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At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the economic position of actresses was precarious due both to the nature of their work and the inequality of rates of pay between themselves and their male colleagues. Influenced by the argument that working women needed the vote to improve their economic and working conditions, the Actresses' Franchise League was founded in 1908 by Gertrude Elliot, Winifred Mayo, Sime Seruya and Adeline Bourne. The first meeting was held in December of that year in the Criterion Restaurant in London and was attended by nearly four hundred actresses. Membership was open to those of the profession who wished to support efforts to achieve suffrage for women and the main office was established in the Adelphi Theatre. At the first meeting, it was decided that the group should not affiliate to either the constitutional National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies or the militant Women's Social and Political Union as many individual members were already part of one or the other. However, by 1909, leaders in the Women's Social and Political Union and the Women's Freedom League were regularly being asked to address their meetings. A number of members who held non-militant views, including the Vice president, Irene Vanburgh, consequently resigned from the group in 1910. However, few actresses involved with the organisation took part in militant action as this could have disastrous consequences on their careers, as another member, Kitty Marion, discovered.

By 1911, provincial branches had been created in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Eastbourne and Liverpool and members included Cicley Hamilton, Ellen Terry, Edith Craig, Lena Ashwell, Sybil Thorndyke, May Whittey, Eva Moore, Lillah McCarthey and Elizabeth Robins. It held some meetings and distributed literature but its initial principle role was to support the work of other organisations' campaigns. It regularly put local suffrage organisations in touch with its touring members so that the latter could offer their services in that area by staging suffrage events, speaking at lectures, reciting and writing plays. In 1912 the League became part of the Federated Council of Suffrage Societies and in 1913 a men's group was added. It was around this time that the group undertook a new activity: the creation of the independent Women's Theatre Company, an extension of propaganda and pageant work hitherto carried out for others. Over time, the close links with the WSPU faded and those with the NUWSS and the Men's League for Women's Suffrage grew stronger. Membership rose from 360 in 1910 to 900 in 1914. However, less that two weeks after the start of the First World War, normal activities were suspended and members joined with the Women's Freedom League and the Tax Resisters';s League to form the Women's Emergency Corps. This began to lay the foundations of a register for women who were willing to take part in war work. In addition, from 1915 the Actresses Franchise League helped organise the British Women's Hospital. However, when this work was treated with indifference by the government, their efforts were transferred to creating a Theatre Camps Entertainments group which toured military bases throughout the country. Though it took little active role in the post-war campaigns for an equal franchise for women, the organisation continued in existence until 1934.

The Women's Suffrage Petition Committee (1865-1866) was founded to support the work of John Stuart Mill. In 1865 John Stuart Mill who had avowed his belief in Women's Suffrage in his election address, was elected to Parliament. Some of the leading figures in the Women's Suffrage movement asked him whether he would present a Petition to Parliament on behalf of the movement. He agreed to do so if a reasonable number of signatures could be obtained. In Nov-Dec 1865 Madame Bodichon and Emily Davies enlisted the help of Miss Jessie Boucherett, Rosamund Hill and Elizabeth Garrett to form a small informal committee to promote the Petition. They met at the house of Elizabeth Garrett and became known as the 'Kensington Committee'. Madame Bodichon, Jessie Boucherett and Emily Davies drafted the Petition and during the first months of 1866 they obtained the support of many leading women who between them secured eventually 1,499 signatures to the Petition from all parts of the British Isles. The signatories included many prominent women who made subsequently a significant contribution to the Suffrage movement.

On 7 Jun 1866 Mill presented the Petition to Parliament which was at that time considering the Reform Bill. As Madame Bodichon was ill, Miss Emily Davies accompanied by Miss Garrett took the Petition to the House of Commons. At the Oct Congress of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Sciences held at Manchester, Madame Bodichon read a paper 'On the Extension of the Suffrage to Women'. (Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Sciences, Manchester Congress 1866, 1867, p.794).

The Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee [London Branch] (1866-1867) was formed in 1866. Soon after the Congress at Manchester, The Women's Suffrage Petition Committee decided to transform the informal Petition Committee into a more formal organisation, and the Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee was formed. The members of this London Committee were - Dean Alford (Canterbury), Miss Jessie Boucherett, Professor John Elliot Cairnes, the Rev. WL Clay, Miss Emily Davies, Lady Goldsmid, George Hastings, James Haywood, Mrs Hunt (Isa Craig), Miss Munning and Mrs Hensleigh Wedgwood. Mrs Peter Taylor was the Honorary Treasurer and at first Emily Davies acted as Honorary Secretary. Mrs JW Smith (a Garrett sister) soon acted as Secretary but she died in 1867 and Caroline Biggs, who was to edit the 'Englishwoman's Review' for nearly twenty years succeeded her. The Committee met at Mrs PA Taylor's home, Aubrey House, from which the petitions in 1867 were organised. ('Englishwoman's Review', 14 Sep 1889, p. 386 (Helen Blackburn's obituary for Miss Caroline Biggs). On 5 Jul 1867 the Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee in London dissolved itself and reformed as the 'National Society for obtaining Political Rights for Women' (1867), but was re-named within a short time as the 'London National Society for Women's Suffrage'.

The National Society for Obtaining Political Rights for Women (1867) was formed on 5 Jul 1867 when the Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee in London dissolved itself and reformed with this name. It was re-named again within a short time as the 'London National Society for Women's Suffrage'.

The London [National] Society for Women's Suffrage (1867-1871) was founded in 1867. On 5 Jul 1867 the Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee in London dissolved itself and reformed as the 'National Society for obtaining Political Rights for Women' (1867), but was re-named within a short time as the 'London National Society for Women's Suffrage'. There is a tradition that Mill was responsible for the change of name. (The Executive Committee comprised:- Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Mrs Fawcett, Miss Hampson, Miss Lloyd, Mrs Lucas, Mrs Stansfeld and Mrs PA Taylor who acted as Treasurer. Mrs Smith the Honorary Secretary died soon after the Committee was formed and Caroline Biggs took over, Mrs Taylor having acted until Miss Biggs' appointment.) In 1871 there was an organisational split into two separate bodies: 1) The London National Society for Women's Suffrage (1871-1877); 2) The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1871-1877). The former appears to have been subsumed into the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1877.

The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1871-1877) (CNSWS) was formed after Jacob Bright at the Nov 1871 annual general meeting of the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage called for the creation of a central committee in London to co-ordinate the suffrage lobbying of MPs. Sure of solid support in the provinces, the Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee called a General Meeting at the Langham Hotel on 17 Jan 1872 at which Jacob Bright presided. (Notice of the meeting on 17 Jan 1872 and its purpose appeared in the 'Women's Suffrage Journal', 1 Jan 1872, p.13. A full report of the meeting in the journal's issue 1 Feb 1872, pp.21-3. Another good report, substantially the same, appeared in 'Englishwoman's Review', Apr 1872, pp. 113 'et seq'. Both journals gave a list of the Committees who had placed themselves in connection with the Central Committee.) This meeting passed the following Resolutions:- '1. That this meeting approves the general course pursued by the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage. 2. That an Executive Committee be constituted with all necessary powers for promoting the movement subject to the control of the Central Committee.' The Executive Committee was to consist of the following persons elected:- Professor Sheldon Amos, Mrs Amos, Mr R Arthur Arnold, Mrs Arthur Arnold, Mr Ashurst, Mr Edwin Arnold, Miss Caroline Biggs, Mrs Jabob Bright, Mr Percy Bunting, Mrs Chesson, Miss Courtenay, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Miss Agnes Garrett, Miss Rhoda Garrett, Miss Katherine Hill, Mr Frederic Hill, Mr Henry Hoare, Mrs Duncan M'Laren, Mr W Malleson, Mrs W. Malleson, Mrs Frederick Pennington, Mr Edwin Pears, Mrs Pochin, Mrs Peter Rylands, Dr Humphrey Sandwith, Mrs James Stansfeld, Mrs Venturi, Miss Williams and the following ex-officio members:- 1) All members of Parliament who are members of the Central Committee. 2) Such delegates as the Committees in connection with the Central may appoint (both reports contain names of 13 already appointed by Committees). 3) All members of Executive Committees in connection with the Central Committee. About half of those elected were already playing a leading role in the Repeal Movement. The structure of the Executive Committee fulfilled the need for such a standing Central Committee representing all Suffrage Societies as Jacob Bright had advocated at the meeting in Manchester on the previous 8 Nov. It was the dismantling of this closely knit structure with was one of the main reasons for the Schism in 1888. The Central Committee took offices at 9 Berners Street, the premises of the Berners Club for Women, and in summer 1874 it moved to 294 Regent Street (Langham Place). During the first half of 1872 the Executive Committee pursued an intensive campaign of public meetings and lectures, issued several pamphlets and endeavoured to increase their support among M.P.s and the press. ('The Women's Suffrage Journal' and the 'Englishwoman's Review' gave very good coverage of the activities of the Central Committee, including details of provincial committees and their officers as these were either reorganised or newly established in affiliation with the Central Committee.) Meanwhile the three temporary Honorary Secretaries had the services of a paid Secretary, Miss Emma A. Smith who was later retained on a permanent basis. The first Annual Meeting was held on 17 Jul 1872. (For accounts of the meeting, see 'Women's Suffrage Journal' 1 Aug 1872, pp.108-110 and 'Englishwoman's Review' Oct 1872, pp. 271 'et seq'. As the Editors of these journals, Miss Becker and Miss Biggs, were in the inner councils of the Committee, both journals gave extensive coverage of meetings, Petitions and provincial committees throughout the United Kingdom as these were established. The 'Women's Suffrage Journal' is particularly important for details of Committee membership and officers, in all issues.) To this meeting the Executive Committee presented its 'First Report', which contained a brief account of the events leading to the formation of the Central Committee. As the three Honorary Secretaries had intimated at the Executive meeting held on 12 Jun that they did not wish to continue beyond the Annual Meeting, Miss Caroline Biggs and Miss Agnes Garrett were appointed Honorary Secretaries for the time being. Miss Smith was appointed then on a permanent basis and Mr Henry Hoare was re-elected as Honorary Treasurer. Mrs Fawcett had remained with the London National but she later became exasperated with dissensions in the Society and joined the Central Committee. In 1877 the two London Societies (Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage; 1871-1877 and the London National Society for Women's Suffrage) merged to become the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1877-1888) and Lydia Becker became the parliamentary agent.

The London National Society For Women's Suffrage (LNSWS) (1871-1877) continued after the split in the London Society for Women's Suffrage (1867-1871) at the end of 1871, as a smaller Society. It mainly represented London as the larger and influential provincial societies had affiliated to the Central Committee. John Mill remained as its President, but he died on 8 Apr 1873. (Coverage of the London Society was small in the two Suffrage journals although all important meetings were well reported.) Outside London the Society arranged a few public meetings in those areas which had remained connected with it and the membership followed the established pattern of raising Petitions in their areas and supported the current leader of the Bill in the Commons. The London National Society For Women's Suffrage (1871-1877) appears to have been subsumed into the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1877.

