.[31] In this post she fought for equal pay for equal work, and for the rights of unskilled and lower-paid workers when these interests conflicted with those of the higher-paid craft unions.[32] She organised a series of strikes to attain these goals with notable successes in Carlisle, Coatbridge, Glasgow and Grangemouth.[33] She was less successful in managing a lengthy dispute at the Longsight print works in Manchester, in the summer of 1918, where opponents described her tactics as "unreasonable guerrilla warfare".[34] As a result of her actions Wilkinson briefly lost her job at the union, only to be swiftly reinstated after protests by members and after apologising for her role in the strike.[35][36] From 1918 she served as her union's nominee on several Trade Boards—national consultative bodies which attempted to set minimum wage rates for low-paid workers.[37] In 1921 AUCE amalgamated with the National Union of Warehouse and General Workers to form the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers (NUDAW).[38]
Wilkinson's work for the union brought new alliances, and useful new friendships—including one with
Communism
"[We] read with incredulous eyes that the Russian people, the workers, the soldiers, and peasants, had really risen and cast out the Tsar and his government ... we did no work at all in the office, we danced around tables and sang ... Everyone with an ounce of liberalism in his composition rejoiced that tyranny had fallen".
Margaret Cole, describing the British Left's reactions to the March 1917 revolution in Russia, in Growing Up into Revolution (1949)[47]
Along with many others in the Labour movement, Wilkinson's attitudes were radicalised by the
In 1921 Wilkinson attended the Red International of Labour Unions Congress and the Second Congress of Communist Women in Moscow,
Seeking elective office
Wilkinson was an early and lifetime supporter of the National Council of Labour Colleges, established in 1921 with NUDAW backing with the aim of educating working-class students in working-class principles.[56][57] She became a NUDAW-sponsored parliamentary candidate, and in 1923, while still a CPGB member, sought nomination as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for the Gorton constituency.[50] She was unsuccessful, but in November 1923 the Gorton ward elected her to Manchester City Council;[3] Hannah Mitchell, her co-worker in prewar suffrage campaigns, was a fellow councillor.[58] In her short council career—she served only until 1926[3]—Wilkinson's main areas of concern were unemployment, housing, child welfare and education.[50]
When the prime minister,
Middlesbrough MP
In opposition, 1924–29
On 8 October 1924 MacDonald's Labour government resigned, after losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons.[64] The latter stages of the ensuing general election were dominated by the controversy surrounding the Zinoviev letter, which generated a "Red Scare" shortly before polling day and contributed to a massive Conservative victory.[65][66] Labour's representation in the House of Commons fell to 152, against the Conservatives' 415;[67] Wilkinson was the only woman elected in the Labour ranks,[n 4] winning Middlesbrough East with a majority of 927 over her Conservative opponent.[69]
Wilkinson's arrival in the House of Commons attracted considerable press comment, much of it related to her bright red hair and the vivid colours of her clothing.
During the nine days' duration of the May 1926
Throughout her career Wilkinson was an opponent of imperialism. In February 1927 she attended the Founding Congress of the
In government, 1929–31
In May 1929 Baldwin called a
Almost from its inception the second MacDonald administration was overwhelmed by the twin crises of rising unemployment and the world trade recession that followed the financial crash in the latter part of 1929. The Labour Party was divided; the
"In a country that calls itself a democracy it really is a scandal that an unelected revising chamber should be tolerated, in which the Conservative Party has a permanent and overwhelming majority"
Wilkinson attacks the House of Lords, in a magazine article of August 1930[96]
With Wilkinson's assistance, the
The divisions in the Labour Party became more acute during 1931, as the government struggled to meet the May Report's recommended expenditure cuts of £97 million, the majority (£67 million) to be found from reductions in unemployment costs.[101] The government collapsed on 23 August 1931. To implement the required cuts, MacDonald and a small number of Labour MPs formed a National Government with the Conservatives and Liberals, while the bulk of the Labour Party, including Wilkinson, went into opposition.[102] In the general election that followed in October the Labour Party was utterly routed, retaining only 52 of its parliamentary seats.[67] In Middlesbrough East Wilkinson's vote was nearly the same as her 1929 total, but against a single candidate representing the National Government she was defeated by over 6,000 votes.[60]
Out of parliament, 1931–35
Wilkinson rationalised Labour's defeat in a Daily Express article, arguing that the party had lost because it was "not socialist enough", a theme she built on in numerous radical newspaper and journal articles.[103] In a less serious vein she published Peep at Politicians, a collection of humorous pen-portraits of parliamentary colleagues and opponents. She wrote that Winston Churchill was "cheerfully indifferent as to whether any new [ideas] he acquires match the collection he already possesses", and described Clement Attlee as "too fastidious for intrigue, and too modest for over-ambition".[104] Her second novel, The Division Bell Mystery, set in the House of Commons, was published in 1932; Paula Bartley, Wilkinson's biographer, acknowledges that Wilkinson was not a first-class novelist, but "the autobiographical topicality of [her] books made them very appealing".[103]
