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Josef Mueller was born in 1910, the 18th of 19 children of David and Rosa Mueller in Mosbach, Baden Wuerttemberg. After school he trained as a bookbinder and picture frame-maker, in which trade he worked, interspersed with periods of unemployment, until he joined the SS in 1936, where he commenced working full-time for the organisation in Heidelberg. He married Rosa Krauss on 22 March 1937 and they had 2 children. He joined the Waffen SS in September 1939. After sustaining an injury fighting in Russia, he was sent to work for the Chief of Police in Cracow, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger. He was involved with 'resettling' Jews and became commandant of the work camps at Plaszow. It was during this period that he committed war crimes.

On 5 March 1944 he was captured by the Russians near Lublinca. He stayed in various POW camps in Nowosibirsk, Moscow and Stalinowgorsk. According to the embassy of the USSR in West Germany, he was sentenced to 25 years hard labour in 1949 for 'Crimes against the Soviet people during the war by Fascist Germany'. On 14 October 1955 he was released and he returned to Germany, where he lived with his family in Limbach, until re-arrest by the German authorities in 1960. He was tried and convicted of murder, incitement and accessory to murder on numerous counts, in August 1961. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but released on parole in November 1970.

Wilhelm Rosenbaum was born in 1915 and was found guilty of multiple murders whilst in charge of the police training school at Bad Rabka, Poland. He received 16 life sentences at his trial in Hamburg in 1968, but was released shortly after on the grounds of ill health.

Cecil Roth (1899-1970), Jewish historian and editor in chief of the Encyclopedia Judaica, was born in London, saw active service in the British infantry in 1918 before entering Merton College, Oxford, obtaining his doctorate in 1925. He trained as an historian with a special interest in Italy, his first major work being The Last Florentine Republic. He was reader in Jewish Studies at Oxford from 1939-1964. When he retired in 1964 he settled in Jerusalem, taking up a visiting professorship at Bar-Ilan University.

Walter Gordon was a Jewish doctor from Hildesheim, Lower Saxony.Max Nelki was a Jewish resident of Hamburg during the 1930s, who was sentenced to 2 years for race defilement and spent some time in a concentration camp; found refuge in Shanghai; and returned to Hamburg after the war.

The slave labour camp at Moerfelden-Walldorf, 30km south of Frankfurt, housed mostly Jewish women prisoners, who worked either on preparing the ground for building Frankfurt airport or for the company Züblin und Cie AG. It was open from 2 November 1943 to 26 March 1945.

The SS (Schutzstaffel) was founded in 1925 with the object of protecting the Nazi Perty leader, Adolf Hitler. By 1936, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the SS had assumed responsiblity for all police and security matters throughout the Third Reich.

Wolfram Sievers, who became the Reichsgeschäftsführer der Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutschen Ahnenerbe (the Director of the Society for Research into the Spiritual Roots of Germany's Ancestral Heritage), was born in 1905 the son of an evangelical church musician in Hildesheim. His Gymnasium schooling was aborted not, as he claimed on the witness stand at the Nuremberg Trials, because he had to find a practical occupation on account of the difficulties caused by the separation of his parents, but, as he states in his SS- Personalfragebogen, because of his desire to be more actively involved in the 'deutsch-völkisch' Schutz und Trutzbund. Thus demonstrating from early on his fascination for German ethnicity and pre-Christian culture.

Sievers was a witness at the first Nuremberg War Crimes Trial and was himself convicted of being a war criminal on account of his involvement in experimentation on concentration camp prisoners. He was executed on 2 June 1948.

Nothing is known about H. Loebl. Josephine Winter was a Jewish immigrant to Great Britain from Vienna.

The Central Information Bureau for Jewish War Sufferers in the Far East was founded in 1917 by Sam Mason, a special delegate sent by the Hebrew Immigrant Society (better known as HIAS) in New York. Its function was to deal with the problem of refugees attempting to reach America (and other countries) from the Far East. The main office was established in Harbin, China, but branches were also set up in Yokohama, Japan, and Vladivostok on the eastern seaboard of the Soviet Union. Though the Bureau continued to deal with the problems of victims of the 1914-1918 First World War until the late 1920's, it changed its official name to The Far Eastern Central Information Bureau in 1923 and took its cable address 'DALJEWCIB' which became the organisation's name in everyday use. At this time Meir Birman became involved in the Bureau's work and was to manage it until its dissolution some 25 years later. Connected with HIAS since 1918, the Bureau worked in very close co-operation with the umbrella Jewish refugee organization HICEM (the amalgamation of HIAS, JCA and the Emigre organisation of Berlin). From 1938, the numbers of German, Austrian and other central European Jews, including Polish and Czechoslovakians, requesting asylum grew drastically. With the Japanese occupation of northern China in the early 1930s, the situation of the Jews in Harbin deteriorated, until, in September 1939, the Bureau moved its head office to Shanghai. At that time Shanghai remained one of the few places, which refugees could enter without a visa. Throughout 1939 and 1940, Jews continued to flood into Shanghai, until with the outbreak of the Pacific War some 18,000 Jewish refugees reached Shanghai, of which about 8,000 originated from Germany and about 4,000 from Austria. At the end of the Pacific War in August 1945 the Bureau formed part of the world-wide chain of organisations trying to trace other Jewish refugees in order to place the Shanghai refugees in secure countries. This work continued for a number of years after the war ended.

Dr. Käthe Spiegel was the daughter of the Professor of Public Law at the German University of Prague, and for many years senate member of the Parliament of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Ludwig Spiegel. She trained as a historian and librarian and worked as her father's secretary. She also worked for a number of other mostly student organisations in Prague. Letters of reference suggest that she probably emigrated to Great Britain in 1939.

This microfilm collection consists of material gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania, by a group of refugee Polish-Jewish writers and journalists, who formed a committee to collect evidence on the conditions of Jews in Poland under German occupation.

Stalag VIII B Lamsdorf (now Lambinowice in Silesia) also known as Kommando E562, became a part of the Auschwitz/Monowitz concentration camp complex. It was opened in 1939 to house Polish prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive. Later approximately 100,000 prisoners from Australia, Belgium, Great Britain, Canada, France, Greece, New Zealand, Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and the United States passed through this camp. In 1941 a separate camp, Stalag VIII-F was set up close by to house the Soviet prisoners. In 1943, the Lamsdorf camp was split up, and many of the prisoners (and Arbeitskommandos) were transferred to two new base camps Stalag VIII-C Sagan and Stalag VIII-D Teschen (modern Èeský Tìšín). The base camp at Lamsdorf was renumbered Stalag 344. The Soviet Army reached the camp 17 March 1945.

Interradio AG was a holding company comprising numerous German-owned foreign broadcasting stations and was owned in equal share by the Nazi Foreign Affairs Department and the Propaganda Ministry. On 22 October 1941 it was merged with the Nazi radio monitoring service 'Seehaus' (named after the building in Berlin where it was located).