The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1871-1877) (CNSWS) was formed after Jacob Bright at the Nov 1871 annual general meeting of the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage called for the creation of a central committee in London to co-ordinate the suffrage lobbying of MPs. Sure of solid support in the provinces, the Women's Suffrage Provisional Committee called a General Meeting at the Langham Hotel on 17 Jan 1872 at which Jacob Bright presided. (Notice of the meeting on 17 Jan 1872 and its purpose appeared in the 'Women's Suffrage Journal', 1 Jan 1872, p.13. A full report of the meeting in the journal's issue 1 Feb 1872, pp.21-3. Another good report, substantially the same, appeared in 'Englishwoman's Review', Apr 1872, pp. 113 'et seq'. Both journals gave a list of the Committees who had placed themselves in connection with the Central Committee.) This meeting passed the following Resolutions:- '1. That this meeting approves the general course pursued by the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage. 2. That an Executive Committee be constituted with all necessary powers for promoting the movement subject to the control of the Central Committee.' The Executive Committee was to consist of the following persons elected:- Professor Sheldon Amos, Mrs Amos, Mr R Arthur Arnold, Mrs Arthur Arnold, Mr Ashurst, Mr Edwin Arnold, Miss Caroline Biggs, Mrs Jabob Bright, Mr Percy Bunting, Mrs Chesson, Miss Courtenay, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Miss Agnes Garrett, Miss Rhoda Garrett, Miss Katherine Hill, Mr Frederic Hill, Mr Henry Hoare, Mrs Duncan M'Laren, Mr W Malleson, Mrs W. Malleson, Mrs Frederick Pennington, Mr Edwin Pears, Mrs Pochin, Mrs Peter Rylands, Dr Humphrey Sandwith, Mrs James Stansfeld, Mrs Venturi, Miss Williams and the following ex-officio members:- 1) All members of Parliament who are members of the Central Committee. 2) Such delegates as the Committees in connection with the Central may appoint (both reports contain names of 13 already appointed by Committees). 3) All members of Executive Committees in connection with the Central Committee. About half of those elected were already playing a leading role in the Repeal Movement. The structure of the Executive Committee fulfilled the need for such a standing Central Committee representing all Suffrage Societies as Jacob Bright had advocated at the meeting in Manchester on the previous 8 Nov. It was the dismantling of this closely knit structure with was one of the main reasons for the Schism in 1888. The Central Committee took offices at 9 Berners Street, the premises of the Berners Club for Women, and in summer 1874 it moved to 294 Regent Street (Langham Place). During the first half of 1872 the Executive Committee pursued an intensive campaign of public meetings and lectures, issued several pamphlets and endeavoured to increase their support among M.P.s and the press. ('The Women's Suffrage Journal' and the 'Englishwoman's Review' gave very good coverage of the activities of the Central Committee, including details of provincial committees and their officers as these were either reorganised or newly established in affiliation with the Central Committee.) Meanwhile the three temporary Honorary Secretaries had the services of a paid Secretary, Miss Emma A. Smith who was later retained on a permanent basis. The first Annual Meeting was held on 17 Jul 1872. (For accounts of the meeting, see 'Women's Suffrage Journal' 1 Aug 1872, pp.108-110 and 'Englishwoman's Review' Oct 1872, pp. 271 'et seq'. As the Editors of these journals, Miss Becker and Miss Biggs, were in the inner councils of the Committee, both journals gave extensive coverage of meetings, Petitions and provincial committees throughout the United Kingdom as these were established. The 'Women's Suffrage Journal' is particularly important for details of Committee membership and officers, in all issues.) To this meeting the Executive Committee presented its 'First Report', which contained a brief account of the events leading to the formation of the Central Committee. As the three Honorary Secretaries had intimated at the Executive meeting held on 12 Jun that they did not wish to continue beyond the Annual Meeting, Miss Caroline Biggs and Miss Agnes Garrett were appointed Honorary Secretaries for the time being. Miss Smith was appointed then on a permanent basis and Mr Henry Hoare was re-elected as Honorary Treasurer. Mrs Fawcett had remained with the London National but she later became exasperated with dissensions in the Society and joined the Central Committee. In 1877 the two London Societies (Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage; 1871-1877 and the London National Society for Women's Suffrage) merged to become the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1877-1888) and Lydia Becker became the parliamentary agent.

The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (CCNSWS) (1888-1897) was formed in 1888 when the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (CNSWS) (1871-1877) split into two factions over the issue of political affiliation, i.e. whether suffrage was a cross party issue. This group retained the name 'Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1888-1897)' the other became the 'Central National Society for Women's Suffrage' (1888-1897). The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1888-1897) was also known in this period as the 'Great College Street Society'. The committee included Mrs Fawcett, Miss Becker, Miss Courtnay, Helen Blackburn, Mrs Haslem and Frederic Hill amongst others. In Oct 1896 after a conference in Birmingham of all the suffrage societies, it was agreed that the country should be divided into regions. Thus the name changed in Sep 1897 to the 'Central and East of England Society for Women's Suffrage' (1897-1900).

The Central National Society for Women's Suffrage (CNSWS) (1888-1897) was formed in 1888. In 1888 the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1871-1877) split into two factions over the issue of political affiliation, i.e. whether suffrage was a cross party issue. This group became the 'Central National Society for Women's Suffrage' (1888-1897); the other group retained the name 'Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (1888-1897)'. This group, which had party affiliation, had largely placed its faith in the Liberal Party to achieve Women's Suffrage. It was also known as 'The Parliament Street Society' (although it later moved premises to Victoria Street). In 1889 the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage lost members to the 'Women's Franchise League (1889-1897)' as would not expressly include married women in the aims of being eligible to vote. Members of the Central National Society included the McLaren family,Anna Maria Priestman, Mary Bateson and Jane Cobden. Between 1888-1896 the Central National Society was most active in the west country. In Oct 1896 after a conference in Birmingham of all the suffrage societies, it was agreed that the country should be divided into regions. Thus the name changed in 1897 to the Central and Western Society for Women's Suffrage' when their activities in the West of England were 'officially' recognised.

The Central & East of England Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) was formed in Oct 1896 after a conference in Birmingham of all the suffrage societies, it was agreed that the country should be divided into regions. Thus the name changed in Sep 1897 from the 'Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage' (1888-1897) to the 'Central and East of England Society for Women's Suffrage'. In 1900 the Central & Western Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) merged with the Central & East of England Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) to become the 'Central Society for Women's Suffrage' (1900-1907).

The Central & Western Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) was formed in Oct 1896 after a conference in Birmingham of all the suffrage societies, it was agreed that the country should be divided into regions. Thus the name changed in 1897 from 'Central National Society for Women's Suffrage' (1888-1897) to the Central & Western Society for Women's Suffrage' when the West of England was added to its sphere of activity. In 1900 the Central and Western Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) merged with the Central and East of England Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) to become the 'Central Society for Women's Suffrage' (1900-1907).

The Central Society for Women's Suffrage (1900-1907) was formed in 1900 from a merger between the Central & Western Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900) and the Central & East of England Society for Women's Suffrage (1897-1900). In 1907 the Central Society for Women's Suffrage (1900-1907) became the London Society for Women's Suffrage (1907-1919).

The London Society for Women's Suffrage (1907-1919) was established in 1907 out of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage (1900-1907). 'The Women's Service Department': At the outbreak of the First World War, the London Society suspended its political work and placed its offices, its large staff of trained organisers and its branch organisation at the service of the nation. It opened the Women's Service Department whose work during the first months was to provide information to enquirers as to openings for voluntary work and supplied during that period over 1500 voluntary workers for countless organisations including major societies such as the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association the Invalid Children Aid Association, the Women's Patrols, the Belgian Committee and Soldiers' Canteens. It also opened 6 emergency workrooms for women thrown out of work, 9 clubs for soldiers' and sailors' wives and families, 2 clubs for girls, 7 hostels for Belgian Refugees, 3 centres for infant consultations and 2 clothing depots. The society's branches supported and worked with Mayor's Committees in many metropolitan boroughs. The Society also made a major contribution to the work of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, raised London Units and supplied special ambulances. 'Training Women For War Work': By mid 1915, the need for voluntary work diminished but there was a growing demand for trained women to replacement who had joined the armed forces as well as women for the increasing number of new jobs created by the expansion of production of war weapons and materials to meet the needs of the war effort. The Society's Service Department co-operated in the compilation of the Board of Trade's War Register for Women and also set about providing all kinds of technical training for women for entry to factories. Classes were established for such important work as acetylene welding, tracers for mechanical drawings and micrometer and vernier viewing. As the war progressed and the Society was able to raise quite considerable sums of money through appeals and fund raising activities, this work expanded greatly. 'The Women's Employment Department': Having made a major contribution to the training and placing of women in war work, as the war was drawing to a close the Society, with its very experienced organisation, turned its attention and resources to planning to meet the problems that women would face in seeking employment in the post-war period. Having briefly turned its attention, to political activity over the electoral bill which gave women a limited franchise in 1918, the Society re-thought its post-war policy and decided that apart from the battle to secure the franchise for women on the same terms as men, the 1918 Act enabled it to concentrate now more on obtaining equal rights and in this field employment was the major field for its activities. The Society therefore replaced the Women's Services Department by an Employment Department with an Employment Committee, organised with seven Sections. One of these was a Women's Services Section, the other six being Industrial, Political, Training, Publicity, Professional, Commercial and Civil Service Sections. These changes were made early in 1919 and a Resolution of the Executive Committee, 5 Mar 1919, gave effect to a Report of an ad hoc Committee on Advisors, by setting up a Council of Advisers which would consist of representatives of the seven existing Sections. The Executive Committee was empowered to call in representatives of any section for advice when discussing matters concerning subjects dealt with by that Section. A Report of a Sub-Committee on Public meeting, 9 Apr 1919, recommended the Employment Committee to sponsor a public meeting to be held in the last week in May in the Queen's Hall, to publicise the new policy and organisation. Women's Service Leaflet No.2, Apr 1919, was prepared, headed 'The Open Door' to serve the same purpose. The Employment Committee's staff carried out an extensive and intensive survey of occupations that might be suitable for women, interviewing a large and wide range of firms. A Bureau was established to which employers could notify vacancies which the Bureau's staff then tried to fill from those women who contacted them in their search for employment. Eventually, as the work expanded, this activity was taken over by a new organisation that was established by the co-operation of many women's organisations, namely the Women's Employment Federation. In 1919 the name changed to the London Society for Women's Service (1919-1926).

The London Society for Women's Service (1919-1926) was created in 1919 through the renaming of the London Society for Women's Suffrage (1907-1919). The name change reflected the shift in emphasis of the Society's Objects, due to the Act giving women the franchise and also to the fact that the Society had added to its Objects a broader service to women as a result of its contribution to the prosecution of the 1914-1918 war. The London Society for Women's Suffrage had acquired a deep knowledge and experience of the broader aspects of the social and economic needs of women during its intensive contribution to the war effort, through its Women's Service Department. Once the limited franchise had been granted, the leaders and many members of the Society felt that in the post war years, while the Society should continue to work for the granting of the franchise to women on the same terms as men, there was a great deal of work which could be done to secure equal citizenship for women. It was therefore proposed that the aims of the Society should be broadened and that the name of the Society should also be changed to reflect this change of emphasis.