In 1932 Wilkinson was invited by the India League to join a small delegation, to report on conditions in India. During the three-month visit she met
Jarrow MP
Jarrow March
In the November 1935 general election the National Government, led by Baldwin since MacDonald's retirement earlier that year, won convincingly, although Labour increased its House of Commons representation to 158.[67] Wilkinson was returned at Jarrow with a majority of 2,350.[60] Although the poverty in the town was acute, there were hopes that its chronic unemployment would shortly be alleviated by the erection of a large steelworks on the derelict shipyard site.[113] However, the scheme was opposed by the steelmasters represented by the British Iron and Steel Federation (BISF), who thought that any increase in steel production should be handled by expanding their existing facilities.[114] On 30 June 1936 Wilkinson asked Walter Runciman, the responsible minister, "to induce the Iron and Steel Federation to pursue a less selfish policy than it is pursuing at present".[115] Her request was ignored, and the matter delayed indefinitely by the appointment of a committee to consider the general development of the iron and steel industry—a committee, a Times letter-writer noted, dominated by BISF members.[116] A deputation from Jarrow's town council met Runciman to protest against the decision, but were told that "Jarrow must find its own salvation."[117][118]
According to Wilkinson, Runciman's dismissive phrase "kindled the town".[118] Under the general leadership of its chairman, David Riley, the town council began preparations for a demonstration in the form of a march to London to present a petition to the government.[119] Marches of the unemployed, generally termed "hunger marches", had been taking place since the early 1920s, often under the auspices of the communist-led National Unemployed Workers' Movement. This political dimension had associated such marches in the public mind with far-left propaganda.[120] The Jarrow council determined to organise its march free of political connotations, and with the backing of every section of the town.[119] This did not prevent Hensley Henson, the Bishop of Durham, from denouncing it as "revolutionary mob pressure" and condemning the action of James Gordon, the Bishop of Jarrow, who gave the march his blessing.[121] Even within the Labour Party, Wilkinson found the leadership's attitude lukewarm, fearful of possible association with revolutionary socialism.[122][123]
On 5 October 1936 a selected group of 200 set out from Jarrow Town Hall on the 282-mile march,[121] aiming to reach London by 30 October for the start of the new session of parliament.[124] Wilkinson did not march all the way, but joined whenever her various commitments allowed.[125] At that year's Labour Party conference, held in Edinburgh, she hoped to rouse enthusiasm but instead heard herself condemned for "sending hungry and ill-clad men across the country".[126] This negative attitude was mirrored by some of the local parties on the route of the march; in such areas, Wilkinson recorded with irony, the Conservatives and Liberals saw to the marchers' needs.[127] On 31 October the marchers reached London, but Baldwin refused to see them.[128] On 4 November, Wilkinson presented the town's petition to the House of Commons. Signed by 11,000 citizens of Jarrow, it concluded: "The town cannot be left derelict, and therefore your Petitioners humbly pray that His Majesty's Government and this honourable House should realise the urgent need that work should be provided for the town without further delay."[129] In the brief discussion that followed, Runciman opined that "the unemployment position at Jarrow, while still far from satisfactory, has improved during recent months". In reply, a Labour backbencher commented that "the Government's complacency is regarded throughout the country as an affront to the national conscience".[130]
The marchers returned to Jarrow by train, to find their unemployment benefit reduced because they had been "unavailable for work" had any vacancies arisen.[131][132] The historians Malcolm Pearce and Geoffrey Stewart suggest that the success of the Jarrow march lay in the future; it "helped to shape [post-Second World War] perceptions of the 1930s", and thus paved the way to social reform.[133] According to Vernon, it planted the idea of social justice into the minds of the middle classes. "Ironically and tragically," Vernon says, "it was not peaceful crusading, but the impetus of rearmament which brought industrial activity back to Jarrow".[134] Wilkinson published an account of Jarrow's travails in her final book, The Town that was Murdered (1939). "Jarrow's plight", she wrote, "is not a local problem. It is the symptom of a national evil".[135]
International and domestic concerns
In November 1934, as a representative of the Relief Committee for the Victims of Fascism, Wilkinson visited the northern Spanish province of