The NS Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude, the National Socialist Organisation Strength through Joy, came under the aegis of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the national German labour organization. All members of the DAF were also members of the KdF, and as basically any worker was a part of the DAF, so too were they in the Kraft durch Freude. The KdF was essentially designed for the purpose of providing organised leisure for the German work force. The DAF calculated that the work year contained 8,760 hours of which only 2,100 were spent working, 2,920 hours spent sleeping, leaving 3,740 hours of free time. Thus the driving concept behind the KdF was organised 'relaxation for the collection of strength for more work.'

The KdF strived to achieve this goal of organised leisure by providing activities such as trips, cruises, concerts, and cultural activities for German workers. These events were specifically directed towards the working class, and it was through the KdF that the NSDAP hoped to bring to the 'common man' the pleasures once reserved only for the rich.

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The Brussels Relief Committee was an organisation set up by the American Government to provide food aid to the people of Brussels during World War Two. Members include Mr Vhitlock, Honorary President and Millard K Shaler.

The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organisation of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). The party members who lived outside the German Reich were pooled in this special NSDAP department. On May 1 1931 the new organisational unit was founded on the initiative of Reich Organisation Leader (Reichsorganisationsleiter) Gregor Strasser and its management was assigned to Dr Hans Nieland. But Nieland resigned from office already on May 8, 1933, because he had become head of the Hamburg police authorities in the meantime and later on a member of the Hamburg provincial government. Ernst Wilhelm Bohle was appointed director of the 'AO', that served as 43rd Gau of the NSDAP.

NSDAP Local Groups (Ortsgruppen) comprised 25 party comrades at least, so called Stützpunkte (bases) had 5 members or more. Furthermore, big Local Groups could be partitioned into Blocs (Blöcke).

Ideological training and uniform orientation of all party members in the interest of the German nation were the principal tasks of NSDAP/AO. Only Imperial Germans (Reichsdeutsche) with a German passport could become members of the AO. Persons of German descent, so called ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), who possessed the nationality of the country in which they lived, were refused access to the Nazi Party.

Jüdische Nachrichten (Jewish News), was founded by the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (Swiss Association of Jewish Communities), Zürich, as its press office in 1936, to confront Nazism but also to address growing anti-semitism in Switzerland. To this end it produced news bulletins in German and French and distributed them to numerous editorial offices throughout Switzerland.

Under the leadership of Dr. Benjamin Sagalowitz (1938-1964) JUNA amassed a large archive of documentation concerning the Holocaust and the fate of Jewish refugees and other related subjects. Parts of this archive were used to create the three dossiers in this collection.

Hechaluz, was an umbrella organisation founded in 1917 to propagate the settlement of Jews from the Diaspora to Kibbutzim in Palestine.

The Laterndl theatre opened on 21 June 1939 at the address of the Austrian Centre, 126 Westbourne Terrace. It was conceived of as a Kleinkunstbühne. Kleinkunst was a term created in the 1930s for a type of anti-Nazi cabaret. It is described as being at the serious end of the comic market, and whilst it included many of the elements common to cabaret, it didn't include the more frivolous and bohemian.

Martin Miller was responsible for production as well as being one of the main character actors. The writers were Franz Hartl, Hugo Königsgarten, Rudolf Spitz, and Hans Weigel. Kurt Manschinger dealt with the music, décor was by Carl Josefovics and costumes by Käthe Berl. The actors were Lona Cross, Greta Hartwig, Willy Kennedy, Jaro Klüger, Fritz Schrecker, Sylvia Steiner and Marianne Walla.

The theatre moved to 153 Finchley Road and then to 69 Eton Avenue by November 1941. One of the most famous achievements associated with 'das Laterndl' was the Martin Miller's spoof Hitler broadcast on April Fools' Day, 1940, in which Hitler claimed that Columbus had discovered America with the aid of German science, giving Germany territorial claim. A text of the speech is included in this collection.

The Reischsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Organisation of German Jews) came into being in February 1939 and, as far as its leadership and basic purposes was concerned, was a continuation of its predecessor, the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland. As a result of the intensification of the Third Reich's anti-semitic policies, its aims were increasingly linked to Jewish survival, and in particular, emigration. It was put under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, in practice the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office). It was the only organisation in Germany dealing with Jewish survival until its liquidation in July 1943 when its leaders, Leo Baeck and Paul Eppstein were deported to Theresienstadt.

The Cohn and Baer families were Berlin Jews during the Third Reich.

Otto Löwenstein was Jewish but his wife was not. He died in prison, 1938, though it is not known why he was sent there.

Charlotte Lewin was born in Breslau in 1892. She went to school there and passed an examination to become a teacher of English and French in 1912. Soon afterwards she spent 18 months in England in order to improve her English. On her return to Breslau she worked as a secretary at the American Consulate until 1917 when diplomatic relations with the USA were broken. After a short period working as a librarian at the Breslau municipal library she went on to work in the archives and library at Breslau University Department of Economics.

She took over the running of her father's textile business along with an associate in 1923, her father having died in 1921. During this time she continued to teach and study the English language.

In October 1936 she was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for making defamatory comments about Goebbels after the latter had come to Breslau to give a lecture. After her release 7 months later she began to make plans to leave Germany. She arrived in England in March 1938. In London and later Darlington she worked for HM Forces Education Department as a German language teacher.

Kurt Josef Waldheim was born 1918; served in the Wehrmacht, 1941-1945; squad leader, Eastern Front, 1941; interpreter and liaison officer with the Italian 5th division (Pusteria), Apr-May 1942; O2 officer (communications) with the Kampfgruppe West Bosnia, Jun-Aug 1942; interpreter with the liaison staff attached to the 9th Italian Army in Tirana, early summer 1942; O1 officer in the German liaison staff with the 11th Italian Army and in the staff of the Army Group South Greece in Jul-Oct 1943; O3 officer on the staff of Army Group E in Arksali, Mitrovica and Sarajevo, Oct 1943-Feb 1945; Austrian diplomatic service, 1945-1972; Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1972-1981; President of Austria, 1986-1992; died 2007.

In early 1986 when Waldheim's candidacy for the office of Federal President of Austria was made known his service as a Wehrmacht intelligence officer during World War Two caused an international controversy. A Thames Television documentary was made on Kurt Waldheim's role during the War. The programme takes the form of a commission of enquiry presided over by 5 distinguished European judges in which evidence of Waldheim's wartime duties and activities is subjected to scrutiny by lawyers. The object of the exercise is to ascertain whether or not Waldheim should be answerable to charges of certain war crimes. Testimony is taken from a number of historians and lawyers and eyewitnesses. The unanimous conclusion of the commission is that Waldheim should not have to answer charges for war crimes.

Michael Zylberberg was born in Plotsk, Poland, 1906, into a rabbinical family. He qualified to teach Hebraic history and literature in Warsaw and proceeded to work in a number of schools there, 1933-1939. After the outbreak of World War Two he was active in the Warsaw ghetto organising illegal schools for thousands of homeless children. After the Warsaw ghetto rising in 1943 he managed to escape to the Aryan side of Warsaw, where he lived for 2 years passing off as a Christian.

Years after the end of the war he was contacted by someone who had discovered his manuscript diary and notes. He published his diary under the title A Warsaw Diary in 1969. He also contributed many articles and book reviews on the subject of the Holocaust to the Jewish Chronicle.

He became secretary of the British section of the Yivo Institute, and was a member of the Association of Jewish Journalists and of the World Jewish Congress. He died in 1971.

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) grew from organisations founded in 1881 to assist Jewish migrants arriving at Ellis Island, USA. During World War Two HIAS provided immigration and refugee services. After the war, HIAS was instrumental in evacuating the displaced persons camps and aiding in the resettlement of some 150,000 people in 330 U.S. communities, as well as Canada, Australia and South America. More recently, since the mid-70s, HIAS has helped more than 300,000 Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union and its successor states escape persecution and rebuild new lives in the United States. As the migration arm of the organised American Jewish community, HIAS also advocates on behalf of refugees and migrants on the international, national and community level.

These three unrelated documents are evidence of anti-Semitic measures taken by the Nazis.

Louis Löwenthal, was a Jewish travelling salesman, in Berlin and other locations in Germany.

Reports by Hungarian Foreign Office officials of meetings and discussions with British foreign office officials and secret service agents shed some light on the background to relations between the two countries immediately before and during World War Two.

Ethel Watts (fl 1920-1960) was active in the movement to secure equality for women from the 1920s to the 1960s. She was involved with the London and National Society for Women's Service since at least the 1920s, became Chair of the Junior Council in the mid-twenties and then the Chair of the Executive Committee, taking over from Mrs Kinnell when she retired. Her special interests were wide and ranged over the issues of superannuation paid by women, the taxation of married women, the marriage bar in the Civil Service and the general area of accountancy. She continued this work when it became the Fawcett Society and offered her services as an accountant to this and other organisations with which she had links.

Florence C Stevens (c.1890-), her sister Eleanor Stevens, and her friend Rose Barry were supporters of the women's suffrage movement. Florence played in the Drum and Fife Band of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which was formed in 1909, during the summer of which it regularly marched round Holloway Prison to play inspiring music, and also played for special suffrage events and activities. Patricia Woodlock was a member of the WSPU in Liverpool and was repeatedly imprisoned for her suffrage activities. Her release from Holloway Prison after serving three months in Jun 1909 was celebrated by the WSPU by a breakfast in London and receptions in Manchester and Liverpool.

Hilda M L Squire, born in 1898, was the daughter of J Edward Squire (1855-1917) a wealthy doctor involved in public health and hygiene. Her aunt was Rose Elizabeth Squire (1861-1938) who had a distinguished career as a Factory Inspector at the Home Office. Their grandfather was William Squire (1825-1899) physician to Lord Cardigan. Hilda studied history and biology in 1915 at one of the Oxbridge colleges and in 1917 was educated at Francis Holland Church of England School, where she was Head of her school year. During 1918-1919 Hilda worked as a VAD, after which she studied for the examinations of the National Health Society. She was awarded diplomas in hygiene, physiology, child welfare and tuberculosis. Furthermore, she qualified under the Sanitary Inspectors Examination Board in 1920. Her career in health visiting started with her working at the Royal College of Saint Katherine in Poplar. She worked here for two years as an Infant Health Visitor. In 1926 Hilda was awarded a certificate in Social Science and Administration from the London School of Economics. She also gained a certificate from the Institute of Hospital Almoners. Following on from this, Hilda spent ten years working at Brompton Hospital, during the 1920-1930s, as a hospital almoner. At the same time, she was also a Tuberculosis Visitor and Secretary to the Tuberculosis Committee of the Chelsea Tuberculosis Dispensary. During [1949-1951] Hilda worked at the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases as Lady Almoner. Whilst here she specialised in neurological illnesses, such as epilepsy. Hilda was involved with various organisations during her busy career. These included the National Association for Mental Health (1943-1953), the British Council for Rehabilitation (1947-1951), the National Association for the Paralysed (1950-1961 also a founder member), the British Epilepsy Association (1950-1951 also a founder member), the British Rheumatic Association (1953), the British Council for the Welfare of Spastics (1955) and the Queen Elizabeth Foundation for the Disabled from 1966. As a representative of the Institute of Almoners, Hilda served on the councils of the Chalfour Epileptic Colony (1948-1957), the Courtauld-Sargent concert club (1932-1936) and the Mobile Physiotherapy Service Association Limited (1956-1958). She died in 1991.

Rose Squire (1861-1938) was born in London, the daughter of William Squire, a surgeon, and his wife Martha Wilkinson. After being educated at home, she trained in 1893 as a lecturer in health and hygiene. She was the first woman to sit for the sanitary inspector's certificate, in 1894, and worked as a sanitary inspector of laundries and workshops. In 1895 she became a lady inspector of factories, working throughout the country. In 1903 she was appointed senior lady inspector, from 1908-1912 she was based in Manchester, returning to London in 1912. From 1906-1907 Squire was a special investigator to the royal commission on the poor laws. During the First World War she worked with the Ministry of Munitions, where she was involved in the promotion of good factory working conditions, and in 1918 was appointed director of their women's welfare department. She received an OBE in 1918. In 1920 she became the first woman to hold an administrative post in the Home Office. She retired in 1926 and died in 1938.

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was born in 1802, the daughter of Thomas Martineau, a textile manufacturer from Norwich and his wife Elizabeth Martineau. Both were Unitarians and were in favour of education for girls. Consequently, Harriet and her two sisters were taught in a similar way to their three brothers until the latter left for university. Harriet became deaf at an early age. She began writing while in her period of 'mourning' when her brother James, to whom she was closest, left for university. Her first article, 'Female Writers On Practical Divinity', was published anonymously in The Monthly Repository in 1821. Whilst in 1823 the Unitarian journal, The Monthly Repository, published her anonymous article, 'On Female Education', which described the differences between the sexes as being caused by differing methods of training. Martineau was engaged to John Hugh Worthington but he died of 'brain fever' before the marriage took place. This, combined with the financial difficulties (resulting from the economic crash of 1826) and death of her father, necessitated her earning her own living and freed her to pursue a writing career. she continued to work for the 'Monthly Repository' to support herself. Additionally, she began writing religious works such as Devotional Exercises for the Use of Young Persons and Addresses for the Use of Families, both published in 1826. Martineau worked as a seamstress, taking in sewing at home (as opposed to working in a 'sweat shop'), sewing during the day and writing at night until the 'Illustrations' was accepted for publication. Harriet's interest soon moved to politics and she created the series of stories entitled Illustrations of Political Economy, in order to popularise the utilitarian theories of Bentham and Priestly and the economic of Smith. When the series of 24 volumes was published in 1832-3, they became a huge success and were followed up by Poor Laws and Paupers illustrated (1834). The profits enabled her to set up home in London and undertake a two-year tour of the United States of America. She based two books on this experience: Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). Martineau remained ambivalent towards women's suffrage, arguing that until women had education, access to professions, and economic independence, their votes would be compromised by the men in their lives. She was, however, keen on the Garrisonian branch of the abolition movement, because it focused on emancipation and included women activists, as opposed to more politically-oriented groups as illustrated in one of her chapters entitled 'The Political Non-Existence of Women'.

In this period despite increasing illness, and in addition to her political and historical works, Martineau began writing different genres. Her only novel Deerbrook was published in 1839; followed by a historical biography The Hour and the Man in 1840; and a series of novelettes for children The Playfellow in 1841.

She moved to Ambleside in the Lake District in 1845. In 1847 Harriet went with friends on a tour of the Near East for eight months, returning with the manuscript of 'Eastern Life Present and Past', published in 1848. The proceeds from this work paid for her to build her own home in Ambleside. The work was well received but the religious views that it presented were treated with some hostility. During this period she also worked on The History of the Peace, which was published in 1849.

The publication of 'Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development' in 1851 was received with more hostility. In this work Martineau advocated agnosticism. The scandal with which it was received was due partly to her insistence that three of the world's primary religions - Judaism, Islam, and Christianity - grew out of the same geographical area and the same, or similar, theological systems, and were not necessarily incompatible. The scandal was also due to her challenge to the dating of human life and cultures, as presented in the scriptures. Martineau, as well as her historical and anthropological sources (Wilkinson, for example) predate the scientific revolution heralded by Darwinism, by nearly twelve years (1859). Martineau's views expressed in 'Letters on the Laws' also destroyed the relationship between her and several members of her family.

Harriet returned to journalism in 1852 as a member of staff at the Daily News where she wrote over 1600 articles during a 16-year period. Harriet also contributed articles for other publications, including pieces on the employment of women for the Edinburgh Review and on the state of girls' education for the Cornhill Magazine. Plagued by invalidism periodically throughout her life, ill health became a problem again in 1855 and she wrote an autobiography in that year in the belief that she was dying. However, she recovered and continued with her career in journalism for approximately another twenty years. Harriet was always interested in and vocal on women's employment, women's education and the legal position of married women. In 1866 she joined Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Davies, Dorothea Beale and Francis Mary Buss in creating and presenting a petition asking Parliament to grant the vote to women. Harriet also campaigned for women's entry into the medical profession. From 1864, and again in 1869, Harriet was active in the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts in which she would later be joined by Josephine Butler. Eventually, ill health began to restrict her public activities during the 1870s, though she continued to write until her death. She died of bronchitis aged 74 in 1876.

Jessie Kenney (1887-1995) was born in Lees, near Oldham, Lancashire in 1887 to Anne and Horatio Kenney. She was one of 11 children of whom her elder sister Annie, Jane, Nell and herself would later join the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and all of whom would receive a remarkable education in the family home. From the age of thirteen to sixteen, Kenney worked in a local cotton mill becoming involved in the trade union there. In early 1905, she attended an event at the Oldham Trades Council with her sisters Annie and Jenny. Christabel Pankhurst and Teresa Billington-Greig addressed the meeting and from that moment Jessie and Annie would be involved in the women's suffrage movement. After a brief time working in the local area, Annie Kenney moved to London to become an activist. Jessie would soon follow her, becoming Pethick-Lawrence's private secretary at the age of 19. Two years later, she was appointed as a WSPU organiser in the group's Clement's Inn offices. In Jun 1908 she was arrested at a demonstration and imprisoned for a month and it was after this that her health became an ongoing problem. She stayed in the West Country with the Blathwayt family on a number of occasions to restore her and, in 1910, was taken on a holiday to Switzerland by Pethick-Lawrence. Her health seemed to be re-established and on her return she was appointed as the organiser of the Walthamstow branch of the WSPU. Two years later she undertook the groups operations at the South Hackney by-election but illness returned again and she was sent back to Switzerland the following year with lung disease. Kenney did not return immediately to London after her time in Switzerland but went to Paris to live with Christabel Pankhurst for a short time before beginning a gruelling routine which involved commuting to Glasgow every week to oversee the clandestine production of the 'Suffragette' newspaper. This lasted until the summer of 1914, when the activities of the Women's Social and Political Union were radically transformed and became focussed solely on the war effort. During the First World War Kenney travelled to America to organise the preliminary stages of the Pankhursts' Serbian Mission, returning to help organise the War Work procession which took place in Jul 1916. The following year, she accompanied Emmeline Pankhurst who undertook a ' Mission to the Women of Russia' which took place with the support of Lloyd George, then Prime Minister. The visit to Russia took place between Jun-Sep 1917, addressing meetings, meeting the leader of one of the Women's Battalions formed to repulse invaders of the country, as well as Kerensky, Prince Youssoupoff and Plenkhanov, the leader of the Menshevick party. After the war, she remained loyal to the Pankhursts and joined their Women's Party, but eventually moved to St Cloud near Paris and worked for the American Red Cross. In the 1930s she became a ship's steward but after the Second World War she settled permanently in Battersea and became the administrative secretary to one of the first comprehensive schools in Britain. At the end of her life she moved to a home in Essex where she died in 1985.

Jill Truman (fl 1980s-) is a writer and peace campaigner. She visited the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp regularly in the 1980s-1990s when she wrote a column for the Bristol Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) newsletter entitled 'News from Greenham'. She also wrote a play about Greenham, 'The Web', which was produced at the Tabard Theatre, Ealing, directed by Jilly Bond, in 1991.

Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp (1982-2000) was formed in response to NATO's decision in 1979 to base ground cruise missiles at Greenham Common. RAF Greenham Common had first became home to the US Army Air Force in Nov 1943, when the 354th Fighter Group moved in as part of the Allies efforts to meet the Nazi Government's aerial operations. Greenham Common, near Newbury in Berkshire, became a bomber operational training unit. Following the invasion of France, the Americans transferred their resources to France and Greenham Common reverted to RAF control until it was closed in 1946. However, as the Cold War began, it was reopened in 1951 as a US Strategic Air Command, coming into American Air Force operational control in Jun 1953. It was closed once more in 1961 only to be reopened in 1964, when it also became a NATO standby base. NATO's decision in 1979 to base ground cruise missiles at Greenham Common was a response to the proliferation of nuclear forces, which occurred throughout that decade. It was in the wake of this announcement that the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp opened at this site. In Sep 1981 a Welsh group of 36 individuals opposed to nuclear power, called Women for Life on Earth, walked 120 miles from their headquarters to raise awareness of this issue and to protest against NATO's decision to site cruise missiles at Greenham Common. On reaching their destination they chained themselves to the perimeter fence and subsequently established a 'peace camp' there which was to remain for another two decades. The 'camp' itself consisted of nine smaller camps: the first was Yellow Gate, established the month after Women for Peace on Earth reached the airbase; others established in 1983 were Green Gate, the nearest to the silos, and the only entirely exclusive women-only camp at all times, the others accepting male visitors during the day; Turquoise Gate; Blue Gate with its new age focus; Pedestrian Gate; Indigo Gate; Violet Gate identified as being religiously focussed; Red Gate known as the artists gate; and Orange Gate. A central core of women lived either full-time or for stretches of time at any one of the gate camps with others staying for various lengths of time. From the beginning, links were formed with local feminist and anti-nuclear groups across the country while early support was received from the Women's Peace Alliance in order to facilitate these links and give publicity through its newsletter. In Mar 1982 the first blockade of the base occurred, staged by 250 women and during which 34 arrests were made. In May the first attempt to evict the peace camp was made as bailiffs and police attempted to clear the women and their possessions from the site. However, the camp was simply re-located to a nearby site. That same year, in Feb 1982 the camp went onto a women only footing and in Dec 1982, in response to chain letter sent out by organisers 30,000 women assembled to surround the site and 'embrace the base'. In Jan 1983 Newbury District Council revoked the commonland bylaws for Greenham Common, becoming the private landlord for the site and instituting Court proceedings to reclaim eviction costs, actions that were ruled as illegal by the House of Lords in 1990. In Apr 1991, CND supporters staged action which involved 70,000 people forming a 14-mile human chain linking Burghfield, Aldermaston and Greenham. However, the first transfer of cruise missiles to the airbase occurred in Nov 1983. Another major event occurred in Dec 1983 when 50,000 women encircled the base, holding up mirrors and taking down sections of the fence, resulting in hundreds of arrests. In 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty was signed by the USA and the Soviet Union, and two years later in Aug 1989 the first step in the removal of cruise missiles from the Greenham Common airbase occurred, a process that was completed in Mar 1991. The American Air Force handed control of the base to the Royal Air Force in Sep 1992, who handed the base over to the Defence Land Agent three weeks later. On 1 Jan 2000 the last of the Greenham Common Women protestors left the camp. A memorial garden was erected after this - the only individual name included in the memorial was that of Helen Wynn Thomas who had died in an accident at Greenham on 5 Aug 1989.

Lydia Becker (1827-1890) was born in the Manchester area in Feb 1827 the eldest of 15 children the surviving siblings being Mary, Esther, Edward, Wilfred, Arthur, John and Charles. Her father, Hannibal Leigh Becker (1803-1877) was the son of Ernest Hannibal Becker (1771-1852) a German immigrant who had settled in England and become a naturalised citizen. Hannibal married Mary Duncroft and became the proprietor of first a calico-printing works at Reddish and then a chemical works at Altham in Lancashire. The couple had fifteen children. Her early life was conventional her main interests were in astronomy and botany, and she wrote one book on each subject. In 1865, the family moved to central Manchester where Becker founded the Manchester Ladies' Literary Society, which was a centre for scientific interests and at the first meeting a paper written by Darwin for the event was read. The previous year she had attended a Social Science Association meeting and heard Barbara Bodichon lecture on women's emancipation. Bodichon encouraged her to contact Emily Davis. Through these individuals, Becker became involved with local suffrage groups. In Feb 1867, she was named honorary secretary of the Manchester Committee for Women's Suffrage and was instrumental in rewriting its constitution as the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage.

In 1868 she became treasurer of the Married Women's Property Committee. She travelled about the country organising meetings and support for the issue throughout the 1860s and was involved in the campaign to have women ratepayers included on the electoral register. She worked alongside Jacob Bright as the parliamentary agent of the National Society for Women's Suffrage to have the amendment to the Municipal Franchise Bill passed in 1869 so that this could be achieved at a local, if not a national, level. However, her efforts were not restricted to suffrage. In 1870, she was the first woman to be elected to the Manchester School Board, she was also the founder-editor of the 'Woman's Suffrage Journal' in 1870. In the 1870s she was active in the campaign to have the Contagious Diseases Acts repealed and worked beside Josephine Butler and Elizabeth Wolstenholme in the Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights. She organised a significant repeal meeting in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 1870 with JB, Elizabeth Wolstenholme and James Stuart. She also served on the LNA Executive Committee between 1872-1873. She introduced the first motion against Bruce's Bill at the Conference of Repeal Organisations, 29 Feb 1872. However, parliamentary developments in 1874 led many to believe that the vote might be granted to single though not married women. Becker pragmatically supported this as an interim measure, leading to criticism from the Pankhursts, the Brights and Wolstenholme Elmy. In the later part of that decade she was secretary to the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and remained with it when the London societies divided over opposition to the CD Acts in 1888. However, her health began to deteriorate and she withdrew from active work in 1889 and travelled to Aix-les-Bains to recuperate. On the 21 Jul 1890 she died in Geneva, Switzerland having contracted diphtheria.

Louisa Garrett Anderson (1873-1943) was the daughter of James Skelton and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She had one brother, Alan Garrett Anderson, and a sister, Margaret, who died of meningitis in 1875. She was educated at St Leonard's School (May 1888-Apr 1891) and later Bedford College (1890-1893). In 1892 she entered the London School of Medicine for Women, and qualified with a MB in 1897, and BS in 1898. In 1900 she gained her MD. Louisa did a postgraduate year at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore in 1902. As well as becoming established as a doctor Louisa was politically active, taking a keen interest in suffrage activities, like many of her family. She was a member of: the London Society for Women's Suffrage; the London Graduates' Union for Women's Suffrage (where she chaired the inaugural meeting); the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU); the United Suffragists (Vice-President); and the National Political League.On 4 Mar 1912 Anderson smashed a window in Rutland Gate in protest at a speech made by an anti-suffragist Cabinet minister. She was arrested and sent to Holloway Prison for 6 weeks with hard labour (later reduced to one month by direct intervention of the Home Office).

Louisa founded the Women's Hospital for Children, 688 Harrow Road, with Dr Flora Murray, in 1912. Murray was a former student of the London School of Medicine for Women, also an active supporter of the WSPU, and it is likely that the two women met in the course of their suffrage work. Louisa was also on the staff at the New Hospital for Women as an assistant surgeon.In Aug 1914, together with Flora Murray, Louisa founded the Women's Hospital Corps, under the auspices of the French Red Cross. Louisa was the Chief Surgeon. The two women established a hospital in the Hotel Claridge in Paris, which ran from Sep 1914 to Jan 1915. In Nov 1914 they were asked to open a second hospital at Wimereux, under the Royal Army Medicine Corps (RAMC), which also ran until early 1915. They were then offered hospital premises in London, so closed both hospitals in France and returned to England. The Endell Street Military Hospital, the first hospital in the UK established expressly for men by women, ran from May 1915 until Dec 1919, and during that time treated over 26,000 patients, 24,000 of them male. The hospital has been largely forgotten today, partly because of its relatively small size, and partly because of its anomalous position as a women-run institution in a largely hostile RAMC. The best source of the activities of the Women's Hospital Corps in World War One is the account by Flora Murray, published in 1920: Women as Army Surgeons: being the history of the Women's Hospital Corps in Paris, Wimereux and Endell Street, Sep 1914-Oct 1919 (London: Hodder and Stoughton). In 1917 Murray and Anderson were awarded the CBE for their war work.Flora Murray was Louisa Garrett Anderson's close friend and companion from about 1910 until Murray's death in 1923. They jointly owned a house, Paul End, at Penn in Buckinghamshire. Before meeting Murray, Anderson had had a close relationship with the suffragist Evelyn Sharp - there are a few passionate letters from Anderson in the Evelyn Sharp Papers in the Bodleian Library. In her diary, Evelyn Sharp describes how she wrote an obituary of Anderson, published in the Manchester Guardian (a copy is in the Women's Library Biographical Press Cuttings collection). After the war the two women continued to work at their hospital in the Harrow Road until forced to close it because of lack of funds in 1921. They then retired to the country.

Murray had a brief illness in 1923 and was diagnosed with rectal carcinoma. She had a series of operations at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and died at a nursing home in Belsize Park in 1923. Anderson continued to live at Penn. She was a magistrate, and remained interested in women's issues. When war broke out she let her house and came to London to stay with Louie Brook, former Secretary of the London School of Medicine for Women, in Russell Square. She was given a place on the surgical staff at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. In 1943 she was found to have disseminated malignant disease, and was taken to a nursing home in Brighton, where she died on 15 Nov 1943. Louisa was cremated at Brighton and her ashes scattered there, but her family arranged for an inscription commemorating her friendship and work with Flora Murray to be placed on the latter's tombstone in the churchyard at Holy Trinity, Penn.

Lady Helen Nutting (1890-1973) was born Helen Ogilvy in 1890, the daughter of the sixth Earl of Airlie. In 1909 she married the Hon. Clement Bertram Ogilvy Mitford-Freeman DSO 10th Hussars, who was killed in action in 1915. (He was a son of the first Baron Redesdale). In 1918 she married Lt-Col. Henry Courtney Brocklehurst, 10th Hussars. The marriage was troubled and they divorced in 1931. He was later killed in action in Burma 1942. In 1933 she finally married Lt-Col. Harold Bligh Nutting. She had, by this time, become involved with issues concerning women's status and rights, especially economic equality between husband and wife. She became a member of the Married Women's Association in 1945 and was appointed its deputy Chair in 1947. In 1952 certain members of the Married Women's Association opposed the President's draft evidence to the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce. The President (Helena Normanton), Chair (Doreen Gorsky), Deputy Chair (Nutting) and the Hon. Secretary (Evelyn Hamilton) left the Association. They went on to occupy identical positions in a new organisation called the Council of Married Women. Gorsky resigned as Chair in 1953 due to her new appointment at the BBC and Lady Nutting became Chair until its dissolution. Through the 1960s the Council encountered financial difficulties and the organisation's work largely devolved upon Lady Nutting alone. The organisation was wound up in 1969. She died in Dec 1973.

Margaret Judith Smieton (fl 1919-1925) decided to study for the newly instituted BSc in Horticulture in 1919. However, admission to the course was complicated by the need to obtain other qualifications and apply for grants to take up places on these courses. Her mother undertook an extensive correspondence with the University of London between 1919-1922 to ascertain available types and scope of horticultural degree courses, qualifications for grants, terms of admission etc. Consequently, in 1923, Smieton obtained a Diploma from the Horticultural College in Swanley, and went on to take Parts 1 and 2 of the Final Degree course for the BSc in 1924-1925.

Myra Eleanor Sadd Brown (1872-1938) was born in Maldon, Essex on 3 Oct 1872. Her parents were John Granger Sadd and Mary Ann Price and she was the tenth of eleven children. The family operated a firm of timber merchants and processors in the hometown of Maldon. Myra Sadd received a private education at a school in Colchester. She met Ernest Brown through her interest in cycling; they were married in 1896. The couple moved to Finsbury Park in London, and then to Hampstead. Myra and Ernest had three daughters and one son. Due to the commercial success of her husband's business Myra was provided with independent means. Myra was raised within a Congregationalist environment; later becoming a Christian Scientist. She was interested in artistic pursuits and avidly enjoyed Shaw's plays. Myra is particularly renowned for being a feminist. It is believed that prior to her marriage she purchased a small property giving her, as a ratepayer, the right to vote. In Hackney, Myra served as a Poor Law Guardian. Furthermore, she was a committed supporter of the women's suffrage movement; being a member of the Women's Social & Political Union. In 1912, Myra was arrested and imprisoned; she went on hunger strike and endured forcible feeding. Myra wrote a great deal on behalf of the suffrage cause; the 'Christian Commonwealth' being one such periodical which published her letters. Later, she became associated with Sylvia Pankhurst's East London Federation of Suffragettes, inviting East London women, travelling by bus, to visit her home near Maldon. Following WWI, Myra became an active member of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (later known as the International Alliance of Women). She travelled widely throughout Europe attending conferences. This activity allowed her to indulge her interest in other cultures and countries, as did her periods of wintering in Italy and Egypt with her husband Ernest. Although Myra herself did not speak a foreign language, she insisted that her children should study French and German. The emerging Commonwealth became another area of interest to Myra. From 1923 she had been involved in meetings, which culminated in the formation of the British Commonwealth League (later the Commonwealth Countries League) in 1925. It was a feminist organisation devoted to the upholding of women's rights in the Commonwealth of which Myra became its Treasurer. In 1931 Ernest died of rheumatic heart disease. In 1937 Myra visited South-East Asia where she was present for the birth of her second grandchild. She then extended the tour to visit Angkor Wat and the Malaysian islands. Myra continued her journey to Hong Kong, planning to return via the Trans-Siberian railway. However, she suffered a stroke and died in Hong Kong on 13 Apr 1938. The British Commonwealth League established the Sadd Brown Library of material on women in the Commonwealth as a memorial to her. It was placed in the Women's Service Library, now The Women's Library. Myra's interest in the Commonwealth Countries League, and the International Alliance of Women, has been continued first by her daughter Myra Stedman, and subsequently by Lady Diana Dollery, her granddaughter, both of whom have been closely involved in the development of the Sadd Brown Library.

Norman Ian Mackenzie (1921-fl 1986) was born in London, 1921. In 1958 Norman was commissioned by the Social Science Research Council of Australia in Canberra, as a British Scholar to conduct 2 year pioneering survey of the status, social and political roles of women in Australia. Published as Women in Australia (1962). Subsequent and revised editions entitled Women in Society. Upon his return to Britain c 1963 he joined the University of Sussex where he remained until c 1983. He married Jeanne Sampson (?-1986), writer and manuscripts editor; they had two daughters. Together with Jeanne, Norman MacKenzie wrote and edited several biographies including HG Wells, Charles Dickens, and Beatrice Webb.

Florence Priscilla Norman (1883-1964) (nee McLaren) was the daughter of the 1st Baron Aberconway and sister of the Liberal politicians Henry D McLaren and Francis McLaren. In 1907 Priscilla McLaren became the second wife of Sir Henry Norman, also a Liberal MP. Both the McLaren and the Norman families were strong supporters of the women's suffrage movement. Priscilla herself was an enthusiastic suffragist, though not a militant, and before the war held the post of Hon Treasurer of the Liberal Women's Suffrage Union. When hostilities broke out in 1914 she and her husband ran a small voluntary hospital at Wimereux, in northern France. She was awarded a CBE for her war services. After the founding of the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in 1917 she became Chair of its Women's Work Subcommittee, responsible for recording the work of women during the war: the large Women's Work Collection held by the Museum is her committee's legacy. Norman remained a Trustee of the IWM for over 40 years, and was an active member of many other organisations, notably the League of Nations and the National Adoption Society. She was also interested in mental health issues and was the first woman to be appointed to the board of management of the Royal Earlswood Institution in 1926. During the Second World War Norman joined the Women's Voluntary Service, driving a mobile canteen in London through air raids. She died in 1964 at the Château de Garoupe, her home in Antibes, France.

Olive Chandler (fl 1945) appears to have had an interest in several women's groups in the period at the end of the Second World War. She apparently contacted both the National Council of Women and the National Federation of Women's Institutes to gain more information about their structures and their aims before collecting the material that they, in turn, sent her.

See the history of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (United Kingdom section); c 1929-fl 1993

Roxane Arnold (fl 1950-1993) was a member of the Six Point Group and Treasurer of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (UK section).

The International Federation of Women Lawyers (c 1929-fl 1993) was established in 1929 in Paris by a group of European women lawyers. Their aim was to improve the status of women in the legal profession and to foster social networks. The Federation developed national groups across the world, including a United Kingdom (UK) section, with the international headquarters remaining in Paris. By the 1990s the Federation also worked to support implementation of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. The UK section held seminars and social events and members attended international congresses and conferences.

Ruth Mary Cavendish-Bentinck (1867-1953) was born Ruth St Maur in Tangiers in 1867. She was the illegitimate daughter of Viscount Ferdinand St Maur, the eldest son of the Duke of Somerset, and a half-gypsy kitchen maid. Her father died in 1869 and her mother went on to marry. Consequently the Duke and Duchess of Somerset raised the child themselves and Ruth was brought up in the English aristocracy. She was brought up within the family home and on her grandmother's death was left an endowment of £80,000. Despite this, by 1887, she was already a committed Fabian Socialist. She energetically supported the cause of socialism, and later that of women's suffrage, throughout her life. In 1887 she married Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck, the grandson of Lord Frederick Bentinck, who was himself a rich man until the death of his father, who left the couple was considerable inherited debts to pay off. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1909 and the Fabian Women's Group the following year, when she also published The Point Of Honour: A Correspondence On Aristocracy And Socialism. She become part of the Fabian suffrage unit in 1912 and was able to use her social connections for political ends: for instance, she was able to persuade Bernard Shaw to intervene to have Gladys Evans released from prison in Dublin. That same year she was an organiser of the Women's March from Edinburgh to London and went on to become the secretary of the 'Qui Vive Corps'. However, like a number of members of the WSPU, she became alarmed at the rightward drift of the group and its increasingly violent tactics under the Pankhursts. Therefore, 1912 was also the year when she left the group for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). She was one of the first members of the Election Fighting Fund Committee that promised support to any party officially supporting suffrage in an election where the candidate was challenging an anti-suffrage Liberal. This in effect meant the NUWSS supporting the Labour Party in elections. While this disturbed many NUWSS members, it was fully supported by Cavendish-Bentinck who, on behalf of the Fabian Women's Group, approached the other members of the 'Qui Vive Corps' to start a propaganda campaign amongst the miners of Staffordshire and Derbyshire around this time. In 1913 she took on more activities, becoming an organiser of the Northern Men's Federation for Women's Suffrage and the following year published an article in the 'Women's Dreadnought'. By 1917 she had become a member of the executive committee of the United Suffragists. The main work for which she is remembered is the creation in 1909 of a subscription library of feminist materials open for the use of any individuals working for women's suffrage. She remained actively involved when the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies took it over, along with the Edward Wright Library, in 1918 and it became one of the core collections of the Women's Service Library (now the Women's Library) when it was gifted to them in 1931. Ruth Cavendish-Bentinck died in 1953.

In Jan 1975 Ross Davies, then working on The Times, began to collect material for a biography of Margaret Bondfield, and, in 1978, having written to various individuals and asked for further information in the New Statesman, he spoke on his 'search for the real Margaret Bondfield' on radio's Women's Hour.

Margaret Grace Bondfield (1873-1953) was born to William Bondfield and Anne Taylor in 1873. Her education ended with elementary school and her first job was as a pupil teacher at Chard Elementary School in 1886. She subsequently became a shop assistant in Briton in 1887 where she became acquainted with Louisa Martindale who encouraged her to continue her education. In 1894 she moved to London to live with her brother Frank and there found similar employment and soon became active in the Shoe Assistants' Union as well as the Fabian Society. There she also joined the Idealists' Club and met prominent radicals such as George Bernard Shaw and began writing articles for the publication The Shop Assistant under the name of Grace Dare. In 1896, she was asked by Clementina Black of the Women's Industrial Council to carry out an investigation into the pay and conditions of shop workers and the report was published two years later. After this work she became recognised as Britain's leading expert on shop workers, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Shops in 1902 and to the Select Committee on the Truck System in 1907. In 1908, Bondfield resigned from the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants and Warehousemen and Clerks where she had been assistant secretary since 1898, to become the secretary of the Women's Labour League. In 1910 she assisted the WIC's inquiry into the pay of married women before being asked by the Liberal Government to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Health Insurance Bill. Her influence led to the inclusion of maternity benefits to be paid to the mother in the final bill of the WCG on creating legislation for a minimum wage. Between 1912 and 1915, she also worked for the Women's Trades Union League and the National Federation of Women Workers as well as with Women's Co-operative Guild in its campaign for minimum wage legislation as well as improvement in child welfare. A member of the Independent Labour Party, she was also interested in the issue of women's suffrage, but unlike many in the area refused to accept a franchise that was to be extended only to certain categories of women drawn from certain classes of society, excluding the working classes from the right to vote. Consequently, she became Chair of the Adult Suffrage Society. Due to her religious beliefs, when the First World War broke out, she was equally opposed to the pro-war stance taken by both the Women's Social and Political Union and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Instead, she spoke at a pacifist rally in Trafalgar Square in 1914, then joined the UDC and the Women's Peace Crusade. In 1916, she was one of the founders of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations and was a delegate at the International Labour and Socialist Conference in Berne in 1918. After the war, her activities increased once more: she became the Chair of the Women's International Council of Socialist and Labour Organisations as well as being the first female member of the TUC's Parliamentary Committee in 1918. Her involvement with the TUC was close, becoming a member of the General Council from 1918-1924 and then again from 1926 to 1929. In 1920 she was the joint representative of the Labour party and the TUC sent her to the USSR and there she met Lenin. She contested the seat of Northampton in 1920 and then again in 1922, finally being elected to the House of Commons in 1923 as Labour MP for the city. In her first year in the house, she was appointed to the Labour Government's Emergency Committee on Unemployment and the following year was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Labour. It was this seat in the cabinet that Bondfield herself took in 1929 as the MP for Wallsend, becoming the first female British minister. However, during the heart of the Depression in 1931, many in the feminist and labour movements attacked Bondfield when she supported a government policy that would deprive some married women of unemployment benefit. That same year, she lost her seat at the general election after losing support from her constituency for taking this step and though she contested it once more in 1935, she was never returned to parliament again. Her continued involvement in politics was done through work as an activist. In the late 1930's she travelled to the United States of America and Mexico to study labour conditions before returning to become the Vice President of the National Council of Social Services. During the Second World War, she was chair of the Women's Group on Public Welfare as well as undertaking a lecture tour of Canada and the USA for the British Information Services between 1941 and 1943. She was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1948, before retiring to a nursing home in Surrey where she died in 1953.

Rachel Pinney was born 11th July 1909, the daughter of a Major-General. She obtained a medical degree and practiced as a GP until 1961. On leaving the medical profession, Rachel contacted Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld, the distinguished child therapist. Rachel learnt her methods but never trained formally. This period resulted in the pioneering of her 'methods for conflict understanding' which she called Creative Listening, and Children's Hours, the former incorporated as a limited company in 1967. These techniques were widely used by experts working therapeutically with children. In 1977 Rachel went to New York and treated a four year old boy suffering from autism. This resulted in her publication 'Bobby, Breakthrough of an Autistic Child' (1983). Rachel was briefly married to Luigi Coccuzzi with whom she had one daughter and two sons. She was a member of CND from 1961 and openly declared herself a lesbian in 1989. She died 19th October 1995 aged 86.

St Clair Denham (1853-) was born into an Anglo-Irish family in 1853 and later married Walter Mallaby Townsend (brother to the arts and crafts architect, Charles Harrison Townsend who was responsible for the Whitechapel Art Gallery, the Harrison Museum and the Bishopsgate Library). Walter Townsend was employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company but was a frustrated actor and playwright and took to drink. After losing his job with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, he, his wife and their second daughter returned to England and ran a marble mine in Stanhope Northumbria. Any further biographical history becomes quite difficult to find; though at some time St Clair took up an interest in the political issues of the day it is apparent that she was anti-socialist and opposed the militant suffragettes. St Clair acted as local President of the Women's Unionist Association Stanhope branch.

Shena Potter (1883-1972), later Lady Simon of Wythenshawe, was born 21 Oct 1883, to John Wilson Potter and Jane Boyd Potter. She was privately educated at Newnham College, Cambridge and graduated in Economics, gaining an MA. Later she became an Associate of Newnham College. Her post-graduate studies took her to the London School of Economics. In 1911 Shena Simon became an active secretary of a committee for safeguarding women's rights under Lloyd George's insurance bill. In 1912 Shena married Sir Ernest Darwin Simon with whom she had two sons. Shena Simon was responsible for founding 'The Women Citizens' Association' a local branch of the National Women Citizens' Association, whilst in 1921 she became Lady Mayoress of Manchester. It was during her tenure that she made mayoral history by refusing to grace a function at St Mary's Hospital for Women because no women served on either the Board or with the medical staff. Her professional postings included Member of Manchester City Council 1924-1933, Member of the Royal Committee on Licensing 1929, Member of Estate Council 1931-1933. Shena Simon was the first woman to hold the office of Chair of Education Committee 1932-1933 and from 1933 she was actively involved in the Spens Report on aspects of secondary education. Also in 1933 Lady Simon was voted off the council by the Conservatives due to a disagreement. From 1935 onwards, Lady Simon became a member of the Labour Party and a member of the Departmental Committee on Valuation of Dwelling Houses in 1938. In the following year Lady Simon published A Hundred Years of City Government, Manchester 1838-1938 as well as various pamphlets on education. Lady Simon was prominent in proposing free secondary education, which was refused in 1939. However, her proposals were later used by RA Butler in preparation for his 1944 Act. Lady Simon then spent seven years as Chair of the Further Education Sub-Committee. She also stood as Chair of the Workers Educational Associations' Educational Advisory Committee in 1946 and became an Honorary Freeman of Manchester in 1964. She died 17 Jul 1972.

Sheila Rowbotham (1943-) was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire in 1943 and attended St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford and then the University of London. Upon leaving university she began her career lecturing in Liberal Studies at Chelsea College of Advanced Technology and Tower Hamlets College of Further Education. She then worked for several years as an Extra Mural Lecturer for London University. Rowbotham's political activism began with her involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the British Labour Party's youth wing, the Young Socialists. Among her left-wing political activities was her work on the editorial board of the radical political paper 'Black Dwarf'. Towards the end of the 1960s she helped to start the Women's Liberation Movement. Active in the London Women's Liberation Workshop and a member of the Arsenal Group, Rowbotham was also involved in the campaign to unionise night cleaners, in the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) and in the National Child Care Campaign. In 1969 her influential pamphlet 'Women's Liberation and the New Politics' argued that Socialist theory needed to consider the oppression of women in cultural as well as economic terms. This was a key text in the emerging women's movement and she subsequently wrote an influential series of articles and books on this and related topics, including 'Woman, Resistance and Revolution' and 'Woman's Consciousness, Man's World' (both published in 1973). Also published in 1973 was 'Hidden from History: 300 years of Women's Oppression and the Fight against it' just one of her writings that contributed to the small group of historians who pioneered women's history. Rowbotham produced numerous books and articles expanding upon her theory, which argued that as women's oppression was a result of both economic and cultural forces then a dualist perspective (socialist feminism), which examine both the public and private sphere, was required to work towards liberation. She was a key organiser and author of the conference and book called Beyond the fragments: feminism and the making of socialism (London, Merlin Press, 1979), which attempted to draw together democratic socialist and socialist feminist currents in the UK. In 1981 she was appointed as a Visiting Professor in Women's Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Between 1983 and 1986 she worked as a research officer for the Greater London Council's Industry and Employment Department, producing a newspaper, 'Jobs for a Change', and contributing to the London Industrial Strategy. This led to an invitation to become Consultant Research Adviser for the Women's Programme, World Institute for Development Economics Research, (WIDER) at the United Nations University. She initiated a project which examined the conditions of poor women's casualised work internationally, involving activists and academics. This attracted interest among policy makers in Canada, Finland and India, and led to a project directed by Professor Swasti Mitter at UNU INTECH on women and technology. Between 1987 and 1989 she was also Course Tutor on the Women's Studies MA at the University of Kent and a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris VIII. This was followed by a Visiting Professorship in the Political Economy Department at Carleton University in 1993. Rowbotham moved to the University of Manchester as a Simon Research Fellow in 1993-1994, returning as a University Research Fellow in 1995, later becoming Professor of Gender and Labour History, Sociology. She lectured extensively in the North America, Brazil, Europe and India and her work was translated into many languages, including Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew. A symposium on Rowbotham's historical work was organised at the American Historical Association in 1994 and has been the subject of various articles, essays and theses internationally. She was given an honorary doctorate by North London University (now London Metropolitan University) and in 2004 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. As at 2007 Rowbotham was on the Working Lives Centre Group at London Metropolitan University and the Workers' Institute Advisory Panel (Black Country Living Museum). In this period she continued to help groups involved with the organisation of home workers in Britain and internationally and supported the work of Women Working World Wide.