The discussions in the Executive Committee resulted finally in the passing of the following resolutions at the General Meeting held 24 Feb 1919: 1) 'That the Society continue to stand for equal suffrage and equal opportunities for women, but resolve to concentrate its efforts for the present on obtaining economic equality for women.'; 2) 'That the Society resolve to promote this object by means of propaganda, political work, the collection and distribution of information with regard to employment, the promotion of training, opening up of occupations, and such other practical steps as may from time to time seem advisable.'('The Common Cause', vol xi, No. 524, 25 Apr 1919, p.17. The Executive and Annual Meeting Minutes and papers for the transition period are missing, and therefore it is necessary to rely upon the report in 'Common Cause'.). It was also decided to change the title of the Society to 'The London Society for Women's Service'. In a letter that was sent out to all members announcing these changes, the following was added - 'The Committee believe that the struggle to secure equality of opportunity for men and women in the wage-earning work is the next great step towards the full enfranchisement of women; they believe moreover that the forces which threaten the economic position of women to-day are of a most serious and menacing nature and that action is immediately needed to the protection of women workers.' 'They are convinced that a non-party of men and women who are united in principle and experience in practice will be able to give immediate support to the demobilised women, and that by building up public opinion and focussing political action on this group of subjects, they can best serve the cause for which the London Society for Women's Suffrage was originally called into being.' (The Common Cause, vol xi, No. 524, 25 Apr 1919, p.17. The Executive and Annual Meeting Minutes and papers for the transition period are missing, and therefore it is necessary to rely upon the report in 'Common Cause'.)

Two weeks later, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies changed their constitution and title for the same reasons. The change of Object of the Union now allowed any societies having the equality of men and women as one of their objects to affiliate to the Union. This changed the relationship between the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship and the London Society as the latter's Annual Report presented at the Society's Annual Meeting on 16 Dec 1919 explained - 'That decision (i.e. by NUWSS) has fundamentally altered the relation of the Society to the Union of which it has been so ardent a promoter and supporter. Until last year, the London Society for Women's Suffrage Societies (sic) was the representative of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in the Metropolitan area. Now the London Society for Women's Service is but one of several London Societies affiliated to the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, each carrying out a different part of the Union's programme. This new relationship, which is no less harmonious than the old, results in a different form of co-operation and is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that the National Union may now properly hold meetings in London without reference to the London Society, while the London Society may carry on its work in co-operation with any other Society sympathetic to is special aspects of equality, without reference to the National Union.' (ibid., No. 560, 2 Jan 1919, p.503.) The report also referred to the rather pressing financial problems of the Society and after referring to the great work of the London Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, hinted that it may have to close down that activity in the near future. The President, Miss Philippa Fawcett, in commenting on this problem, appealed for donations as well as subscriptions to enable the Society to carry out fully its aims. In 1926 the society was renamed the London & National Society for Women's Service.

The London & National Society for Women's Service (1926-1953) was created in 1926 and was the renamed London Society for Women's Service (1919-1926). The name change reflected the shift in becoming the national body campaigning for women in employment. In 1953 it was renamed The Fawcett Society.

The Fawcett Society (1953-fl.2008) was created in 1953, out of a series of predecessor bodies dating back to 1865 and the campaigns for women's suffrage. Best known as 'London National Society for Women's Suffrage' later the 'London Society for Women's Service' the organisation went through many name changes between 1865 and 1953 when it became known as The Fawcett Society. The name changed in 1953 from London & National Society for Women's Service (1926-1953) to The Fawcett Society in honour of Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the leader of the constitutional campaign for women's suffrage, and the president of several of the Fawcett Society's predecessor bodies. The Fawcett Society became the United Kingdom's leading campaign for equality between women and men, at work, at home and in public life. They campaigned on on women's representation in politics and public life; pay, pensions and poverty; valuing caring work; and the treatment of women in the justice system. They raised the profile of these issues by creating awareness, leading debate, lobbying politicians and policy makers, and driving change. They influenced developments such as: a change in the law to allow political parties to use all-women shortlists to increase the number of women MPs; the reform of the rape law; and a new duty on public bodies to promote equality between women and men. As at 2008 the Fawcett Society was still active.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929) was born in Suffolk in 1847, the daughter of Newson and Louisa Garrett and the sister of Samuel Garrett, Agnes Garrett, Louise Smith and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. The sisters' early interest in the issue of women's suffrage and commitment to the Liberal party were heightened after attending a speech given in London by John Stuart Mill in Jul 1865. Though considered too young to sign the petition in favour of votes for women, which was presented to the House of Commons in 1866, Millicent attended the debate on the issue in May 1867. This occurred a month after she married the professor of political economy and radical Liberal MP for Brighton, Henry Fawcett. Throughout their marriage, the future cabinet minister supported his wife's activities while she acted as his secretary due to his blindness. Their only child, Philippa Fawcett, was born the following year and that same month Millicent Garrett Fawcett published her first article, on the education of women. In Jul 1867, Millicent Garrett Fawcett was asked to join the executive committee of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and was one of the speakers at its first public meeting two years later. She continued her work with the London National Society until after the death of John Stuart Mill in 1874, when she left the organisation to work with the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage. This was a step which she had avoided taking when the latter was formed in 1871 due to its public identification with the campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Fawcett, despite her support for the movement's actions, had initially believed that the suffrage movement might be damaged by identification with such controversial work. However, the two groups later merged in 1877 as the new Central Committee for Women's Suffrage and a new executive committee was formed which included Fawcett herself. Her influence helped guide the group towards support for moderate policies and methods. She did little public speaking during this period but after the death of her husband in 1884 and a subsequent period of depression, she was persuaded to become a touring speaker once more in 1886 and began to devote her time to the work of the women's suffrage movement. In addition to women's suffrage Millicent Garrett Fawcett also became involved in the newly created National Vigilance Association, established in 1885, alongside campaigners such as J Stansfeld MP, Mr WT Stead, Mrs Mitchell, and Josephine Butler. In 1894 Fawcett's interest in public morality led her to vigorously campaign against the candidature of Henry Cust as Conservative MP for North Manchester. Cust, who had been known to have had several affairs, had seduced a young woman. Despite marrying Cust's marriage in 1893, after pressure from Balfour, Fawcett felt Cust was unfit for public office. Fawcett's campaign persisted until Cust's resignation in 1895, with some suffrage supporters concerned by Fawcett's doggedness in what they felt was a divisive campaign. In the late nineteenth century, the women's suffrage movement was closely identified with the Liberal Party through its traditional support for their work and the affiliation of many workers such as Fawcett herself. However, the party was, at this time, split over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. Fawcett herself left the party to become a Liberal Unionist and helped lead the Women's Liberal Unionist Association. When it was proposed that the Central Committee's constitution should be changed to allow political organisations, and principally the Women's Liberal Federation, to affiliate, Fawcett opposed this and became the Honorary Treasurer when the majority of members left to form the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage. However, in 1893 she became one of the leading members of the Special Appeal Committee that was formed to repair the divisions in the movement. On the 19 Oct 1896 she was asked to preside over the joint meetings of the suffrage societies, which resulted in the geographical division of the country and the formation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. She was appointed as the honorary secretary of the Central and Eastern Society that year and became a member of the parliamentary committee of the NUWSS itself. It was not until the parent group's reorganisation in 1907 that she was elected president of the National Union, a position that she would retain until 1919. By 1901, she was already eminent enough to be one of the first women appointed to sit on a Commission of Inquiry into the concentration camps created for Boer civilians by the British during the Boer War. Despite this, her work for suffrage never slackened and she was one of the leaders of the Mud March held in Feb 1907 as well as of the NUWSS procession from Embankment to the Albert Hall in Jun 1908. She became one of the Fighting Fund Committee in 1912 and managed the aftermath of the introduction of the policy, in particular during the North West Durham by-election in 1914, when other members opposed a step that effectively meant supporting the Labour Party when an anti-suffrage Liberal candidate was standing in a constituency. When the First World War broke out in Aug 1914, Fawcett called for the suspension of the NUWSS' political work and a change in activities to facilitate war work. This stance led to divisions in the organisation. The majority of its officers and ten of the executive committee resigned when she vetoed their attendance of a Women's Peace Congress in the Hague in 1915. However, she retained her position in the group. During the war, she also found time to become involved in the issue of women's social, political and educational status in India, an area in which she had become interested through her husband and retained after the conflict came to an end. She remained at the head of the NUWSS when the women's suffrage clause was added to the Representation of the People Act in 1918 and attended the Women's Peace Conference in Paris before lobbying the governments assembled there for the Peace Conference in 1919. She retired in Mar 1919 when the NUWSS became the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship but remained on its executive committee. She also continued her activities as the vice-president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, to which she had been elected in 1902, for another year. After this she became the Chair of the journal, the 'Women's Leader', and appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1925. It was in that year that she resigned from both NUSEC and the newspaper's board after opposing the organisation's policy in support of family allowances. She remained active until the end of her life, undertaking a trip to the Far East with her sister Agnes only a short time before her death in 1929.

This group, initially named the Manchester Committee for the Enfranchisement of Women, was formed in the 1860s, possibly initially to support John Stuart Mill's 1866 suffrage petition. Early members included Elizabeth Wolstenhulme Elmy, Jacob and Ursula Bright, Rev, S.A. Steinthal and Dr. Richard Pankhurst. It was formally re-founded in 1867 to canvass women householders in Manchester to support further suffrage petitions. It became federated to the National Society for Women's Suffrage, changing its name in 1897 to the North of England Society for Women's Suffrage.

The Susan B Anthony Memorial Committee (fl. 1937-1949) was established to help organise the creation of memorials to the American Suffragist. It appears to have operated between around 1937 and 1949, mainly working in California. It succeeded in having a giant tree named after her in the Sequoia National Park after an application to Interior Department of the United States government. It also resulted in a bequest of 500 volumes being bequeathed to the Huntingdon Library in California, that formed the nucleus of the significant women's studies collection that was later formed. In 1937, its committee consisted of Mrs Robert Adamson as the national Chair, Sue Brobst as the Californian Chair and Una R Winter as the vice-Chair of the region. Una Winter appears to have been responsible for the collation of the background information for the request.

The Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service (1914-1919) was part of the suffrage response to the First World War. At the outbreak of the First World War, a large number of the existing suffrage societies put their administrative skills at the disposal of the war effort. The Scottish Federation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, at the suggestion of Dr Elsie Inglis, put forward the idea of female medical units to serve on the front line. The War Office rejected the idea, but nonetheless private donations, the fundraising of local societies and the support of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies financed a number of units staffed entirely by women. The organisation's headquarters were in Edinburgh throughout the war, with committees also in Glasgow and London, working closely with the London office of the Croix Rouge Francaise. The Fawcett Society was particularly involved with the London Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. The first unit mobilised established a 200 bed Auxiliary Hospital at Royaumont Abbey in Dec 1914. In Apr 1915, Dr Inglis herself was at the head of a unit based in Serbia. By Jun 1915 SWH had responsibility for more than 1,000 beds with 250 staff including 19 women doctors. The Austrian offensive of that summer led to their camps being overrun and a number of the staff including Inglis herself being taken prisoner, only to be released after negotiations. By the end of the war there were fourteen Scottish Women's Hospitals in France, Serbia, Russia, Salonica and Macedonia. Inglis herself was ill with cancer by 1917 while working in Russia. She and her unit were part of the retreat of forces to Archangel and she was evacuated to Newcastle on the 25 Nov 1919 of that year, only to die the following day. The Scottish Women's Hospitals work continued until the end of the war.

Josephine Elizabeth Butler [née Grey] (1828-1906) was born on 13 Apr 1828 (7th of 10 children of John Grey and Hannah née Annett). In 1835 the Grey family moved to Dilston near Corbridge, Northumberland after her father's appointment in 1833 as agent for the Greenwich Estates in the north. On 8 Jan 1852 Josephine married George Butler at Corbridge, Northumberland. He had been a tutor at Durham University, and then a Public Examiner at Oxford University. In 1857 they moved to Cheltenham following husband's appointment as Vice-Principal of Cheltenham College. In 1866 they moved to Liverpool following husband's appointment as Head of Liverpool College. Josephine took up plight of girls in the Brownlow Hill workhouse and established a Home of Rest for girls in need. In 1868 Josephine became President of North England Council for Promoting Higher Education of Women, and in the following year she was Secretary of Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (extended by legislation in 1866 and 1869). In 1875 she established the International Abolitionist Federation in Liverpool. In 1883 the Contagious Diseases Acts were suspended. In 1885 the age of consent was raised to 16 which Josephine fought for. The Contagious Diseases Acts were repealed in 1886. From 1888 until Oct 1896, Josephine edited 'Dawn' a quarterly journal. From 1882-1890 Josephine lived in Winchester where Rev George Butler was appointed canon. In 1890 George Butler died. Josephine moved to London and continued campaigning against state regulation abroad. In 1894 she moved to her son's home in Galewood within Ewart Park near Milfield. In 1898-1900 Josephine edited and wrote 'Storm Bell'. In 1906 Josephine moved to Wooler where she died on 30 Dec and was buried at Kirknewton.

Ladies National Association for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice and for the Promotion of Social Purity (1869-1915) (LNA) was established in 1869. In the 1840s there was an upsurge in concern about prostitution in the United Kingdom. Evangelical Christians, socialists and chartists all condemned the industry and moral campaigns were established to suppress vice. However, only after 1857' Royal Commission report on the health of the army, and a follow-up report on the level of venereal disease in the military five years later did official tolerance of prostitution came to an end as the question became fused with contemporary concerns over public health. The result was three successive decrees in 1864, 1866 and 1869 known as the Contagious Diseases (referred to as the CD) Acts. By these, in certain towns containing military bases, any woman suspected of being a prostitute could be stopped and forced to undergo a genital inspection to discover if she had a venereal disease. If she did not submit willingly, she could be arrested and brought before a magistrate. If she was found to be infected, she could be effectively imprisoned in a 'lock' hospital. After the 1869 Social Sciences congress at which the CD Acts were raised and condemned, a number of individuals established the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. No women were originally included in the organisation though many later joined. The result of this omission was that by the end of Dec 1869, the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was formed. On New Year' Day 1870, one of their first actions was to publish in the Daily News a protest against the Acts. This was signed by 124 women including Florence Nightingale, Josephine Butler, Mary Carpenter, Lydia Becker and drafted by Harriet Martineau and became known as the Ladies' Protest. This manifesto document opposed the acts on several grounds: they gave unbounded powers over women to the police; they identified and penalised the wrong sex as the source of vice; they withdrew moral restraints on conduct without tackling the moral causes of disease; they posed a serious danger to civil liberties; and finally, the group claimed, they were incapable of diminishing disease. The group' treasurer was Mrs Jacob Bright and Butler acted as the honorary secretary. By Oct 1871, they had gathered 1400 members and by 1871 57 branches had been formed. At the end of that year the Executive Committee comprised: Mrs Jacob Bright, Lydia Becker, Mrs Blackburn, Miss Estlin, Mrs McLaren, Mrs E. Backhouse, Miss Merryweather, Mrs Nichol, Miss L Marche-Phillipps, Mrs Reid and Miss Wigham; Mrs Arthur Tanner had become its head and Josephine Butler remained secretary. Its main bases of support were in the North and Bristol: until 1873, the organisation had no London offices and support in this area remained weak until the 1880s. However, throughout its existence, it maintained ties with the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act though maintaining its independence as a female organisation focused on moral rather than statistical arguments. Therefore, when the CD Acts were repealed in 1886, the organisation did not end as NARCDA did, but went on to fight for equal moral standards between the sexes as the Ladies National Association for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice and for the Promotion of Social Purity. In this incarnation, the body campaigned for the repeal of the Acts remaining in force in India. In 1915, they amalgamated with the British Branch of the British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution to become the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene.

Richard F Russell (fl 1951-1972) was General Secretary of the British Vigilance Association and the International Bureau for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons from 1957 to 1971, when he retired from ill-health. He was also active in other humanitarian organisations, including the charity Aid to Displaced Persons: Great Britain, which later became Aid to European Refugees.

The Anglican Group for the Ordination of Women (1930-1978) began after a call for evidence on women and the ministry went out as in the run up to the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in 1930. Its immediate stated aim was: 1) to give effect to the injunction of the Archbishop of Canterbury that the church should be provided with material "which would compel the serious consideration of [the ordination of women] in a manner worthy of its importance" and 2) to provide opportunities of contact for women who believe themselves called to the ministry. However, the working group's evidence was rejected by the Conference. Consequently, the ad hoc group was re-established as an ongoing organisation from 1931. Their subsequent aims, as outlined in 1935, were: 1) To uphold the Christian principle of spiritual equality between men and women; 2) to draw attention to the growing need for the admission of women to the [...] ministry of the Church and 3) to bring together and support those women who believe themselves to be called to holy orders. At this point, as throughout its existence, the group was solely concerned with the ordination of women in the Church of England, although later they would work with other non-denominational groups such as the Society for the Ministry of Women in the Church. Membership of the organisation was open to all baptised Anglicans over the age of 18 and it was financed by donation rather than by subscription. Business and policy making was in the hands of the Annual General Meeting, where the annual report was received and officers and the Executive Committee elected (the first annual meeting was held Mar 1933). The group held intermittent public meetings throughout the 1930s and went into complete abeyance during the Second World War. The first post-war AGM was held in 1946 but the organisation's impetus had dissipated and only three general meetings were held between 1949 and 1957. During the early part of the Fifties, the organisation abstained from any activity that might create a debate on the issue of the ordination of women in the Church of England, confining their work to research and education. However, the outcome of this, in 1955, was the submission of a report that recommended that women should be allowed to conduct statutory services (though not communion). The church once more rejected this in May 1956 and this rejection led to a resurgence of activity, as the group began to publicise its existence through letters to the Times newspaper. The following year the constitution was changed once again. This time its objectives were 1) to secure ordination of women to all orders of the Church of England; 2) promote equality between men and women in the offices and the affairs of the Anglican Church; 3) assist women in theological study and 4) to undertake all lawful activities to promote the previous points. Throughout the 1960s their efforts were concentrated on raising awareness of the issue in the media through contacts with the press and publications of titles such as Women's Work in the Church of England. However, the organisation was finally would up in the mid-1970s.

See the corporate history for Committee for Promoting the Higher Education of Women, 1869-1871

The creation of the Committee for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (1869-1871) was part of a wider debate about gender and education. Until the end of the nineteenth century, most middle-class girls were educated at home by the family, unlike their brothers who routinely attended university, and the schools which did cater for them were generally of a very poor academic standard, with emphasis on 'accomplishments' such as embroidery and music. However, some such as Louisa Martindale, tried to start her own schools for girls with more academically demanding curricula. Despite the failure of Martindale's exercise, Mary Francis Buss followed in her footsteps, however, when, at the age of twenty-three she founded the North London Collegiate School for Ladies with similar aims while in 1858 Dorothea Beale became Principal of Cheltenham Ladies College and transformed it into one of the most academically successful schools in the country. In 1865 Beale began collaborating with Emily Davis, Barbara Bodichon, Helen Taylor, Francis Buss and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in forming a debating society which became known as the Kensington Society. There, these women who would be crucial in the development of these schools met for the first time to discuss this and other topics. At the same time, they also began researching the question of the entrance of women into higher education. The Queen's College in London had already opened in 1847 to provide a superior level of education to governesses and had proved a success without being an accredited institution of higher education itself. In this context and influenced by the London group, a large number of Ladies' Educational Associations sprang up throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Those in Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, etc were brought together in 1867 by Anne Clough as the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women and its members included Josephine and George Butler as well as Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy. This council began setting up a series of lectures and a university-based examination for women who wished to become teachers and which would later develop into a university Extension Scheme, despite most universities' continued general refusal to open their degree examinations to women. In the South, other small groups were formed to work for the entrance of women into tertiary education. One of these was the Committee for Promoting the Higher Education of Women, which met from 1869. Its committee included Lady Monteagle, Mrs Blunt, Mrs Brookfield, Mrs Stair-Douglas, Misses Foude, Crawford and Legge and the Rev Blunt. Amongst its activities it carried our social lobbying and, more practically, organised a series of lectures on subjects such as science and the classics. It may have been the establishment in 1871 of the residence of Newnham College for women who were attending lectures at Cambridge by Henry Sidgewick that prompted the cessation of that particular group's activities in that year, though the overall movement for educational parity continued well into the twentieth century.

Equal Rights International (1930-c.1940) was founded in 1930 when the franchise was granted to women in a growing number of countries, and women's activism in the West moved from suffrage to campaigning for equality of rights with men. When progress was impeded at a national level, many began to look to international change. Campaigning, by Vera Brittain amongst others, was undertaken to press the League of Nations to pass an Equal Rights treaty. In 1929 the British Six Point Group and Open Door Council had worked together to form Open Door International to secure this and equal pay for female workers and at first the League appeared to support this work. However, when plans for an equal rights treaty emerged, Open Door International opposed it as too vague to repeal contemporary discriminatory laws. In response to this situation, Equal Rights International was founded in 1930 by members of the Six Point Group with the support of the National Women's Party to continue the process, aiming to 'work for the adoption of the Equal Rights Treaty by all nations'. Members of the Geneva-based group included Vera Brittain, who was active in the promotion of the Equal Rights Treaty from 1929, Jessie Street, who became vice-president in 1930 and the journalist Linda Littlejohn who became president in 1935. Member countries of the League of Nations were lobbied to back the treaty, but no member country could be found to place the item on the Assembly's agenda. Despite this, work continued and the ERI became affiliated to the Liaison Committee of International Women's Organisations in order to gain increased access to members of the League of Nations secretariat. An initial lack of success was followed by hope in the late 1930s, when a committee of inquiry into women's legal status across the world was created. However, this work also came to nothing as the Second World War began. The organisation appears to have been wound up some time after this, c.1940.

Hackney Women's Aid (HWA) (1975-fl 2007) established in 1975, was part of the Women's Aid London-wide and national network of women's refuges offering support, advice and temporary emergency accommodation to women with or without children who were experiencing domestic violence. HWA later became the nia project, which also has its own legal support and representation service for women, an information and referral line and advice/caseworkers that support women. They have specialist workers who advocate for and assist women who are affected by gender violence, also those who are involved in street prostitution, helping them to exit. They also work with women who have issues relating to domestic violence and substance misuse. Sinéad O'Connor opened the drop-in centre in Dalston in 1998. In addition, they have Turkish-language advice, refuge and resettlement workers. Nia is a Swahili word that means 'purpose'.

The League of Church Militant (1909-1928) was founded as the Church League for Women's in 1909, a non-party organisation open to members of the Church of England who wished to campaign 'to secure for women the vote in Church and State.' In 1917 it became the League of Church Militant with aims including the establishment of equal rights and opportunities for men and women both in Church and State and the 'settlement of all international questions on the basis of right, not of might.' After the end of the First World War it shifted its main attention to the following aim, as adopted at a Council meeting in 1919: 'To challenge definitely … what has hitherto been the custom of the Church of confining the priesthood to men.' After the Franchise Act received Royal Assent in 1928, the League felt that one of its main aims had been realised and that, whilst it still desired to see women ordained to the ministry of the Church, felt that this might be better carried on through other means. In 1928 it therefore decided to wind up its affairs. The campaign for the ordination of women was continued by the Anglican Group for the Ordination of Women (f 1930) and many of those, including E Louie Acres, who had been active in the League, were prominent within the Group.

Mothers in Action (1967-c 1977) was established in 1967 by five unsupported mothers who joined together to improve the conditions in which they were living and bringing up their children. The group was founded with a £10 grant from the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child (later NCOPF). The aim of MIA was 'To press for the best possible status for unsupported mothers and their children'. The four objectives of the group were: (1) To encourage unsupported mothers to improve their own conditions through participation in the activities of the group and any other organisation with which the group may be associated. (2) To press for improvements in the status of and facilities for unsupported mothers and their children, by representation to local authorities or government departments and by specially conducted campaigns. (3) To disseminate information of special interest to unsupported mothers and similarly to encourage their personal contribution to current research into their problems. (4) To encourage social contact between unsupported mothers; to reduce isolation and to enable them to make the fullest part of life in the community. Services offered to members included distribution of a newsletter, accommodation register, fact sheets, baby-sitting register and the existence of local groups. By 1969 membership of Mothers In Action had grown to 1000 countrywide, with some members living abroad. The organisation existed as a pressure group for unsupported mothers, both employed and unemployed. The group included single mothers, divorced, separated or deserted wives, widows and married women whose husbands were serving prison sentences or were incapable of supporting them by virtue of mental or physical handicaps. Membership was divided into Ordinary Members - Unsupported Mothers - and Associate Member- everyone else. In 1972 the group was revised and formal membership abolished (effective 1 Mar 1972). The aim was now rephrased: 'To press for the best possible status for one parent families regardless of race, religion or nationality'. The decision was made to focus on pressure activities rather than services to members.

SUMMARY OF CAMPAIGNS: 1970-1975 Housing; 1960s Equal pay; 1968-1970 Day Nursery Campaign; 1968 Adoption; 1973 Target Campaign on Maternity Leave; 1973-1974 Day care campaign; 1974 School age mothers; 1974 Parents' legal rights, in conjunction with Brunel University.

The Married Women's Association (1938-1988) was formed in 1938 as a result of the failed attempts of the Equal Rights International Group, set up by members of the Six Point Group, to persuade the League of Nations to incorporate an Equal Rights Treaty in the Equal Rights International Group Constitution. Juanita Frances had been working in Geneva as part of the operative. After three unsuccessful meetings she drew up plans for a separate organisation to work chiefly for the rights of housewives and mothers and the Married Women's Association was born. It was to be a 'non - party and non - sectarian' association and its management was initially conducted at 20 Buckingham Street, London WC2. Prominent members included Edith (later Baroness) Summerskill, Vera Brittain, Helena Normanton and Lady Helen Nutting. Edith (later Baroness) Summerskill was the association's first president, other presidents included Vera Brittain and Juanita Frances. The aims of the Association were to: a) promote legislation to regulate the financial relations between husband and wife as between equal partners; b) secure for the mother and children a legal right to a share in the marital home; c) secure equal guardianship rights for both parents; d) extent the National Insurance Acts to include women on the same terms as men. The Association later included additional objectives, which were to: e) extend family allowances; f) establish equal pay; g) awaken women to their full political responsibilities. In order to achieve these goals members conducted deputations to ministers; held public meetings, debates and social activities and the Association published its own newsletters, namely: Wife and Citizen (1945-1951) and the Married Women's Association Newsletter [1966-1987]. In 1952 a significant disagreement between members led to a split within the Association. Helena Normanton had prepared evidence for submission to the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce and she had included proposals, which other members vehemently objected to. It was felt that the evidence was for the benefit of privileged women and as such, the position of ordinary women would remain at a disadvantage, which would be contrary to the Association's objectives. Helena Normanton and Mrs Gorsky (Chair) left to form the Council of Married Women and were joined by Lady Helen Nutting. The Married Women's Association continued up until the 1980s. A rough minute book entry of 6 Dec 1981 states that there will be no further meetings due to ill health and family commitments. However, the records contain Executive and AGM minutes to 1983 and correspondence to 1988. The extension of family allowances, establishment of equal pay and helping women to recognise their political responsibilities became later objectives. 'Wife and Citizen' (1945-1951) and the 'MWA Newsletter' were the official organs of the Association.

The National Women Citizens Association (1917-1975) was founded in 1917 at a time of concern in how women could be active citizens. After decades of campaigning for women's suffrage, initiatives were established to lay the foundations of women's informed political participation in the early part of the twentieth century. From 1913, autonomous local Women Citizen's Associations were formed throughout the United Kingdom following Eleanor Rathbone's initiatives in Liverpool and Manchester. Their aim was to stimulate women's interest in social and political issues in order to prepare them for active citizenship. When it became evident in 1917 that women were about to be awarded the parliamentary vote, more of these organisations were established. In Jun 1917, the National Union of Women Workers called a meeting of British women's organisations at which the issues surrounding this were discussed. It was here that the NUWW drew up the Provisional Central Committee on the Citizenship of Women, with members drawn from interested societies, though acting in a private capacity. It was their intention to continue to stimulate interest through the work of the existing societies but also to help form local groups that would affiliate to this central body. At the Nov 1917 conference of the 42 affiliated societies of the National Union of Women Workers, the plans and procedures of the new body were accepted by the Executive Committee. The first election of the Central Committee took place that Dec 1917, followed by a change of name to the National Women Citizen's Association. Helena Normanton was the first Secretary. In early 1918 the first of the local branches began to appear and when, in that year, the franchise was finally given to women, the numbers of affiliated organisations increased as suffrage groups changed their names and objectives to fit new circumstances. During the early 1920s a number of Women's Local Government Society branches affiliated, eventually becoming women's citizenship groups when the parent body dissolved in 1925. This saw the NWCA assume greater responsibility for work in the area of local government through the second half of this decade and into the 1930s. Despite this, there was a decline in interest and activity in the group before the Second World War. However, this situation was reversed after the war. In 1947, the organisation amalgamated with the National Council for Equal Citizenship and then, in 1949, with Women for Westminster. There was a corresponding increase in activity leading up to the Festival of Britain in 1951, so that in the 1950s it was necessary to reorganise the local branches into five regional federations. Local branches continued to be established into the 1960s. However, there was a another decrease in activity and the NWCA disbanded in 1974 despite some local branches continuing and an attempt being made by some former officers to revive the group in 1975.

St Joan's Social & Political Alliance (1923-1954) was created in 1923, when the Catholic Women's Suffrage Society (1911-1923) changed its name as the society refocused its aims on a wider scale to consider social issues affecting women. From this time on, its international work expanded, from becoming a founder member of the liaison committee of international female organisations in 1924 to the presentation of a report to the League of Nations on the subject of female status in African and Asian states in 1937. This international work continued after the Second World War. Its areas of interest now included the slave trade, women's education and professional development, employment, divorce, prostitution and marital abuse, advising the United Nations on these matters and becoming recognised as an official consultative body by the UN, UNESCO and the World Labour Organisation since 1952. St Joan's Social and Political Alliance became known as the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Section of the St Joan's International Alliance in 1954.

The German section of St Joan's International Alliance was established around 1950 and remained small throughout its existence, with only 25-50 members throughout West Germany at any time. However, it had considerable influence, especially in the 1960s under the presidency of Dr Luise Bardenhewer. Mary Dittrich was secretary from 1974 and the section was dissolved in 1980 on her resignation. Along with the international group, it was active in efforts to support the introduction of women priests after the Vatican Council of 1961, as well as being concerned with the general issues of the status of women both inside and outside the Catholic Church.

Prominent individuals: -

Secretaries: Anne Branksiepe 1952-1957; Dr Luise Bardenhewer 1958-1971; Iima Reissner 1972-c 1974; Mary Dittrich 1974-1981 (closure).

Chair: Dr Margarethe von Miller from 1966; Dr Maria Schulter-Hermkes - date unknown; Professor Ursula Kemp. Since 1991 Head of Theology/ Religious studies at Bristol University.

Throughout the 1920s and the early part of the 1930s, international women's organisations were engaged in efforts to have an international equal rights treaty passed by the League of Nations. Although this was never passed before the League s Council, four governments signed a version of the accord at the Pan-American conference of 1933. The rest of the conference participants, however, were unable to do so and merely adopted a resolution requesting that governments implement equality so far as the peculiar circumstances of each country will conveniently permit'. The following year the Pan-American Commission of Women, which was an official body of the Pan American Union, persuaded ten Latin American members of the League's Council to request that the whole issue of women's status be examined. In response, the Council requested fifteen international women's organisations to present statements on the nationality and status of women. They reported back on contemporary restrictive legislation being passed that curtailed women's economic and social liberties in Europe. The evidence presented led the League in 1935 to invite governments to present them with further information on this question within their own borders. The League of Nations' Status of Women Committee was established in 1935 to examine this at the same time as an inquiry was conducted by the International Labour Organisation to examine equality under contemporary labour laws.

The British government undertook research in order to present the necessary findings to the League. However, the National Council of Women felt it necessary to set up an independent group to study and supplement these reports. Consequently, the Committee on the Status of Women was established. Its immediate was to co-ordinate the responses of women's groups to the request for information and forward them through the International Council of Women. However, this work came to a halt with the outbreak of the Second World War. When its activities resumed in 1945, the League of Nations had been dissolved and their task had changed dramatically. Now, under the first post-war chairperson, Thelma Cazalet-Keir, the organisation was not involved in reporting to the United Nations but acted as a national body for co-ordinating the work of organisations campaigning for women's rights. In this period, it monitored contemporary legislation for examples of discrimination and acted as a pressure group on the government, other law-makers, employers, those in education and the media. It was constituted by representatives of British women's institutions and groups which were affiliated to the Committee included the Association of Assistant Masters and Mistresses, the Commonwealth Centres League, the League of Jewish Women, the Married Women's Association, the St Joan's Alliance, the Six Point Group, the Suffragette Fellowship, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Josephine Butler Society, the United Kingdom Federation of Business and Professional Women, and the Women's Liberal Federation amongst others. Additionally, individuals and co-opted specialists in their fields also belonged to what remained a non-party organisation throughout its existence. From the end of the Second World War, the group continued to hold regular meetings and annual conferences. In 1968, they organised the jubilee of Votes for Women; in 1972, their annual conference revolved around women and property rights. In 1974, sex discrimination in the EEC was the central topic while in 1975 the conference discussed the future of women. They aimed for equality for women in all spheres of life. This aim centred around eight principles: equal pay for work of equal value; equal educational facilities; equal provision of training; equal opportunities in employment; equality on social security; equality in taxation; equal social standards and equal standards in marriage. However by the late 1970s, the number of groups that continued to subscribe dropped back as some were dissolved and others failed to renew their membership. In 1978, their activities had fallen way to such an extent that organisers of the official celebrations for fifty years of suffrage initially omitted to include them in the events. By 1980, members themselves were questioning the continued existence of the group since most of their demands for legal equality had been achieved and constituent groups were now referring few matters to them. Consequently, the group was officially wound up in January 1985, when the balance of their funds was transferred to the accounts of the Society for Promoting the Training of Women.

The Association of Post Office Women Clerks (1903-c 1913) was founded as women became employed in this sector. Women were first employed in the British Civil Service in Feb 1870, after the responsibility for Britain's telegraph service came under the remit of the Controller of the Post Office under the Telegraph Act of 1869. At the end of the nineteenth century, there was great opposition to women's employment amongst male employees, in contrast to employers' acceptance of a new workforce who worked for lower wages and was less inclined to industrial agitation. This hostility also affected the male-dominated trade unions of the period, especially those concerned with the Civil Service. This meant that women civil servants of the time continued to occupy separate and lower grades than those of men, and a marriage bar prevented them continuing to work after they became wives. It was not until the turn of the century that female trade union agitation for equal pay and conditions with the male workforce began. Women workers continued to be employed in larger numbers by the Post Office than in other departments. However, conditions continued to be poor. The Association of Post Office Women Clerks was formed in 1903 as a result of a dispute which began in 1897 when women's starting pay and annual increments were suddenly further reduced. By 1904 the union had over 1,300 members. In 1913 the organisation joined the Federation of Women Clerks to further these aims. In 1916 they merged with the Civil Service Typists Association to become the Federation of Women Civil Servants. This represented all clerical women in the Civil Service with the exception of Writing Assistants, had the objective of securing equal pay with male employees and co-operated with male trade unions to attain this end. The Association, along with most of the civil service trades unions were involved in efforts to introduce arbitration and militated for what would become Whitley Councils. After the end of the First World War such action helped bring about a major restructuring of the service. Grades that had been unique to each of the departments were now merged across the entire service to form four basic bands. When women's posts were finally assimilated into the general grading system in 1920, the group found itself weakened as members left for larger mixed unions. As a result of this, the union amalgamated with the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries in 1932 and continued as the National Association of Women Civil Servants. The organisation was affiliated to the Federation of Women Civil Servants, and later merged with the National Association of Women Civil Servants.

Amelia (Millie) Scott (1860-1952) was born to Syms Scott and Ellen Nicholls on 16 Jan 1860. She spent much of her later childhood living with her aunt, and grandmother (both called Amelia Nicholls) following the death of her father in 1870, as her mother was unable to support six children. Amelia Scott and her three sisters all remained unmarried and Amelia and her sister Louise lived together in Tunbridge Wells for many years. Their background was one of a middle class family who were not quite as affluent as they once had been. Amelia Scott was involved in several organisations such as the Tunbridge Wells branch of the National Council of Women (originally called the National Union of Women Workers), which she established in May 1895. She was a member of this organisation for thirty-five years, serving as its honorary secretary. She worked as Treasurer for the Tunbridge Wells branch of the Women Citizens' Association and as an honorary secretary and Chair for the Leisure Hours Club - an association set up for working girls. She was also involved with the Tunbridge Wells branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, serving as vice president, and the Christian Social Union. Between 1918-1924 Amelia served on the Legal sub committee of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. She also served on the Provisional Executive Committee of this organisation by representing the National Council of Women. Amelia Scott was also a Poor Law Guardian for many years, Chair of the Infant Life Protection Committee, Member of the Kent County Mental Deficiency Committee and Director of the Women's Common Lodging House Company, Tunbridge Wells. Amelia Scott was the author of 'Women of Sacred History', a study concerned with the women of the bible and 'Passing of a Great Dread', a history of the poor law as well as writing a number of articles, pamphlets and speeches for the organisations she was involved in. She died in 1952.

In 1957 Elizabeth (Betty) Betty Vernon was in correspondence with several individuals in relation to the completion of her biography of Philippa Fawcett. She sent typescript copies to a group which included Vera Douie, then the librarian of the Fawcett Society, as well as to Miss Philippa Strachey, the secretary of the Fawcett Society and Dame Margaret Cole. They wrote back to her to point out minor corrections to make to her manuscript.

Philippa Strachey (1872-1968), known as Pippa, was born in 1872 to Lady Jane Maria Strachey and Major Richard Strachey. She was brought up first in India, where her father was a leading figure in the administration, and then in London, where the family moved in 1879. Her mother was active in the movement for women's suffrage and both Philippa and her siblings were encouraged to contribute to this work. In 1906 she became a member of the executive committee of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and the following year she was elected the secretary of its successor the London Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1906 she joined the London Society for Women's Suffrage, succeeding Edith Palliser as secretary the following year. It was also in 1907 that she joined her mother Lady Jane Maria Strachey in organising what became known as the 'Mud March' at the instigation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and which went from Hyde Park to the Exeter Hall to demand the vote. During the First World War she was deeply involved in various war works, from being the secretary of the Women's Service Bureau for War Workers to participating as a member of the Committee for the London units of the Scottish Women's Hospital from 1914-1919. This war work began her lasting involvement with the issue of women's employment and she remained the secretary of the Women's Service Bureau after 1918 when it became concerned with helping women thrown out of jobs on the return of men from the Front. She remained there until its dissolution, which came in 1922, caused by a financial crisis in the parent organisation. However, subsequently Strachey helped to found a new group to fill the gap, becoming the secretary and then honorary secretary of the Women's Employment Federation. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, family problems took up much of her time as she nursed both her mother and her brother Lytton until their deaths. However, all through this time she remained active in the London Society for Women's Service and when it was renamed the Fawcett Society in 1951, she was asked to be its honorary secretary. It was that year that she was awarded the CBE for her work for women. She subsequently was made a governor of Bedford College. Increasing ill-health slowed the pace of her work and blindness finally forced her to enter a nursing home at the end of her life. She died in 1968.

Cornelius Gronow (fl 1917) arranged a visit of Sylvia Pankhurst to the Rhondda in 1917.

Daisy Dobson (fl 1927-1950) was the friend and private secretary of Dr Agnes Maude Royden, the pacifist and Christian preacher. Dobson accompanied Royden on her lecture tours of the world, sending reports home to friends and family.

Dorothy Mary Elliott (1897-1980) was born in 1897 and educated at the University of Reading where she graduated in Modern Languages. During the First World War she was involved in Munitions work in Birmingham in 1916 and it was here that she first became involved in the trade union movement. After this experience, Elliott attended classes at the London School of Economics where she met the trade unionist Mary MacArthur. It was through MacArthur that she was introduced to the National Federation of Women Workers for which she was to become an organiser in Woolwich Arsenal in 1918. From 1921 she transferred her organising skills to the National Union of General and Municipal Workers before moving to Lancashire in 1924 to continue her work there. When Margaret Bondfield became a Member of Parliament, Elliott was appointed the union's Chief Woman Organiser from 1924 to 1925 and then again in 1929 to 1931. In 1931 she became the Chair of the National Labour Women's Conference and a member of the Standing Joint Committee on Industrial Women's Organisations. She also worked with the Women's Electrical Association in this period and became a regular speaker at the Labour Party's Women's' Sections and the Co-operative Women's Guild. By 1939 she was Chief Woman Officer for the Trade Union movement as a whole. During the Second World War Elliott was one of the representatives sent by the TUC sent to attend the Committee of Woman Power and was a member of the Women's Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Labour from 1941. Throughout her career she had been an advocate of equal pay for women and of the married woman's right to work. It was this perspective that she brought to her post-war work on the committee concerned with the admission of women to the senior foreign service and the Women's Consultative Committee dealing with the resettlement of women in civilian life. It was in 1946 that she was granted a sabbatical by the union to become Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Houseworkers and it was in this capacity that she attended the International Labour Organisation's meetings in Hamburg to discuss the conditions of domestic workers the following year. Initially set up to improve the status and conditions of women working in the home, under her guidance the National Institute expanded into an education and training centre which set examinations and granted diplomas, becoming known as the Institute of House Craft (Training and Employment). She continued this work until 1958 when she retired from the organisation but did not give up her trade union work until 1961 when she finally retired. Elliott died in 1980.

Vera Douie (1894-1979) was born in Lahore in 1894, the daughter of a British Civil servant in India. She was educated at the Godolphin School, Salisbury before going on to complete her studies at Oxford University before degrees could be taken by women. She subsequently became a library assistant at the War Office Library from 1916 until 1921, the year in which she became the indexer of 'The Medical History of the War'. She later became the librarian of the London National Society for Women's Service at the Women's Service Library at Marsham St, London between 1926 and her retirement in 1967. It was Douie who, during this period, laid the foundations of its transformation into the Fawcett Library (now The Women's Library). She was active in the women's movement throughout her life and was particularly involved in the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. During the Second World War she was a fervent campaigner for equal rights and published 'The Lesser Half' on behalf of the Women's Publicity Planning Association in 1943, examining the 'laws, regulations and practices introduced during the present war, which embody discrimination against women'. After the war, she also published Daughters of Britain: an account of the work of British women during the 2nd World War (1950). When she retired in 1967, she was awarded the OBE for her life's work. She died in 1979.

Dorothy Shelagh Brown (fl. 1942-1945) was held as a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp in the Far East during World War Two, 1942-1945. During this time, she wrote a diary of her daily experiences in this environment.

Elsa Fraenkel (1892-1975) was a sculptor and artist who became friends with Sylvia Pankhurst during the post-war period. They met for the first time in 1950 Fraenkel herself became interested in Ethiopia, the country with which Pankhurst was involved at the time. By 1950 the former was helping to organise cultural events featuring the African nation in London and contributed some of her own work to the celebration that was held in London when the Princess Tsahay Hospital was dedicated. Before Sylvia Pankhurst went to live in Ethiopia in 1956, she left her paintings and sketches with Mrs Elsa Fraenkel, herself a sculptor. When Pankhurst had moved to Ethiopia, Fraenkel contacted her with the aim of creating an exhibition of her work during her time with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Pankhurst was unable to help her having left behind much of the work she had created at the turn of the century, but was able to give her information on the time and send her photographs of a WSPU fete in the Princes Skating Rink. The eventual exhibition of work which was eventually arranged by Fraenkel and Lady Winstedt took place at the French Institute on 5 Dec 1959, sponsored by the Suffragette Fellowship, the Women's Freedom league and the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society. Fraenkel also wrote an (undated) article on 'Sylvia Pankhurst : student days' which was based on notes supplied by Sylvia. After Pankhurst's death in 1960, Elsa offered a portrait of her to the National Portrait Gallery.

Elsie Fyffe (fl 1940) was a housewife during the Second World War. Just after the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1939, the British economy was placed on a siege footing. This meant that all resources from metal to foodstuffs became scarcer and stocks had to be preserved. In 1940 Lord Woolton was appointed Minister of Food, becoming responsible for operating the rationing system, and a parallel public relations campaign to encourage housewives to make the best of what was available. Food Ministry advertisements were regularly placed in newspapers offering advice on conserving the limited amounts and variety of fare available as well as conserving fuel. Propaganda campaigns revolved around making citizens feel that they were contributing to the war effort by following this guidance. It was in this context that Mrs Elsie Fyffe was informed by the Sunday Pictorial newspaper that she was one of the winners of their award for the twenty best housewives in Britain. For this, she was awarded a diploma signed by Lord Woolton and interviewed by the periodical.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), the daughter of Newson Garrett and Louise Dunnell, was born in Whitechapel, London in 1836, one of twelve children. From 1851 to 1853 she was educated in Blackheath but while visiting Northumberland in 1854, Elizabeth met Emily Davies who would remain a friend and supporter for the rest of her life. Five years later Garrett met Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to qualify as a doctor, influencing the former to enter the field of medicine. Attempts to enter several medical schools failed; instead Garrett became a nurse at Middlesex Hospital though her efforts to attend lectures for the male doctors failed. However, it came to light that the Society of Apothecaries did not specify that females were banned from taking their examinations and in 1865 Garrett sat and passed their examination before establishing a medical practice in London. That same year, she joined Emily Davies, Dorothea Beale and Francis Mary Buss to form the Kensington Society and in 1866 signed their petition for women's enfranchisement. In 1866 Garrett created a women's dispensary and four years later was appointed visiting physician to the East London Hospital where she met James Anderson, the man who was to become her husband in Feb 1871. Though she later graduated from the University of Paris, the British Medical Register refused to recognise her MD degree.

Over the next few years she became the first woman elected to serve on a school board in England, the mother of three children, opened the women-run New Hospital for Women in London with Elizabeth Blackwell and helped Sophia Jex-Blake to establish the London Medical School for Women to which Garrett Anderson was elected Dean of the London School of in 1884. Though she was never on the executives of any of the major suffrage societies, she did chair meetings and was a member first of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and then later of the London Society for Women's Suffrage. On her retirement she moved to Aldeburgh, Suffolk, and became mayor herself, following her husband's death, in 1908. Subsequently, she returned to suffrage politics, but left the National Union of Suffrage Societies, which her sister Millicent Fawcett dominated, and became active in the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) until 1911 when she objected to their arson campaign. Garrett Anderson and Skelton had one son, Alan Garrett Anderson (1877-1952), and two daughters, Margaret, who died of meningitis in 1875, and Louisa Garrett Anderson (1873-1943). Alan followed his father to become a public servant and shipowner, whilst Louisa went on to become a distinguished doctor herself and active suffragette. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson died on 17 Dec 1917.

Elsie May Cannon worked at the magazine Good Housekeeping and in a book publishing department in the 1940s-1970s. Her aunt was the barrister Helena Normanton (1882-1957).

Helena Florence Normanton (1882-1957) was born on 14 Dec 1882 to Jane Amelia and William Alexander Normanton in Kensington. In 1886 the family moved to Brighton. From 1900 Helena attended York Place Secondary School, Brighton (later renamed Margaret Hardy School, forerunner of Varndean School for Girls). From 1903-1905 she attended teacher training at Edge College, Liverpool. In 1907 Helena obtained a diploma in French language, literature and history from Dijon University. In 1912 she achieved her BA Hon First Class in History (London University). From 1913 -1915 she was a senior mistress for History at Glasgow High School for Girls and lecturer to postgraduate students of Glasgow University in Principles and methods of teaching history and then a University Extension lecturer to the University of London. From 1918-1920 she edited 'India' a political weekly. On 24 Dec 1919 Helena was admitted as a student at the Middle Temple, the day after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act received Royal Assent. On 26 Oct 1921 she married Gavin Bowman Watson Clark (d 1948). On 17 Nov 1922 Helena was called to the Bar, a few months after Ivy Williams had become the first woman to do so (but she did not practise). In 1922 Helena was the first woman to be briefed at High Court (successful divorce petition). In 1924 she was the first woman to be briefed at Old Bailey. Also in that year she was the first married British woman to be issued a passport in her maiden name ('as legal and only name'). In 1926 she was first woman to be briefed at the North London Sessions. In 1948 she was the first woman to prosecute in a murder trial (young soldier found guilty of murdering his wife) in the North-Eastern Circuit. In Apr 1949 she was the first woman KC (with Rose Heilbron).

In 1952 Helena drew up a memorandum of evidence as President of the Married Women's Association for consideration by the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce (criticism led to her resignation, withdrawing the memorandum and forming the Council of Married Women and submitting a revised memorandum to the Royal Commission). In 1956 Helena was the first recorded donor to the fund to create a new university in Sussex. Helena died in Oct 1957 and was buried at Ovingdean churchyard, Brighton.

Positions held : Treasurer and Secretary of the Old Bailey Bar Mess; Honorary member of the New York Women's Bar Association and of the women lawyers' association, Kappa Beta Pi (USA); Principal elected officer for Europe of the International Legal Sorority

Other interests : wrote extensively for Good Housekeeping magazine and other publications eg 'The Queen', 'Quiver'; Associate Grand Dame for Europe of the International Society of Women Lawyers; Chair of the International legislative sub-committee of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women; Executive member of the National Council for Equal Citizenship; Executive member of the State Children's Association; First Secretary of the National Women's Citizens' Association; Founder and Honorary Secretary to the Magna Carta Society; Founding member of the Horatian Society

Katharine C Bushnell (1855-1946) was born in Peru, Illinois on 5 Feb 1855. She became a doctor of medicine and a learned scholar of Hebrew and Greek. During her travels in India, Bushnell became involved in exposing the control of prostitution by the Indian government. She then proceeded to England to campaign against its continuance. During the early 1920s, Bushnell returned to America where she worked on her book, God's Word to Women, which was published in 1923. This book was a culmination of the work invested in the 'Women's Correspondence Bible Class'. The lecture notes of this class provided the foundation of the published work. Bushnell held positions such as President of the Union to Combat the Sanitation of Vice (America) and Vice-president of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. Katharine Bushnell died, aged ninety years of age, on 26 Jan 1946. Note: Nothing is known of Mrs F White [TWL 7FWH] other than her being a pupil enrolled on Bushnell's 'Women's Correspondence Bible Class'.

Gertrude Leverkus (1899-1976) was born in Oldenberg in Germany in Sep 1898 just before her family moved permanently to Manchester. From 1910, they settled in Forest Hill outside of London where Leverkus attended Sydenham High School. She proceeded to attend London University College before going to work in an architect's office. She then went on to study architecture, again at London University College, passed the Royal Institute of British Architects' exams and took the Town Planning Certificate in 1925. She was given several commissions for work after this and in 1930 she was appointed architect to the Women's Pioneer Housing Limited and undertook the conversion of around forty large properties into small flats for single women. In the early 1930s she also went into partnership with Eleanor KD Hughes before being commissioned to design the Out Patients' Department at the Annie McCall Maternity Hospital in Clapham. Her place in the profession was demonstrated by her election to the post of Secretary of the Women's Committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects in the late 1930s. During the Second World War, Leverkus was appointed as an organiser of evacuees from London. From 1940 she was officially known as the organiser for the Borough of Holborn, working with the Food Advice Bureau and the National Savings Campaign in joint work. However, this work ended in 1943 when she was appointed the Housing Architect in the Borough Architecture and Town Planning Office of West Ham, a position she would hold throughout the time when the area was a used as a model for new theories in housing. She resigned in 1948 and began work for Norman and Dawbarn where she would stay until her retirement at the age of 62 in 1960. During this period she became involved with the Women's Provisional Club. She spent the rest of her life acting as a governor of the Brixton School of Building and nursing her sisters. She died in 1976.

Gwen Lees ([1900-1988]) was born into a poor family somewhere at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Her mother was a servant who found herself unable to take her children with her when she was offered a position as a cook. Because of this, Lees and her brother David were placed in a workhouse. In Apr 1982, when Lees was recovering from a stroke, she sent three chapters of an autobiography provisionally entitled 'Jenny', to an agent Rebecca O'Rourke. The autobiography detailed her experiences as a child, feeling that her experiences of the harsh regime might be of some sociological interest. In 1983, the manuscript was rejected by The Women's Press but the first chapter was later accepted by Sheba Feminist Publishers for inclusion in a new anthology entitled 'Everyday Matters II' published Jul 1983.

Helen Caroline Bentwich née Franklin (1892-1972) was the daughter of Arthur Ellis Franklin (1857-1938), senior partner in the banking house of A Keyser and Co, leader of the New West End Synagogue, and brother-in-law of the Liberal cabinet minister, Herbert Samuel, and Caroline Franklin née Jacob. Helen's brother was the suffrage campaigner, Hugh Franklin (1889-1962); her niece was the scientist Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958). Helen trained in social work at Bedford College and ran a Girl Guide unit in the East End and a Jewish Girls' Club in Soho, London. During a visit to Egypt with her parents in 1910 she met her future husband, Norman de Mattos Bentwich (1883-1971). Norman, who had been educated at Cambridge and called to the bar in 1908, worked for the Egyptian Ministry of Justice until the outbreak of war in 1914 when he joined the British Army in Egypt and took part in the conquest of Jerusalem. The couple married in 1915. During the First World War Helen undertook a variety of work: in a hospital; at Woolwich Arsenal - from which she was dismissed for her trade union activity; and as an organiser of the Land Girls. In 1918 Norman became legal secretary to the British military administration in Palestine and, after the establishment of the Mandate in 1922, the country's first Attorney-General. Helen lived with him in Jerusalem until 1929 when his position, as an official and a Jew, became increasingly difficult; they returned to London, and Norman retired from the Colonial service in 1931. He became Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University in 1932 and was active in many spheres, including serving as director of the League of Nations high commission for refugees from Germany (1933-1935). He also served in the Ministry of Information during World War II and was involved in the National Peace Council (1944-1946). In the inter-war and post-war years Helen was active in Labour politics and stood for Parliament, although she was never elected. However, she was prominent on the London County Council (LCC), of which she became chair in 1956. Helen died in 1972.

Helen Ward (fl. 1924-1925) was a member of the Blanesburgh Committee set up under the chairmanship of Lord Blanesburgh to investigate the question of the parliamentary candidature of Crown servants and their candidature in municipal elections. It reported in 1925.

Hugh Franklin (1889-1962) was born on 27 May 1889 at 28 Pembridge Villas, Paddington, the son of Arthur Ellis Franklin, JP, a senior partner in the banking house of A Keyser and Co, and a director of several companies. The Franklins were practising members of the Jewish faith and were sufficiently prosperous to own property in the country, Chartridge Lodge, Chesham. Hugh Franklin was educated at Clifton College and in 1908 he went up to Caius College, Cambridge, where he read engineering. After his first year at Cambridge he made a break with the family tradition by declaring in a letter to his father his lack of religious belief that remained in some question for the next two years. In 1909 he attended with friends a suffrage meeting at the Queen's Hall, London, addressed by Mrs Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst and Mrs Pethick Lawrence, which was his first contact with the militants. During the summer he took part by selling papers in the processing from Kingsway to Hyde Park. From this he took up the suffragette practice of chalking pavements and sold papers for open-air WSPU meetings, in the Chesham area. At the beginning of the October term, 1909, Franklin decided to abandon the idea of a career in engineering that his father had intended for him and neglected his engineering studies for economics and sociology, which provoked further bitter family controversy. His interest in politics was growing and several drafts for speeches and debates exist for his years at Cambridge. Already a member of the Fabian Society and the ILP and the Cambridge Men's League for Woman Suffrage (for which he arranged meetings for Mrs Fawcett and Lady McLaren), he joined the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement on 22 Feb 1910. He provoked further dispute with his family by finally abandoning religious observance and by declaring his intention of not returning to Cambridge. After persuasion Franklin did return to Cambridge, but devoted all his energies to organising a meeting for Mrs Pankhurst in May at the Cambridge Guildhall and he was disciplined by his College authorities for his attempts at publicising it. On 26 May 1910 he joined the Young Purple White and Green Club. He took little trouble over his final examinations and missed some papers, as he was helping the MPU in London to organise for a Suffrage Procession from the Embankment to the Albert Hall and 'came down for good' from Cambridge at the end of June. In the following months, Franklin took an even more active part in WSPU and MPU meetings, both speaking and organising. He accepted reluctantly (after an initial refusal), an offer from Sir Matthew Nathan, Secretary to the Post Office, to be his private secretary (his uncle, Herbert Samuel, was Postmaster-General at the time). He gave evidence at the trial of Victor Duval, arrested in connection with an attempted protest at a meeting of Lloyd George's, at the Temple in October. He was among those present and was himself arrested during the events of 'Black Friday' (18 Nov 1910), at which large scale brutality by the police was alleged to have taken place when members of the WSPU attempted a mass lobby of Parliament. Franklin was among those who were discharged but he considered Winston Churchill, Home Secretary, personally responsible for police orders and was determined to make his protest. He was among those who interrupted Churchill's meeting at Highbury on 22 Nov 1910 and at Bradford on 26 Nov 1910, being ejected on both occasions. On the same train as Churchill returning from the Bradford meeting, Franklin approached Churchill with a dog whip and attempted to strike him, saying 'Take this, you cur, for the treatment of the suffragists'. For this offence, Franklin received six weeks imprisonment, the first of the three terms which he was to receive during the next three years for militant protests and which also caused his dismissal as Sir Matthew Nathan's Secretary. Franklin's activities were, from November 1910-1913 directed exclusively towards work for the Men's Political Union, as Honorary Assistant Organiser, while in Nov 1911 he resigned from the NUWSS affiliated Men's League for Women's Suffrage, being in disagreement with the League's reliance on a suffrage amendment to the Government's Reform Bill.

His second militant protest in Mar 1911 was that of throwing a stone at Churchill's house in Eccleston Square, for which he received a further month in prison and was forcibly fed throughout his term. The third and most dramatic of Hugh Franklin's acts of militancy consisted of setting fire to a railway carriage at Harrow station on 25 Oct 1912, for which he was sentenced to nine months in prison. Refusing food during his imprisonment, he was forcibly fed over 100 times and was the first suffragette prisoner to be released, in May 1913, under the Prisoners (Temporary Release for Ill-health) Act, 1913, more familiarly known as the 'Cat and Mouse Act'. Breaking his parole, Franklin escaped to the Continent, where he stayed under the alias of 'Henry Forster' until shortly after the outbreak of war. Franklin was disqualified for war service on grounds of eyesight and served on the staff of the Ordnance Factories, Woolwich. On 28 Sep 1915 he married Elsie Duval, sister of his MPU colleague Victor Duval, but she died only months after the War ended, on 1 Jan 1919, from heart failure, partly the result over the years of her own experience of forcible feeding. After the War he entered the timber trade and took no further part in politics until 1931 when he left business for writing and rejoined formally the Labour Party. In the 1931 General Election he contested Hornsey and in 1935, St Albans, unsuccessfully on both occasions. After standing in a number of local government elections, he won a seat on the Middlesex County Council in 1946. From 1934-1949 he held various co-opted and elected positions on committees of the LCC, Middlesex County Council and Metropolitan Water Board. He also held office in the New Fabian Research Bureau, the National Executive of the Labour Part and on boards of governors of schools and on hospital management committees. Franklin's imprisonment for his militant suffragette offences led him to a deep and abiding interest in penal reform. In addition to membership of the Howard League, he submitted a memorandum to his uncle, Herbert Samuel, when Home Secretary in 1932, and wrote a play 'On Remand' which he endeavoured to have produced in the theatre or filmed, but without success. In 1921 Hugh Franklin married a second time, Elsie Constance Tuke at Lewisham Register Office. He died 21 Oct 1962.

Elsie Duval (1892-1919) was born in 1892, the daughter of Ernest and Emily Duval who together with their children were keen suffragists. Duval joined the Women's Social & Political Union in 1907, the year after her mother. Unlike her mother, however, she did not leave the organisation to join the Women's Freedom League when the Pankhursts changed the constitution, but the mother and daughter did work together for three years in the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement which Victor Duval, Elsie's brother, founded. The younger female Duval was arrested on the 23 Nov 1911 for obstructing the police. After this event, she was officially accepted by the Women's Social & Political Union (WSPU) as a militant protest volunteer. On 27 Jun 1912, Duval was arrested for smashing a Clapham Post Office window. Subsequently she was remanded for one week in custody 'for the state of her mind to be enquired into', and then sentenced to one month in the third division at Holloway, during which time she was forcibly fed nine times before being released on the 3 Aug 1912. She was arrested again in Apr 1913 for loitering with intent (with Phyllis Brady) and was again sent to prison for a month. She was forcibly fed during both remand and whilst serving her sentence, being seriously ill throughout and often resisting strenuously. Her prison diary for this year refers to 'pain at the heart' after one of these incidents. She was released under the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act, 1913, (commonly known as the 'Cat and Mouse' Act) which allowed for prisoners to return to prison on recovery. Duval was the first prisoner released from Holloway under the Act and the second to be released (Hugh Franklin) was the first) from any prison. During her last imprisonment (according to Hugh Franklin's biographical notes) a charge was being prepared for burning Lady White's house at Egham, with 'Phyllis Brady', (Olive Beamish) for which the latter received five years' imprisonment. Duval burnt also Sanderstead station and other places, before her arrest, together with 'Phyllis Brady'. Duval narrowly avoided arrest on her final release, instead, she and her fiancé Hugh Franklin left for France to avoid the re-imprisonment that her terms of temporary release had demanded. She spent several months working as 'Eveline Dukes' in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland armed with false testimonials provided by friends. She was only able to return to Britain at the outbreak of the First World War when a general amnesty was granted to suffragettes. After this she became active in the war work of the WSPU. She and Hugh Franklin were finally married in a Jewish ceremony at the London Synagogue in Sep 1915. Two years later, she joined the Pankhursts' Women's Party, but died on the 1 Jan 1919 of heart failure, a victim of the influenza epidemic.

Stella Alexander (b. 1912) has written several books on religion in Yugoslavia

(Charles) Neal Ascherson (1932-) was born in Edinburgh and educated at Cambridge. He is a journalist and writer who has written extensively on Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Ascherson first visited Poland in 1957, to report for the Manchester Guardian and has returned frequently. In 1980-1981 he covered the rise of the Solidarity movement and the subsequent imposition of martial law for The Observer. Ascherson also reported on the "Prague Spring" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. His publications on Eastern European topics have included Polish August (London, 1981), The Struggles for Poland (London, 1987) and Black Sea (London, 1995).

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J Bloch and Co, Moscow were agents for the importation of pumps, weighing machines, Otis lifts, Remington typewriters and Edison's mimeographs

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Alfred Claude Bromhead (1876-1963) worked before the First World War as the British representative of the French film projector company belonging to Leon Gaumont. This led to him also becoming involved with the showing and distribution of films. Bromhead was also a territorial officer in an infantry battalion of the Queen's Regiment. After the outbreak of the First World War he was chosen by the British Government to undertake British Military Cinematographic Mission to Russia to show British propaganda films to Russian troops. The aim was to impress upon Russian troops the scale of the British war effort in order to keep up morale and to encourage pro-British sentiment.

D E Budgen was a research student at St John's College Oxford, 1976.

David Roden Buxton travelled to the Soviet Union as a student in 1928 to engage in a study of medieval architecture. He also made observations on the living conditions and way of life of the Soviet people. He visited Central and North West Russia, the Volga Region and parts of the Ukraine. He returned in 1932 for a similar visit to Northern Russia. He published accounts of both these journeys. In later life Buxton wrote a number of other works on architecture and on Ethiopia where he lived 1942-1949.

Christian Solidarity International (CSI) is a Christian human rights organization for religious liberty helping victims of religious repression, victimized children and victims of disaster. CSI was founded by Revd. Hans Stückelberger, following silent demonstrations in Switzerland in support of persecuted Christians, in 1977.

Stephen Clissold (1913-1982) held various appointments in or relating to Yugoslavia and served in the British Council and the Foreign Office Research Department. He wrote a number of works on Yugoslavia.

Olive Marjorie Deacon (1891-1950) was born in Scotland. During World War One she went to work at the Scottish Womens' Hospital in Belgrade, Serbia. After the hospital was closed Olive Deacon and three other aid workers under the auspices of the American Relief Administration Childrens' Fund went to Pec Montenegro to establish two orphanages. They left in 1920 after this had been accomplished.

John Deane (1679-1762) entered the Russian Navy in 1711 as a lieutenant and served until 1722 when he returned to Britain. In 1725 he was employed by the British Foreign Office to act officially as a commercial consul in St Petersburg and unofficially as a spy. He went on serve as commercial consul in Flanders before retiring to Britain.