Although she had long broken her formal ties with the British Communist Party, Wilkinson retained strong links with other communist organisations at home and abroad. Her association with leading communists such as Willi Münzenberg and Otto Katz is revealed in British intelligence files held on her.[143] However, she was not prepared to risk losing her parliamentary seat, and thus kept her rebellious behaviour within bounds.[144][145] In 1937, Wilkinson was one of a group of Labour figures—Aneurin Bevan, Harold Laski and Stafford Cripps were others—who founded the left-wing magazine Tribune; in the first issue she wrote of the need to fight unemployment, poverty, malnutrition and inadequate housing.[146] Mindful of the dependence of many low-income families on credit, she introduced a bill to regulate hire purchase agreements, at the time a subject of frequent abuse, and with all-party support she secured the passage of the Hire Purchase Act 1938.[147]
Wilkinson was a strong opponent of the National Government's appeasement policies towards the European dictators. In the House of Commons on 6 October 1938 she condemned the actions of the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain,[n 11] in signing the Munich Agreement: "Only by throwing away practically everything for which this country cared and stood could he rescue us from the results of his own policy".[149] On 24 August 1939, as parliament considered the recently signed Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Wilkinson attacked Chamberlain's failure to ally with Russia in a common front against Hitler. "Time after time", she told the Commons, "we have had the prime minister ... putting the narrow interests of his class and of the rich, before the national interest".[150]
Second World War
Wilkinson supported Britain's declaration of war on Germany, on 3 September 1939, although she was critical of Chamberlain's conduct of the war.
The discipline of working in a ministerial post, together with the influence of Morrison and her alienation from communism, turned Wilkinson away from many of her former left-wing stances. She supported Morrison's decision in January 1941 to suppress the communist newspaper
Postwar career
Leadership manoeuvres
Wilkinson had formed a close relationship with Morrison, personally and politically, before and during their wartime ministerial association.
Minister of education
Wilkinson was the second woman, after Margaret Bondfield, to achieve a place in the British cabinet.
Wilkinson made her first priority the raising of the school leaving age. This required the recruitment and training of thousands of extra teachers, and creating classroom space for almost 400,000 extra children.[171] Under the Emergency Training Scheme (ETS), ex-servicemen and women were given grants to train as teachers on an accelerated one-year programme; more than 37,000 had been or were being trained by the end of 1946.[175] The rapid expansion of school premises was achieved by the erection of temporary huts—some of which became long-term features of schools.[171] Wilkinson was determined that the higher leaving age be implemented by 1 April 1947—the date set by the 1944 Act—and in the face of parliamentary scepticism insisted that her plans were on track.[176] Final cabinet approval to honour the April date was given on 16 January 1947.[177]
Other reforms during Wilkinson's tenure as minister included free school milk, improvements in the school meals service, an increase in university scholarships,[171] and an expansion in the provision of part-time adult education through county colleges.[178] In October 1945 she went to Germany to report on how the destroyed German education system could best be reactivated.[179] She was astonished by the speed with which, five months after its defeat, the country's schools and universities were reopening. Other trips included visits to Gibraltar, Malta and Czechoslovakia.[180] In November 1945 she chaired an international conference in London that led to the establishment, a year later, of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).[179] In one of her final speeches in parliament, on 22 November 1946, she emphasised that UNESCO stood for "standards of value ... putting aside the idea that only practical things matter". She prophesied that the organisation "will do great things", and urged the government to give it its full backing.[181]
Illness and death
Wilkinson suffered for most of her life from
At the inquest the coroner gave the cause of death as "heart failure following
Appraisal and legacy
Wilkinson's short stature and distinctive red hair, combined with her uncompromising politics, gave rise to popular nicknames such as the "Fiery Particle" and "Red Ellen".[10][190] With her bright, fashionable clothes and her forceful manner, she was easily noticeable—an obituarist wrote that "wherever there was a row going on in support of some good or even fairly good cause, that rebellious redhead was sure to be seen bobbing about in the heart of the tumult".[191] In her later career, ambition and pragmatism led her to temper her earlier Marxism and militancy and work within mainstream Labour Party policy; she came to believe that parliamentary democracy offered a better route to social progress than any alternative.[192] Yet, Vernon says, "she never lost her resolute independence of thought, and sought power not for self glory but to succour the weak of the world".[193] In a tribute published when Wilkinson's death was announced, the former Conservative MP Thelma Cazalet-Keir summed up her personality: "Ellen Wilkinson was as far removed from being a bore as it is possible for any human being to be. Whatever she did, wherever she went, she created an atmosphere of excitement and interest ... and not just because of her red hair and green dress".[194]
In the course of her career Wilkinson contributed to reforms in numerous policy areas: women's equal suffrage, women civil servants' equal pay, provision of air raid shelters for city dwellers, and protection of hire purchase borrowers' rights.[195] The historian David Kynaston cites as her greatest practical achievement her success in meeting the timetable for the raising of the school leaving age;[196] her successor as education minister, George Tomlinson, recorded how hard she had fought to avoid postponement of the reform, and expressed his sorrow that she died before the set date.[197] Wilkinson was sometimes criticised for extending her efforts too widely; a local newspaper, the North Mail, complained in May 1937 that "Miss Wilkinson is working for too many causes to do justice to Jarrow".[198] Nevertheless, her book The Town that was Murdered brought to public notice the plight of Jarrow and the broader consequences of unbridled capitalism on working-class communities; the book, Harrison observes, "educated the nation".[3]
"Ellen Wilkinson was small in stature, but there were occasions when she dwarfed her colleagues by the tenacity with which she stood up for the principles she held to be right".
Violet Markham, 9 February 1947[199]
Wilkinson never married, although she enjoyed numerous close friendships with men. Apart from her early engagement to Walton Newbold, she was close to John Jagger for many years,
On 25 January 1941 Wilkinson received the freedom of the town of Jarrow,
Ellen Wilkinson was shortlisted in 2015 for the WoManchester Statue. Although Emmeline Pankhurst was decisively selected, Ellen Wilkinson polled strongly. The statue now sits in St Peter's Square, Manchester. The book First in the Fight dedicates a chapter to Ellen Wilkinson along with the other nineteen women considered for the statue.[212]
Books by Ellen Wilkinson
- A Workers' History of the Great Strike. London: Plebs League. 1927. OCLC 1300135. Co-authored with Frank Horrabin and Raymond Postgate.
- OCLC 867888837.
- Peeps at Politicians. London: P. Allen. 1931. OCLC 565308651.
- OCLC 504369261.
- The Terror in Germany. London: British Committee for the Relief of Victims of German Fascism. 1933. OCLC 35834826.
- Why Fascism?. London: Selwyn and Blount. 1934. OCLC 249889269. Co-authored with Edward Conze
- Why War?: a handbook for those who will take part in the Second World War. London: N.C.L.C. 1935. OCLC 231870528. Co-authored with Edward Conze
- The Town That Was Murdered. London: Victor Gollancz. 1939. OCLC 1423543.
- Plan for Peace: How the People can win the Peace. London: Labour Party. 1945.
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ The building housed, successively, Ardwick Higher Grade School, 1894–1911, Ardwick Central School, 1911–52, Ardwick Secondary Technical School, 1952–57, Ardwick Technical School, 1957–67, Nicholls-Ardwick High School (later Ellen Wilkinson High School), 1967 until its closure.[1]
- ^ In June 1914, 12 months after her graduation, Wilkinson's degree was upgraded to MA. In accordance with the university's regulations at that time, no thesis or further study was required.[22]
- ^ Ireland had been in a state of formal rebellion against the British government since December 1918, when the majority of Irish MPs boycotted the Westminster parliament and convened as Dáil Éireann in Dublin. After January 1919 the rebellion escalated into a prolonged armed struggle.[46]
- ^ In the 1923 general election, three Labour women—Margaret Bondfield, Susan Lawrence and Dorothy Jewson—had been elected, but all three lost their seats in 1924.[68]
- ^ The Conservative total included three women, and the Liberals, one. A further woman was elected as an Independent.[88]
- ^ The House of Commons official website explains the role of Parliamentary Private Secretaries thus: "He or she is selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the House of Commons. It is an unpaid job but it is useful for an MP to become a PPS to gain experience of working in government."[91]
- ^ Mosley left the Labour Party in February 1931 to form the New Party. Thereafter he moved steadily to the right; in 1932 dissolved the New Party and founded the British Union of Fascists.[95]
- ^ Before 1911 the House of Lords had a power of veto over Commons legislation. Under the Parliament Act 1911 this power was reduced; the Lords could delay legislation other than finance bills for a period of two years. The period of delay was reduced to one year in 1949.[100]
- ^ Wilkinson records that at the end of the meeting MacDonald said to her: "Ellen, why don't you go out and preach socialism, which is the only remedy for all this?" This "priceless remark", she says, brought home the "reality and sham ... of that warm but so easy sympathy".[110]
- ^ The four "special areas" covered by the Act were Scotland, South Wales, West Cumberland and Tyneside. Initially the amount provided for relief for all four areas was £2 million. The historian A. J. P. Taylor comments that "the old industries could not be pulled back to life by a little judicious prodding."[111]
- ^ Baldwin retired as prime minister in May 1937, and Chamberlain succeeded him.[148]
- Frank Horrabin.[189]
References
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- ^ Bartley, p. 1.
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- ^ Wilkinson 1938, p. 402.
- ^ Bartley, p. 2.
- ^ a b Vernon, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Wilkinson 1938, p. 407.
- ^ Wilkinson 1938, p. 403.
- ^ Vernon, p. 6.
- ^ a b Jackson, p. 19.
- ^ a b Bartley, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Wilkinson 1938, p. 405.
- ^ Vernon, pp. 7–8.
- ^ Wilkinson 1938, p. 408.
- ^ Jackson, p. 24.
- ^ Letter from Wilkinson to Middleton, quoted by Bartley, p. 5.
- ^ Vernon, p. 23.
- ^ a b Debenham, pp. 221–24.
- ^ Mitchell, p. 193.
- ^ Vernon, p. 9.
- ^ Vernon, p. 40.
- ^ a b c d Vernon, pp. 28–30.
- ^ Vernon, pp. 33–37.
- ^ Cole 1938, p. 67.
- ^ Jackson. p. 239.
- ^ Bartley, p. 6.
- ^ Cochrane, Kira (11 July 2013). "Join the great suffrage pilgrimage". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
- ^ Bartley, p. 7.
- ^ Bartley, pp. 8–9.
- ^ "Women's International League". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
- ^ Vernon, pp. 44–46.
- ^ Bartley, pp. 12–13.
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- ^ Cole 1949, p. 86.
- ^ a b Bartley, pp. 16–17.
- ^ Cole 1949, p. 96.
- ^ a b c d e Bartley, pp. 23–25.
- ^ a b Vernon, pp. 62–63.
- ^ Perry, pp. 74–77.
- ^ Bartley, p. 18.
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- ^ Bidwell, Syd (Spring 1953). "National Council of Labour Colleges". International Socialism (12): 25. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
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- ^ Bartley, p. 28.
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- ^ "Civil Estimates And Estimates for Revenue Departments, 1928". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard Online. 1 March 1928. pp. col. 734–35. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
- ^ Women's Leader, 7 November 1924, quoted in Vernon, p. 78.
- OCLC 1084655208.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - ^ Bartley, pp. 35–36.
- ^ "Training Centres for Women". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard Online. 10 March 1926. pp. col. 2278–79. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
- ^ Shepherd, p. 237.
- ^ Vernon, p. 88.
- ^ Bartley, p. 42.
- ^ Perry, pp. 142–143.
- ^ Bartley, p. 83.
- ^ Bartley, p. 45.
- ^ Webb, p. 133.
- ^ Perry, pp. 88–89.
- ^ Bartley, p. the 34.
- ^ "Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Bill". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard Online. 29 March 1928. pp. col. 1402–06. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
- ^ a b Bartley, p. 47.
- ^ Marquand, pp. 477–79.
- ^ "Women in Parliament and Government". United Kingdom Parliament. 18 July 2014. Retrieved 13 July 2016. (details in Table 2, p. 6 of 18-page report)
- ^ Bartley, p. 48.
- ^ Vernon, p. 102.
- ^ "Parliamentary Private Secretary". United Kingdom Parliament. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
- ^ Bartley, pp. 50–51.
- ^ Skidelsky, pp. 195–209.
- ^ Vernon, pp. 108–09.
- ^ Taylor, pp. 359 and 462.
- ^ Article in The New Dawn, 2 August 1930, quoted in Bartley, p. 53.
- ^ a b Bartley, p. 49.
- ^ "Shop (Hours of Employment) Bill". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard Online. 21 March 1930. pp. col. 2337–38. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
- ^ Bartley, pp. 52–53.
- ^ "The Parliament Acts". United Kingdom Parliament. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
- ^ Marquand, p. 609.
- ^ Blythe, pp. 282–83.
- ^ a b Bartley, pp. 56–57.
- ^ Quoted in Vernon, p. 133.
- ^ Vernon, p. 107.
- ^ Vernon, p. 158.
- ^ Perry, pp. 275–276.
- ^ Vernon, p. 138.
- ^ a b Bartley, pp. 63–64.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, pp. 195–96.
- ^ Taylor, p. 436.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, p. 200.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, pp. 172–73.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, pp. 175 and 184–85.
- ^ "Iron and Steel Works, Jarrow". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard Online. 30 June 1936. pp. col. 205–07. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, pp. 184–85.
- ^ Vernon, p. 141.
- ^ a b Wilkinson 1939, p. 198.
- ^ a b Vernon, p. 142.
- ^ Bartley, p. 88.
- ^ a b Bartley, p. 89.
- ^ Bartley, p. 91.
- ^ Vernon, p. 143.
- ^ Blythe, p. 191.
- ^ Bartley, p. 90.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, p. 204.
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- ^ Bartley, p. 93.
- ^ Blythe, p. 199.
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- ^ a b Vernon, pp. 146–47.
- ^ Wilkinson 1939, p. 283.
- ^ Bartley, pp. 75–76.
- ^ Perry, pp. 251–298.
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- ^ Helen Antrobus and Andrew Simcock, published 2019 ISBN 978-1-84547-252-8)
Sources
- Abrams, Fran (2003). Freedom's Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-425-6.
- Bartley, Paula (2014). Ellen Wilkinson: From Red Suffragist to Government Minister. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-3237-6.
- OCLC 493484388.
- Cole, Margaret, ed. (1938). The Road to Success. London: Methuen. OCLC 504641202.
- OCLC 626722.
- Debenham, Claire (2013). Birth Control and the Rights of Women: Post-suffrage Feminism in the Early 20th Century. New York: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-78076-435-1.
- Gardiner, Juliet (2010). The Thirties: An Intimate History. London: Harper Press. ISBN 978-0-00-731453-9.
- Jackson, Angela (2002). British Women and the Spanish Civil War. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27797-3.
- Jago, Michael (2014). Clement Attlee: The Inevitable Prime Minister. London: Biteback. ISBN 978-1-84954-683-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7475-9923-4.
- Leeson, D.M. (2011). The Black and Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959899-1.
- ISBN 0-224-01295-9.
- Mitchell, Hannah (1977). The Hard Way Up. London: Virago. ISBN 0-86068-002-9.
- Pearce, Malcolm; Stewart, Geoffrey (1992). British Political History, 1867–1991. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-07247-6.
- Perry, Matt (2014). Red Ellen Wilkinson: Her Ideas, Movements and World. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-8720-2.
- Shepherd, John (2002). George Lansbury: At the Heart of Old Labour. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820164-8.
- ISBN 978-0-14-021172-6.
- ISBN 0-14-021181-0.
- Vernon, Betty D. (1982). Ellen Wilkinson 1891–1947. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 0-7099-2603-0.
- OCLC 3891268.
- Wilkinson, Ellen (1938). Myself When Young: by famous women of to-day (ed. Margot Countess of Oxford and Asquith). London: F. Muller. OCLC 2155807.
- Wilkinson, Ellen (1939). The Town that was Murdered. London: Victor Gollancz.
- Wrigley, Chris (2006). A.J.P. Taylor : radical historian of Europe. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-286-9.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Ellen Wilkinson
- Ellen Wilkinson profile at Marxists Internet Archive
- Cowan, Steven; McCulloch, Gary; Woodin, Tom (May 2012). "From HORSA huts to ROSLA blocks: the school leaving age and the school building programme in England, 1943–1972" (PDF). History of Education. 41 (3): 361–80. S2CID 143633951.
- The Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People's History Museum in Manchester has material in their collection relating to Wilkinson, such as press cuttings and letters.
- Works by Ellen Wilkinson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Newspaper clippings about Ellen Wilkinson in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW