Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939: Nationhood, Networks and Community 303107940X, 9783031079405

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Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880– 1939 Nationhood, Networks and Community be t h j e n k i ns

Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939

Beth Jenkins

Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939 Nationhood, Networks and Community

Beth Jenkins University of Essex Colchester, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-07940-5    ISBN 978-3-031-07941-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book started life as an undergraduate dissertation and subsequently a PhD project at Cardiff University. My biggest debt is to Stephanie Ward, Tracey Loughran and Bill Jones for their support and guidance. I am also grateful to colleagues and friends at the University of Essex where this work was developed: particularly Matthew Grant, Kate Mahoney, Helen Kemp and Daisy Payling. My research was funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council doctoral studentship award and completed during a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. The book would not have been possible without this funding. Many thanks also to the librarians, archivists and staff at the following: Aberystwyth University Archives; Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales; Bangor University Archives and Special Collections; British Library; Caernarfon Record Office; Cardiff Central Library; Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives; Glamorgan Archives; Imperial War Museum; Institute of Education, UCL Archives and Special Collections; Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/National Library of Wales; Meirionnydd Record Office; Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University; The National Archives, Kew; Women’s Library, London School of Economics; Wellcome Library; West Glamorgan Archives. I am especially indebted to the archivists and university records managers at Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea: particular thanks to Alison Harvey, Julie Archer, Shan Robinson and Emily Hewitt. I am grateful to Neil Evans for sharing his research on Charlotte Price White, amongst other material and knowledge. Thanks to Angela V. John v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

and Annie Williams for sending their work on Rosentyl Griffiths and Mary Silyn Roberts. Eluned Evans also shared her memories with me, for which I am thankful. Thanks are also due to June Purvis, Chris Williams and Andrew Edwards. I am grateful to participants of the biennial North American Association for the Study of Welsh Culture and History conference held at Harvard University in 2016 and Bangor University in 2018, where I presented earlier versions of this material. Finally, a huge thank you to my family for their unwavering support.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 1.1 Nationhood  7 1.2 Community 10 1.3 Networks 12 1.4 Sources, Approaches and Aims 15 2 Educating a Nation? 27 2.1 Proportion of Women Students at the Welsh University Colleges: An Overview 30 2.2 Early Women Students: Class, Funding and Geographical Origins 33 2.3 The 1889 Welsh Intermediate Education Act and the Social Composition of Students 37 2.4 Medical Students, Girls’ Science Education and the First World War 41 2.5 Women Students 1914–1939: Ethnicity, Geographical Origins and Class 44 2.6 Funding, Families and the Interwar Depression 47 2.7 Coalfield Communities and the Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme 54

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Contents

3 College Cultures 67 3.1 Coeducation, Gendered Spaces and Scandals 68 3.2 Women’s Residential Halls 71 3.3 Collective Identities, Gender and Feminism 77 3.4 Nationhood, War and Reform 80 3.5 The Industrial Depression, Working-Class Students and the Social Service Movement 87 4 Graduate  Employment and Unemployment103 4.1 The First World War114 4.2 New Opportunities?117 4.3 On the Margins of Academia125 4.4 Marriage, Motherhood and Paid Work127 4.5 The Interwar Depression and Graduate Unemployment130 5 In the Community147 5.1 Universities, Local Communities and the Social Service Movement149 5.2 Professional Positions, Voluntary Work and Academic Research159 5.3 Marriage, Motherhood and Work in the Community164 6 Networks177 6.1 Educational Networks and the Women’s Movement183 6.2 Interwar Associational Cultures189 6.3 Occupational Networks194 6.4 National Networks199 7 Conclusion213 Appendix A: Number of Men and Women Students at the University of Wales223 Appendix B: Social Class of Women Students from Register Samples227

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Appendix C: Career Destinations of Women from Student Samples231 Sources and Bibliography233 Index251

Abbreviations

APEGW AUA AWST BFUW BUASC CMS CUSCA ILP ISS LEA LSMW MWF NLW NUWSS NUWT RBA SWH TNA UCNW UCS UCSWM UCWA VAD WC WCA WEA

Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales Aberystwyth University Archives Association of Women Science Teachers British Federation of University Women Bangor University Archives and Special Collections Cardiff Medical School Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives Independent Labour Party International Student Service Local Education Authority London School of Medicine for Women Medical Women’s Federation National Library of Wales National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies National Union of Women Teachers Richard Burton Archives Scottish Women’s Hospitals The National Archive University College of North Wales University College of Swansea University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Voluntary Aid Detachments Wellcome Collection Women Citizens’ Associations Workers’ Educational Association

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ABBREVIATIONS

WL WLA WNSM YWCA

Women’s Library, LSE Women’s Liberal Association Welsh National School of Medicine Young Women’s Christian Association

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1 Table 3.2

Number of full-time women students and their percentage of the student body in Wales by college, 1890–1938 30 Total number of university students and percentage of women students in Britain by country, 1900–1938 31 Parental occupations of women students in Wales, 1883–1939 38 Occupational destinations of sample of women students at Welsh university colleges, 1883–1914 105 Occupational destinations of sample of women students at Welsh university colleges, 1920–1938 118

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Between the establishment of the constituent university colleges in Aberystwyth (1872), Cardiff (1883), Bangor (1884) and Swansea (1920) and the outbreak of the Second World War, over 8000 women passed through the doors of higher education institutions in Wales.1 This book provides a collective biography of these first generations of women graduates: their social backgrounds, educational experiences and subsequent lives. There was not one homogeneous experience for women during this period, but the trajectory of Alice Roberts reveals something of the motivations and struggles faced by many who reached that final step on the educational ladder. The daughter of a colliery labourer from Cwmaman, a mining village in the heart of the south Wales coalfield, Roberts won a free place at her local county school in Aberdare. In 1927 she entered the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, her nearest university in Cardiff, supported by a Local Education Authority scholarship, loan and normal bursary in return for pledging herself to a teaching career after graduation.2 Despite managing to cobble together all the financial support that was available to her, she still faced a shortfall meeting the high cost of living at the women’s university residences, Aberdare Hall, in addition to clothing and equipment for her studies. When her father and brother faced a long period of unemployment in 1929, Roberts sought support from an emergency fund set up by students in Wales to help their peers encountering severe financial hardship. Partly as a consequence of the financial strain she was under, she suffered a breakdown and failed to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_1

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sit her final exams for the honours degree she had been working towards.3 Still graduating with a BSc in 1930 and a teaching certificate the following year, she was nonetheless one of the lucky few to gain a job at a high point of graduate unemployment—taking up a post as an assistant science mistress at a school in Doncaster.4 At the earliest opportunity, the following year, she returned to her hometown to teach at Aberdare Aman Central School where she was able to live at home and contribute more substantially to the family income. While ‘graduate’ is often seen as synonymous with ‘middle class’, the social status of university students during this period was not always so clear-cut. As Roberts’s experience shows, the reality facing those who did manage to cross the threshold of the college gates was much less glamorous: tales of financial precarity, insecure employment and enormous financial sacrifices made by families were a common experience for most women. Neither did the expansion of women’s higher education necessarily entail a simultaneous increase in occupational opportunities. Advancements in girls’ secondary and tertiary education certainly equipped women with the confidence and skills to take advantage of the professional openings which this expanding educational system had, in turn, created. Yet, any optimism women had about a degree granting them access to a professional world beyond the classroom quickly diminished.5 Indeed, teaching was the dominant occupation for graduate women throughout the period under study and would remain so for several decades beyond 1939. But even a career in teaching did not provide a ticket to a secure employment path many aspiring socially mobile graduates had hoped for. Graduate careers were often chequered, complex and non-linear in nature, and a bitter economic depression between the two world wars further destabilised any prospects of guaranteed work. In public imagination, perceptions of early women graduates have tended to be skewed towards ‘exceptional’ individuals: women who broke the mould and achieved positions of seniority in male-dominated public and professional fields. Students of Oxford and Cambridge have been particularly privileged in historical scholarship, partly because of the more complete alumni records maintained by the colleges.6 Despite comprising an unrepresentative sample of students, this elite group is often used as the benchmark for understanding late nineteenth- and early twentieth-­century college cultures and women graduates’ experiences of employment in Britain more broadly. Similarly, while important studies of medical students and cultures have been undertaken on London and Irish medical

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schools, less attention has been given to provincial schools where there was often greater integration between men and women.7 Carol Dyhouse’s pioneering survey of women’s higher education in Britain remains one of the few studies to explore the experiences of those who studied at civic universities during this period.8 Dyhouse challenged linear narratives of progress in relation to women’s entry into higher education, questioning the claims of civic universities to make ‘no distinction of sex’ in matters of admission or educational policy.9 Moreover, her subsequent analysis of men and women at English universities in the 1930s pointed to the precarious financial circumstances of many students.10 Likewise, women at the University of Wales were often drawn from lower down the social order, predominantly hailed from the local region and pursued higher education in hope of improving their material circumstances. Following the creation of a Welsh secondary school system from the 1890s, a modest but increasing number of quarrymen’s and miners’ daughters attended their local university college and this book foregrounds their experiences. A woman’s social background was one of the most important determinants of her ability to enter higher education and her subsequent career and life trajectory. As we will see, rates of working-class participation in secondary and university education were higher in Wales than England.11 Families often made significant financial sacrifices to send their sons and daughters to university, and such support could extend far beyond the immediate family unit.12 Investment in the education of future generations was evident in the substantial contributions made to the university colleges by miners, quarry workers and farmers, and through eisteddfod and chapel collections. Therefore, to view middle-class women and work in isolation—as divorced from their familial, social and educational context—obscures the malleable and precarious boundaries of class. Working-­ class graduates, the majority of whom attended their local university college, subsequently occupied an uneasy position in the communities they had grown up in and often faced competing loyalties. A fur coat, car or independent lodgings were material symbols of affluence and could mark graduate women workers out from the communities in which they worked. Yet cultural connotations of class continued to shape women’s experiences in broader professional culture: clothing, accents and demeanour were important signifiers of professional identities, and graduates’ social backgrounds continued to have ramifications in their subsequent lives and careers. Unlike most studies which have tended to focus on either single occupational groups or discrete aspects of women’s lives in

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isolation, this book seeks to situate their graduate status within a broader context of their lives and disentangle the complex web of social, cultural, economic and life-cycle factors that shaped women’s work. If we cast our net a little wider, we can also capture the experiences of those who usually fall between the cracks of studies of women’s education and employment. Gender analyses have challenged what, by whom and where we traditionally perceive of as ‘work’. Indeed, a burgeoning body of feminist scholarship has shown how educated women made significant contributions to various fields, often despite official recognition or remuneration.13 Such research has problematised rigid boundaries of paid and unpaid work, deconstructed prescriptive and gendered definitions of ‘professionalism’ and highlighted how women forged livelihoods on the margins of and beyond the archetypal professions. Throughout the years of this study, informal and formal pressures forced most women to relinquish their employment on marriage—with powerful social norms, alongside official marriage bars, positioning the two as mutually exclusive.14 Their stories are equally important. Often debarred from or forced to give up paid positions, many graduate women put their skills and education to use through various non-remunerated outlets. The acquirement of a ‘BA’ was an integral part of women’s identities throughout their lives, and many were able to assert their expertise across a wide range of political, public and personal contexts. However, because it was voluntary, such work has not been afforded the same status or level of historical scrutiny as their remunerated counterparts. This book, therefore, seeks to explore both the paid and unpaid roles graduates undertook in their respective occupations, within their communities and across broader society. The past experiences of university-educated women in Wales have also tended to fall between the gap of two historiographical fields: histories of Wales and histories of women’s employment in Britain. Since the 1980s, seminal works by feminist historians such as Deirdre Beddoe, Angela V. John and Ursula Masson have deepened our knowledge of the diverse and varied experiences of women in modern Welsh history.15 Siân Rhiannon Williams’s research has also highlighted the significance of teaching in a nation which offered few alternative economic prospects for women.16 Similarly, work by literary scholars has charted the development of a distinctive Welsh women’s print culture from the final decades of the nineteenth century which reflected a growing confidence of women’s writing and educational advancements.17 In broader narratives of modern Welsh history, however, rapid industrialisation, economic decline and

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changing patterns of male labour remain the dominant focus. Consequently, the masculine nature of the workforce and women’s marginal position as wage earners has been a central historiographical theme. Wales had one of the lowest proportions of women officially recorded in paid employment in Britain for the period under study, and this was most acute in industrial regions characterised by physically intensive male labour.18 Yet, as we will see in Chap. 2, during the same period women comprised a significantly higher proportion of the university student body than in England and, to a lesser degree, Scotland. By shifting the focus from (de)industrialisation to professionalisation, the book hopes to also shed new light on broader economic, class and gender relations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Welsh society. At the same time, Wales has always occupied an uneasy place in British historiography. Administratively bound to England for most of the period, there were nonetheless educational and occupational differences which this study seeks to unravel. A rich body of literature has charted the uneven and protracted nature of educated women’s movement into the workforce in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain.19 These studies show that women, too, engaged with the processes of professionalisation: negotiating feminine versions of professional identities, carving unique roles for themselves in emerging and established occupations and founding their own associations and institutions in response to their marginalisation in the workplace. New methodological approaches have also revealed how gendered professional identities were continually delineated through material, spatial and embodied practices and cultures.20 While historians outline how such identities and structures changed over time and across occupations, far less attention has been given to geographic variations across Britain or outside a metropolitan elite. Despite an attempt by historians in recent decades to move away from Anglo- or London-centric narratives and towards a more inclusive understanding of the ways constituent nations and regions fitted into a wider history of the British Isles, the Welsh experience is often the most neglected in sweeping surveys of women and gender in modern British history. Focusing on Wales, then, provides us with specific challenges, but also an opportunity to incorporate new methodological approaches and interrogate dominant narratives in British history more broadly. Economic development in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain resulted in major socioeconomic regional disparities, the legacies of which are still felt today. The character of Welsh economic growth—rapid

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industrialisation and burgeoning commercial centres, followed by industrial decline and unprecedented levels of unemployment—contributed to a complex and uneven gendered occupational landscape too. Within Wales’s borders, geography was also starkly associated with class. Large working-class communities were overwhelmingly concentrated in the industrial coalfield of the south and slate quarrying region of the north. These communities were centred upon industries which afforded few opportunities for women’s formal labour participation. Moreover, their reliance on the fortunes of a staple industry was to have devastating social and economic repercussions by the interwar decades. Wales’s small middle class flourished in the commercial centres supporting the mining, iron and steel industries, and the market towns dotted in-­between. A more dispersed middle class was found in the agricultural and rural regions of the west, mid and north of the country—though an agricultural depression in the final decades of the nineteenth century facilitated the migration of people from rural to urban regions. In larger commercial centres (like Cardiff, Newport and Swansea) women were engaged in a more diverse range of occupations than was evident in industrial or rural regions, and a concentration of graduates enabled them to develop networks and vibrant associational cultures in their respective towns. The interwar global economic depression affected Wales profoundly and had reverberations far beyond coalfield communities. Studies of interwar unemployment have overwhelmingly focused on the experiences of industrial workers who were particularly blighted by the global downturn in trade. But this also affected ‘professional’ workers too. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Wales had among the highest levels of graduate unemployment in Europe.21 This was particularly acute for women whose career options were confined to a narrower range of occupations than men. Women’s employment opportunities were largely tied to the changing fortunes of the economy, and the healthcare and educational needs of society; consequently, in times of economic downturn or oversupply in the labour market, they were the most precarious. Yet women’s unemployment did not attract the same level of contemporary political or social concern that their male counterparts did—in part, because of powerful social assumptions of the breadwinner model and the belief that women’s wages were a surplus, rather than integral, part of the family income. Nonetheless, many educated women throughout this period needed an independent income to support themselves and often their wider families.

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The social, cultural and political complexity of Wales provides us with a rich case study to ask broader questions about women’s experiences of higher education and work, and explore how this was shaped by class, gender and nationality. How did their social backgrounds influence their career prospects? In what ways were their occupational experiences affected by the regional context in which they worked? And how does the intersecting local, regional and duo-national (Welsh-British) context complicate our understanding of women’s identities, education and networks? As such, three key analytical threads run throughout the book: the link between education and national identity; women’s paid and non-­ remunerated work in their local communities; and the extensive feminist networks women forged throughout their educational, working and personal lives.

1.1   Nationhood Education was a key cornerstone of Welsh national identity from the mid-­ nineteenth century, intersecting with religion and politics at a time when Protestant Nonconformity and Liberalism were dominant forces in Welsh society. Spurred on by an emerging cultural nationalist movement, the erection of the university colleges in Aberystwyth, Cardiff and Bangor were symbolically important as concrete displays of nationhood, but also culturally significant through their creation of a new educated class who would promote a distinct national culture. The 1889 Welsh Intermediate Education Act implemented a new network of intermediate schools throughout the country.22 This simultaneously provided a pipeline of students to fill the newly furnished lecture halls, while creating employment opportunities for fresh cohorts of graduates. National progress, then, was rhetorically tied to the development of this unique education system: beginning with improved elementary and intermediate schooling, and reaching its zenith with the University of Wales Charter in 1893—‘the topmost stone of our national educational edifice’, as one commentator wrote.23 The establishment of the Welsh Department of the Board of Education in 1907 served to further underscore a distinct Welsh educational infrastructure; it was a significant boost to the teaching of the Welsh language and history in schools and, more broadly, represented one of the first steps towards the creation of a Welsh civil service. As a country which lacked many of the political and institutional markers of nationhood, education became one of the most important tools for delineating a distinct

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national identity. Rather than merely imitate English educational establishments, educationists aimed to cater for the specific needs of Wales, to promote its national history and language and create a new Welsh intelligentsia. This national programme of educational reform was also highly gendered. Women played a significant role in the expanding educational infrastructure, but often within tightly bounded gendered parameters which positioned them as disseminators of a national culture and language. A parliamentary inquiry into the state of education in Wales in 1847 linked poor educational provision and economic deprivation to a portrayal of Welsh women as unchaste and immoral.24 In defence, nationalists situated the new opportunities for girls’ and women’s education within a narrative of national progress. Like other civic universities of the time, the University of Wales boasted of its ‘advanced’ attitude towards women in terms of admission policies.25 Rhetorical links between nationalist projects and gender equality were evident across Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, with women’s inclusion or seemingly favourable position used as a ‘modernity indicator’.26 In Wales, the educational position of women was deployed by nationalists as a barometer to prove the superiority and progressiveness of their nation over others; this language of exceptionalism was usually in relation to England, but also had broader aspirations in global national hierarchies. More recently, some historians have tended to uncritically reproduce this late nineteenth-century nationalist rhetoric of tolerance and equality.27 A rich historiography has charted the development of a distinct educational system in Wales and its relationship with Welsh national identity.28 Accompanying these studies are meticulously researched institutional histories of the university colleges, often published to commemorate significant anniversaries.29 W.  Gareth Evans’s extensive body of research has traced the emergence of particularly secondary educational opportunities for girls in Wales, 12 years in advance of England.30 Although there was, at certain points, a significantly higher proportion of women in higher education in Wales than elsewhere in Britain, this book critically questions exceptionalist narratives. It traces the origins of what R. D. Anderson has termed the ‘democratic myth’ of social inclusivity cultivated around higher education in Wales and Scotland, based on their supposed accessibility to both the working classes and women. Through analysis of the student registers, the book provides a broad overview of the changing gender composition of the student body and the social and geographical

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backgrounds of students. It examines the availability of funding and the cultural and political importance attached to education. In doing so, the book argues that while the relatively high proportion of women graduates can partly be attributed to the social value placed on education in Wales and feminist campaigners’ ability to situate women’s education within this nationalist framework, it was also due to economic necessity. Firstly, the university colleges were financially dependent on enrolling as many students as possible and absorbed large numbers of women from outside of Wales in their early years. Secondly, the narrow occupational structure of Wales afforded few prospects for women outside of teaching, and many lower-middle and working-class families saved to send their daughters to university in the hope of giving them an advantage in an increasingly competitive job market. Against a backdrop of educational reform, language was an important difference in the Welsh context. English was increasingly seen as the language of commerce, progress and modernity—of ‘getting on’. This was underlined by the scarcity of Welsh  language  educational provision and formal training opportunities. A woman’s accent, with its attendant class and national connotations, was also an important element in constructions of professional identity, and a class-based version of ‘Englishness’ became associated with a professional ideal from the late nineteenth century. The proportion of Welsh speakers also varied dramatically across regions. In 1921, for example, 29.7 per cent of rural Merioneth’s population spoke only Welsh: this was in contrast to 0.3 per in Cardiff and 3 per cent in the Rhondda Valleys.31 Whilst the overall number of monoglot Welsh speakers declined from 508,036 in 1891 to 97,932 in 1939, a sizeable section of Welsh society was still dependent on receiving healthcare and education provision in their native tongue. This was particularly acute in rural regions where the need for suitably qualified, Welsh-speaking professionals was a recurrent concern for many Welsh local authorities throughout this period. The Welsh language also held a cultural importance as one of the most overt markers of a distinct national identity, and a gendered nationalist ideology positioned women as the defenders of a minority culture.32 Educated women played a significant role in this national project through the promotion of Welsh language and history across formal and informal sites of education. Indeed, as Siân Rhiannon Williams has highlighted, women made a significant contribution to a Welsh cultural movement in both a professional and personal capacity as teachers and activists.33

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This leads to the question of how historians should conceptually approach women’s education and work in Wales: is it possible to talk of a unique ‘Welsh’ experience? As a country which lacked many of the political and institutional manifestations of nationhood, historians often assert the cultural dimensions which mark out Welsh distinctiveness. The importance of the nation as a category of analysis fluctuated across time, place and individual. Specific national institutions, educational developments, linguistic differences and the dominance of Protestant Nonconformity shaped women’s experiences which, at certain points, diverged from dominant trends elsewhere. Histories of Scotland and Ireland have demonstrated, too, that education was an important component in the shaping of national identities.34 Further exploring the distinctiveness of national trends from the margins can highlight how education and employment played an important role in the gendered construction of national identity across the four nations. Neither, of course, can a study of Wales treat its subject in complete isolation. Wales was often subsumed within English administrative bodies, and Welsh women participated in broader educational, occupational and political networks which criss-crossed Britain and beyond. A sizeable proportion of students were drawn from the other side of Offa’s Dyke during the early years of the colleges, while limited employment opportunities for graduates between the wars prompted a large exodus of women teachers who were forced to seek posts outside of Wales. This study therefore combines a discussion of the British context and debates, with analysis of how ideas, identities and policies were also shaped at both a Welsh and local level.

1.2   Community ‘Community’ has been conceptually used by historians of higher education and middle-class women’s employment to analyse single-sex organising and women’s distinct institutional cultures from the late nineteenth century.35 Certainly, these women-only spaces provided an important outlet for women who were subject to discriminatory legislation and isolated figures in male-dominated cultures. But to focus solely on homosocial institutions and practices obscures the everyday realities of most graduate women throughout this period. The final chapters of this book consider these two conceptual uses of community: first, to analyse graduate women’s relationship with their immediate locale—town, city or region; and, second, to explore their relationship with broader networks of graduate women in similar occupational positions.

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The civic universities which sprung up across Britain from the late nineteenth century had a symbiotic relationship with the communities in which they were situated. By the early decades of the twentieth century students were drawn overwhelmingly from the local area. In turn, the university colleges played a crucial role in shaping the civic identities of their respective towns and cities—connections strengthened by generous community financial support.36 Important studies by Georgina Brewis, Michael Sanderson, Sam Blaxland and Keith Vernon have highlighted the changing nature of student voluntarism, the links between universities and local industry and the relationship between universities, their communities and the state.37 Building on this scholarship, the book traces how women’s involvement in university social service movements, alongside the regional economic landscape, influenced their career choices and experiences. From the late nineteenth century, students played an integral role in university settlement schemes which were founded in working-class districts across Britain and sought to bridge divisions between town and gown. By the 1920s, the social service movement increasingly turned its attention to the depressed industrial regions ravished by the economic depression— most notably, the south Wales coalfield. Much of this work was gendered, with women students predominantly running women’s and girls’ clubs and schemes to alleviate some of the worst effects of mass unemployment on miners’ wives and children. These experiences provided important training and motivation for women’s work as missionaries and their increasing movement into social work, while adult education offered an alternative employment route for women on the fringes of academia in the interwar years. After graduation, the precise nature of women’s employment—particularly those who worked as teachers or healthcare professionals—meant that they often played a central role in their communities, social reform movements and the broader political regional landscape. Here, the local framework can offer a more nuanced understanding of gender relations in the past and reveal the diversity of women’s experiences and networks which cut across discrete associations and social movements. As historians of women’s politics have demonstrated, it was at the local level that women were first able to exercise their political agency: on school boards, as poor law guardians, and later in  local government and as justices of peace.38 Women drew emotional support from and shared identities with other women in similar occupations across Britain and internationally, but on a day-to-day basis their work and personal lives overlapped and were

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embedded in community structures. They stood on local councils and committees, were involved in party politics and held overlapping memberships of a range of philanthropic, political and feminist associations. Especially before they won the right to vote, graduate women assumed positions of responsibility in their communities in ways that were often discordant with their broader political status. Shifting the focus away from the university and workplace to the community, then, also allows us to broaden our knowledge of the varied work women undertook in a paid and voluntary capacity. Historians have long shown that from the mid-nineteenth-century philanthropic and reformist roles provided an outlet for disenfranchised middle-class women to contribute to civic life and express their citizenship at a local level.39 Such research has also problematised rigidly defined boundaries between ‘voluntary’ and ‘professional’ activities. As Anne Logan argues in her study of the first women justices of the peace, prescriptive definitions of ‘professional’ often implicitly ‘neglects the work performed by volunteers, often women, who undertook their unpaid activities not only with the enthusiasm of the amateur, but also with the knowledge and expertise of the professional’.40 This was particularly pertinent to graduates who were forced to tender their resignations on marriage or did not enter waged work at all. For most of the period under study, it was rare for educated women to combine paid work with marriage or motherhood, and they often found other avenues to exercise their skills and expertise. Underscored by a gendered ethos of duty, this work also became an outlet for self-­ expression and, as recent studies of women’s interwar philanthropy have highlighted, ‘service’ retained a continued importance within constructions of women’s identities.41 Voluntary roles or involvement in social causes and movements provided a way for some women to use their education to contribute to the political, social and cultural life of their communities.

1.3   Networks This book is also concerned with the places and spaces which women occupied: schools, homes, workplaces, university halls and the streets in-­ between. The expansion of women’s higher education was deeply entwined with a highly organised feminist movement during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Feminist groups, such as the Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales, played an essential role in ensuring that

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provision for girls and women were embedded in the national programme of educational reform. In turn, the expansion of women’s secondary and higher education—with their accompanying girls’ schools and women’s residential halls—provided women with new public spaces to forge and sustain networks. Through their concentration of women, resources and air of respectability, these sex-segregated workplaces and educational sites offered an institutional anchor for suffrage campaigns and a broader women’s movement to flourish. The first and second generations of educated women had a long experience of women-only institutions. Most attended girls’ schools and resided in women’s university residential halls. They trained in women’s medical schools, teacher training colleges or sex-segregated university education departments, and subsequently found employment in girls’ schools or in women’s and children’s hospitals. This was part of a broader strategy of ‘institution building’ which women adopted in the late nineteenth century to gain admission into professional and wider public society.42 Martha Vicinus has argued that these institutions were linked to a middle-class women’s culture underpinned by religiosity, moral superiority and sexual purity, and were at once ‘powerful and peripheral’.43 Indeed, the establishment of women-only institutions and organisations represented both the constraints on and empowerment of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; they reflected women’s navigation of societal expectations of respectability, while also nurturing a unique women’s culture and networks from which to advocate for greater equality. At certain points throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the underlying networks fostered through these educational spaces and institutions could be transformed into a powerful political force. The application of social movement theory is particularly fruitful here. Tracing continuities of activism in the Irish women’s suffrage movement and its aftermath, Caitríona Beaumont, Mary Clancy and Louise Ryan have shown how submerged networks were mobilised in ‘cycles of activity’ before becoming latent during the quieter ‘in-between’ times of activism.44 On a day-to-day basis, these networks were sustained by personal friendships, overlapping associational memberships and propinquity. Similarly, graduate women used their personal and professional networks to orchestrate coordinated campaigns on suffrage, workplace equality, targeted representation of women on political and civic institutions and advance feminist agendas in their communities. As research on women teachers and doctors has shown, women used the tools and platforms of

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their professions to not only contest the occupational discrimination, but for feminist activism more broadly.45 In recent decades, a growing body of research has challenged the notion that the women’s movement stagnated following their partial enfranchisement in 1918, instead offering a more nuanced depiction of feminism during the interwar decades than hitherto portrayed.46 These studies have detailed the dynamic and varied nature of women’s organisations which proliferated during this period, including conservative and voluntary associations, which did not necessarily self-identify as feminist but which provided an outlet for women to exercise their citizenship and improve the status of women.47 Throughout the interwar years womenonly networks, institutions and associations had a continuing salience, though, as Helen McCarthy has shown, their meanings and purpose adapted to reflect new gendered forms of citizenship.48 A new wave of women’s occupational associations comprised a key part of this vibrant interwar feminist scene, with their uneven formation reflecting women’s protracted entry into the professional workforce.49 Whilst historians have analysed the aims and cultures of major women’s professional associations, we know little about how they operated in practice at branch level. Focusing on the local context is revealing of the conditions which aided their formation, their relationship with local authorities and professional bodies, how they cooperated with other women’s associations and the dense web of informal networks which underpinned them. Place was important here too. The urban environment was particularly conducive to a women’s associational culture: the concentration of educated women, particularly in university towns and cities, fostered a context in which networks could be developed and a women’s professional culture could be lived out. Whilst these networks were not necessarily geographically bound, physical proximity undoubtedly served to sustain and create social bonds between those with shared interests.50 By contrast, it was more difficult for women to forge networks with like-minded individuals in sparsely populated localities. Women who were geographically isolated could maintain connections through associational memberships, newsletters and correspondence, but they were, in many ways, more embedded into their respective communities—communities which often had less of a tradition of single-sex organising. At the same time, university-educated women in Wales also belonged to much wider British and international networks which bridged their educational, professional and personal lives. As Chap. 6 demonstrates, these friendships and connections were forged

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and sustained through intermediate education, university colleges, professional training, occupational associations and political activism.

1.4  Sources, Approaches and Aims The book is underpinned by a prosopographical analysis of 2000 women who studied at the university colleges in Wales from their inception until the outbreak of the Second World War. This large sample accounts for nearly a quarter of the total number of women who passed through the four  Welsh university colleges during this period, providing a detailed snapshot of the social backgrounds and range of occupations educated women were engaged in and how this changed over almost 60 years. Local university colleges were particularly important for lower-middle- and working-class girls, facilitated through a county scholarship system and the opportunity to reside at home. Focusing on the local context therefore enables a greater understanding of those who usually fall outside the purview of major studies of women and higher education during this period, including working-class and ethnic minority women. By preventing a skewed focus on ‘exceptional’ graduates and pioneers, it also allows us to gain a holistic picture about the social profile of women in different occupations. The majority of graduates throughout this period went into teaching, while a smaller proportion entered medicine and academia. But the dataset also highlights the range of alternative careers that some women entered on graduation, including: librarians, architects, lawyers, dentists, political organisers, missionaries, social workers, wartime employment, composers, singers, writers, lecturers in training colleges, welfare officers, clerical workers, chemists and school inspectors. The samples were dependent on data protection and the nature of the respective colleges’ student records. University College of Swansea’s records are held  on individual student cards filed in alphabetical rather than chronological order, and I am grateful for the generosity of the archivists who rifled through volumes of boxes retrieving the records of women who were students before 1939. Maintained in hefty handwritten volumes, Bangor and Cardiff’s student records are the most complete and I took my samples from every fourth year to ascertain an accurate picture of successive cohorts. Cardiff Medical School, and its successor the Welsh National School of Medicine, also kept a register of its students, which I was able to cross-reference with students records in the annual university registers. Aberystwyth holds registers of students up to 1907. After this I

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used the application forms to the women’s residential hall, Alexandra Hall, which, it should be noted, often comprised of a higher socioeconomic class of students. Secondary education, parental occupation, place of origin and scholarship status were obtained from student registers and the respective women’s hall records. A few conscientious registrars kept meticulous records of their alumni, but for most women I have traced their careers through Old Students’ Association reports, Appointments Board correspondence, appointments notified in student magazines, women’s residential halls archives, university calendars and census returns. Parental occupation can be a crude indicator of social status, with employment categories encompassing a wide range of roles, status and income. Particularly within heavy industries, a huge variation in job titles listed in student’s registration entries denotes the subtleties of social status. A more granular breakdown of the different roles is included in the appendices. For the purpose of identifying broad trends and allowing a degree of comparison with other institutions, the categories ‘landowner/ upper-class’, ‘professional’, ‘commercial and industrial’, ‘agricultural’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘working-class’ are used throughout the book. Workingclass primarily includes students whose fathers undertook manual work, though here a further distinction can also be made between ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ labour. Parental occupations broadly reflect the nature of the local economy and industries. These nuances of social status are particularly evident in those from lower-middle-class families—of shopkeepers, artisans and small business owners—whose trades were particularly vulnerable to the downturns in the economy. Most records list the father’s occupation. Where the father has died or is estranged, several entries record the mother’s occupation primarily as schoolteachers and occasionally dressmakers. However, these records do not capture the informal ways other family members contributed to the household economy. Systematically sifting through student registers does provide a more holistic picture of the student body and of those who often have, for various reasons, fallen through the cracks of wide-ranging surveys. However, whilst these figures can provide us with a snapshot of broad employment patterns, they often conceal the precarious and non-linear nature of careers, as well as the multiple ways women used their expertise outside ‘professional’ or paid roles. For most of the period under study, women remained on the fringes of many occupations: as unpaid research assistants, in gender-specific roles within broader fields, or continually moving from one temporary teaching post to another. Formal policies and

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dominant social pressures to relinquish employment on marriage also meant that some women returned to university later in life to undertake postgraduate diplomas or embark on a new career. Neither, of course, did all graduates notify the colleges of their subsequent appointments. Focusing on institutional and organisational records also has its pitfalls. Official documents and university reports were selective in their inclusion of details considered ‘noteworthy’, reflecting contemporary gendered assumptions of success and the relative prestige attached to certain roles, credentials and achievements. This has served to underplay the educational and economic activity of marginalised groups who did not conform to these narrow definitions and, subsequently, has been reproduced in the visibility they have received in historical scholarship. Capturing the experiences of women who left little or fragmentary traces of their lives presents certain challenges. Here, oral testimonies, personal correspondence and notes in the margins of student registration cards can provide us with a glimpse into the precarious financial position of many students and the enormous sacrifices made by families to fund relatives through university. A small number of graduates also wrote autobiographies or reminiscences of their time at college for significant anniversaries. Although retrospective and inflected by cultural and social changes throughout their lifetime, these rare sources provide an important insight into how women subjectively remembered and reconciled their gendered experiences of education and work. It is also much more difficult to assess the proportion of women who married or did not enter paid employment. Although a few student entries record their marriage, others took up posts and were later forced—by social convention or official policy—to relinquish their work on marriage. Some even concealed their marriages from their employers or postponed their nuptials to continue contributing to the family income and fund younger siblings through university. But how women felt—their ambitions, desires and frustrations—is much more elusive and dependent on patchy source material. Anecdotal evidence, and earlier or contemporary qualitative surveys of women at other institutions, can provide an indication of broad trends here. Questionnaires sent to past students of English civic universities by Carol Dyhouse and former Girtonians by Pat Thane have greatly enriched our understanding of the experiences and aspirations of women graduates during the twentieth century, and, in turn, generated a wealth of primary material which would not otherwise have been captured.51 The post-university lives of women who married are also difficult to trace, not least because most changed their names. The evidence we do

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have, however, clearly shows that they retained their graduate identities and university networks throughout their lives. To overcome some of these source difficulties, Chap. 5 takes a case-study approach of several women who drew upon their skills and education in alternative and non-­ remunerative ways. * * * Moving the lens of inquiry away from elite institutions to the constituent colleges of the University of Wales, then, allows for a greater sensitivity to the ways national differences shaped women’s access to and experiences of higher education, a broader understanding of the varied work women graduates undertook and an insight into how women’s networks were forged and operated at multiple levels. Accordingly, in this book I have three main aims. The first is to map women’s higher education in Wales and to assess the extent to which it provided new employment opportunities. Importantly, this allows us to gauge the relative homogeneity of women’s paid work across late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain, and analyse the everyday educational, occupational and social experiences of the majority of women graduates who studied at civic universities. Focusing holistically on successive cohorts of women from the late nineteenth century until the Second World War provides a ‘bottomup’ history of changes—and, indeed, continuities—in women’s career ­ opportunities and patterns of social mobility. My second aim is to contextualise more fully women’s work in their immediate communities. The local community was the place within which women lived, worked, socialised and served on overlapping committees and associations. This enabled them to assume positions of influence in ways that were often at odds with their legal position or wider contemporary gendered perceptions of women’s public role. Whilst scholarship has understandably focused on the struggles women faced gaining admission to higher education and professional institutions, we know far less about their career trajectories, unpaid work and the wider social causes with which they were involved. Situating graduate women away from the lecture hall and in their respective communities offers a more nuanced consideration of cross-class relationships and encourages us to think holistically about the relationship between people’s working selves and their other selves. Graduate women cannot be disconnected from their broader life cycle: their social background, their educational experiences, subsequent

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employment and their relationship with social and political reform movements. The study therefore analyses women’s relationship with their local communities and how their economic position intersected with broader cultural and societal issues. Finally, this book aims to provide a major contribution to the wider economic, social and cultural history of Wales. Gender and education were integral components in constructions of national identity throughout this period, with educated women upheld as safeguards of a distinct national culture. In their personal and professional lives, women also played an important role in the economic and cultural life of the nation through their promotion of a national educational system and their involvement in broader social, political and cultural movements. Foregrounding the experiences of those who are usually on the geographical margins also raises important questions about the complex social and cultural networks between centres and geographical peripheries, and can illuminate the changing and entangled relationships between the constituent nations of the British state. Bringing the Welsh experience into recent scholarship of women and work can enhance our understanding of the important confluences and divergences of gender ideals, educational systems and the professional landscape across Britain and Ireland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Across the following chapters, the book charts the social backgrounds, educational experiences and subsequent lives of women who attended the university colleges in Wales from their inception to the outbreak of the Second World War. Chapter 2 focuses on feminist campaigns for women’s education and examines the changing social composition of the student body at the four constituent colleges of the University of Wales. Chapter 3 explores the material, spatial and social cultures of the university colleges as a training ground for professional life. Chapter 4 analyses changes and continuities in graduate employment and unemployment, while Chap. 5 examines educated women’s relationship with the broader communities in which they studied, lived and worked. Finally, Chap. 6 traces the extensive networks underpinning women’s educational, working and personal lives: how they were forged, sustained and mobilised.

Notes 1. University of Wales Calendars, 1872–1939. 2. Alice Roberts’s application to the Welsh Student Self-Help Council, 1930, 0210/26, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers, National Library of Wales (NLW).

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She held a normal grant of £34 and fees, normal bursary of £16 and £110 loan for three years 1927–1930. Her hostel fees came to £65 and extra fees and instruments about £6. Her father earned £2 5s a week and her brother £1 5s. 3. Letter from Gwladys G. Lewis to Kitty Lewis, 22 June 1930, 0210/26, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers, NLW. 4. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Student Register, 1927, Cardiff University Special Collections and Archive (CUSCA). 5. Alison Oram, Women Teachers and Feminist Politics 1900–1939 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1996), p. 29; Carol Dyhouse, ‘Signing the pledge? Women’s investment in university education and teacher training before 1939’, History of Education, 26, 2 (1997), p. 219. 6. Gillian Sutherland, In Search of the New Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work in Britain 1870–1914 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2015); M.  C. Curthoys and Janet Howarth, ‘Origins and Destinations: The Social Mobility of Oxford Men and Women’ in M.  G. Brock and M. C. Curthoys (eds), The History of the University of Oxford: Volume VII: Nineteenth-­Century Oxford, Part 2 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 571–595; See also Pat Thane, ‘Girton graduates: earning and learning, 1920s–1980s’, Women’s History Review, 13, 3 (2004), pp. 347–361. 7. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Women students and the London medical schools, 1914–1939: the anatomy of a masculine culture’, Gender & History, 10, 1 (1998), pp.  110–132; Carol Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History (Routledge: London, 2006), chapters 3 and 7; Keir Waddington, ‘Mayhem and medical students: image, conduct and control in the Victorian and Edwardian London teaching hospital’, Social History of Medicine, 15, 1 (2002), pp.  45–64; Laura Kelly, Irish Medical Education and Student Culture, c.1850–1950 (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 2017). For an exception see: Ruth Watts, ‘Universities, medical education and women: Birmingham in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’, History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, 42, 3 (2013), pp.  306–319; Wendy Alexander, ‘Early Glasgow Women Medical Graduates’ in Eleanor Gordon and Esther Breitenbach (eds), The World is Ill Divided: Women’s Work in Scotland in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 70–94. 8. Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (Routledge: London, 1995). There are also accounts of women at individual institutions. For example, see: Lindy Moore, Bajanellas and Semilinas: Aberdeen University and the Education of Women 1860–1920 (Aberdeen University Press: Aberdeen, 1991); Mabel Tylecote, The

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Education of Women at Manchester University 1883 to 1933 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1941). 9. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?. 10. Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History. 11. Gareth Elwyn Jones and Gordon Wynne Roderick, A History of Education in Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2003), p. 90. 12. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Family Patterns of Social Mobility through Higher Education in England in the 1930s’, Journal of Social History, 34, 4 (2001), pp. 817–841. 13. Anne Witz, Professions and Patriarchy (Routledge: London, 1992); Alison Mackinnon, Love and Freedom: Professional Women and the Reshaping of Personal Life (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1997); Krista Cowman and Louise A. Jackson, ‘Middle-Class Women and Professional Identity’, Women’s History Review, 14, 2 (2005), pp.  165–180; Leah Armstrong and Felice McDowell (eds), Fashioning Professionals: Identity and Representation at Work in the Creative Industries (Bloomsbury Academic: London, 2018); Heidi Egginton and Zoë Thomas (eds), Precarious Professional: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain (University of London Press: London, 2021). See also endnote 19. 14. On the marriage bar, see: Oram, Women Teachers and Feminist Politics, pp. 60–63; Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Women Teachers and Gender Issues in Teaching in Wales, c.1870–1950’, Welsh Journal of Education, 13, 2 (2005), pp. 69–83; Helen Glew, Gender, Rhetoric and Regulation: Women’s Work in the Civil Service and the London County Council, 1900–55 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2016). On marriage, motherhood and work, see: Helen McCarthy, Double Lives: a History of Working Motherhood (Bloomsbury: London, 2020). 15. Deirdre Beddoe, Out of the Shadows: A History of Women in Twentieth-­ Century Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2001); Angela V. John (ed.), Our Mothers’ Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830—1939 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1991); Ursula Masson, ‘For women, for Wales and for liberalism’: Women in Liberal Politics in Wales, 1880–1914 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2010). 16. Williams, ‘Women Teachers and Gender Issues in Teaching in Wales’; Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘“The Only Profession that was Around”: Opting for Teaching in the South Wales Valleys in the Inter-War Years’, Llafur, 9, 2 (2005); Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Teacher Supply and the Wales-England Border, 1922–1950: A Gendered Perspective’, in Jane Aaron, Henrice Altink and Chris Weedon (eds), Gendering Border Studies (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2010), pp.  83–102. See also: Deborah James, ‘Teaching Girls: Intermediate Schools and Career Opportunities for Girls

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in East Glamorgan Valleys of Wales’, History of Education, 30, 6 (2001), pp. 513–526. 17. Jane Aaron, Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales. Nation, Gender and Identity (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2007), in particular, see chapters 5 & 6; Katie Gramich, Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales: Land, Gender, Belonging (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2007). 18. Beddoe, Out of the Shadows, pp. 31, 78. 19. Important book-length studies and edited collections which include women and the professions: Penny Summerfield (ed.), Women, Education and the Professions (History of Education Society: Leicester, 1987); Angela V.  John (ed.), Unequal Opportunities: Women’s Employment in England, 1800–1918 (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1986); Witz, Professions and Patriarchy; Gerry Holloway, Women and Work in Britain since 1840 (Routledge: London, 2005); Krista Cowman and Louise A. Jackson (eds), Women and Work Culture: Britain c.1850–1950 (Routledge: Aldershot, 2005); Sutherland, In Search of the New Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work; Egginton and Thomas (eds), Precarious Professionals: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain. 20. Ren Pepitone, ‘Gender, Space, and Ritual: Women Barristers, the Inns of Court, and the Interwar Press’, Journal of Women’s History, 28, 1 (2016), pp. 60–83; Zoë Thomas, ‘At Home with the Women’s Guild of Arts: gender and professional identity in London studios, c.1880–1925’, Women’s History Review, 24, 6 (2015), pp.  938–964; Zoë Thomas, Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2020); Beth Jenkins, ‘Gender, Embodiment and Professional Identity in Britain, c.1890–1930’, Cultural and Social History, 17, 4 (2020). 21. Walter M.  Kotschnig, Unemployment in the Learned Professions: An International Study of Occupational and Educational Planning (Oxford University Press: London, 1937); T. Kenneth Rees, ‘Graduate Employment in Wales’, Evidence submitted by the NUS to Youth Hearing, January 1939, SIM/4/7/7/8, Brian Simon Papers, Institute of Education. 22. W.  Gareth Evans, Education and Female Emancipation: The Welsh Experience, 1847–1914 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1990). 23. Young Wales, Vol. 2, No. 18 (1896). 24. Aaron, Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales, p.  6; Gwyneth Tyson Roberts, The Language of the Blue Books: Wales and Colonial Prejudice (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998); Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘“The True ‘Cymraes”: Images of Women in Women’s Nineteenth Century Welsh Periodicals’, in Angela V.  John (ed.), Our Mother’s Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830–1939 (1st ed. University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1991), pp. 69–92.

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25. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? 26. Juliette Rennes, ‘The French Republic and Women’s Access to Professional Work: Issues and Controversies in France from the 1870s to the 1930s’, Gender & History, 23, 2 (2011), pp. 341–366; Jill Stephenson, ‘Women and the Professions in Germany, 1900–1945’, in Geoffrey Cocks and Konrad H.  Jarausch (eds), German Professions, 1800–1950 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1990), pp. 270–288. 27. W. Gareth Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act 1889 and the education of girls’, Welsh History Review, 15, 2 (1990), pp. 183–217; Evans, Education and Female Emancipation, p. 208; Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘The Finest University in the World: The University of Wales 1893–1993’ (The O’Donnell Lecture, University of Wales, 1994). 28. Leslie Wynne Evans, Studies in Welsh Education: Welsh Educational Structure and Administration 1880–1925 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1974); Gareth Elwyn Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1982); Gareth Elwyn Jones, The Education of a Nation (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1997); J. Gwynn Williams, The University Movement in Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1993); Jones and Roderick, A History of Education in Wales; Gareth Elwyn Jones, ‘Education and Nationhood in Wales: An Historiographical Analysis’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 38, 3 (2006), pp. 263–277. 29. E.  L. Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth 1872–1972 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1972); Gwyn Jones and Michael Quinn (eds), Fountains of Praise: University College, Cardiff 1883–1983 (University College Cardiff Press: Cardiff, 1983); S.  B. Chrimes (ed.), University College Cardiff: A Centenary History 1883–1983 (Unpublished, 1983); J.  Gwynn Williams, The University College of North Wales, Foundations 1884–1927 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1985); David Roberts, Bangor University, 1884–2009 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2009); David Dykes, The University College of Swansea: An Illustrated History (Alan Sutton Publishing: Stroud, 1992); Sam Blaxland, Swansea University: Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945–2020 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2020). 30. Evans, Education and Female Emancipation; W. Gareth Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act 1889 and the Education of Girls: Gender Stereotyping or Curricular Assimilation?’, Llafur, 5, 2 (1988), pp.  84–92; W.  Gareth Evans, ‘Equal Educational Opportunities for Girls and Women in Victorian Wales: The Contribution of the London Welsh’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 2 (1995), pp.  123–140. See also: Pamela A.  Davies, ‘The Women Students at

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University College, Cardiff 1883–1933’ (Unpublished M.Ed. Dissertation, Cardiff University, June 1983). 31. John Williams, Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics, Vol. 1 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1985), p. 86. 32. Williams, ‘“The True ‘Cymraes”: Images of Women in Women’s Nineteenth Century Welsh Periodicals’, pp.  78–79; Mari A.  Williams, ‘Women and the Welsh Language in the Industrial Valleys of South Wales 1914–1945’, in Geraint H. Jenkins and Mari A. Williams (eds), ‘Let’s do our best for the ancient tongue’: The Welsh Language in the Twentieth Century (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2000), pp. 137–180. 33. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Rediscovering Ellen Evans (1891–1953), Principal of Glamorgan Training College, Barry’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion, 19 (2013), pp. 100–115. 34. Senia Paseta, ‘“Another Class”? Women’s Higher Education in Ireland, 1870–1909’ in Fintan Lane (ed.), Politics, Society and the Middle Class in Modern Ireland (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 176–193; R. D Anderson, Universities and Elites in Britain since 1800 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1995), p.  23; Helen Corr, ‘Teachers and gender: debating the myths of equal opportunities in Scottish education 1800–1914’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 27, 3 (1997), pp. 355–64; Lindy Moore, ‘The Scottish Universities and Women Students, 1862–1892’, in Jennifer Carter and Donald Withrington (eds), Scottish Universities: Distinctiveness and Diversity (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 138–146. 35. Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Virago Press: London, 1985). 36. William Whyte, ‘Building the Nation in the Town: Architecture and Identity in Britain’ in William Whyte and Oliver Zimmer (eds), Nationalism and Reshaping of Urban Communities in Europe, 1848–1914 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2011), p. 213. 37. Georgina Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering: Britain and Beyond, 1880–1980 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2014); Michael Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, 1850–1970 (Routledge: London, 1972); Keith Vernon, Universities and the State in England, 1850–1939 (Routledge: London, 2004). See also: Jodi Burkett (ed), Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2017); Blaxland, Swansea University: Campus and Community in a Post-­ War World. 38. Patricia Hollis, Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government, 1865–1914 (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1987); June Hannam, ‘To Make the World a Better Place: Socialist Women and Women’s Suffrage in Bristol, 1910–1920’, in Myriam Boussahba-Bravard (ed.), Suffrage Outside Suffragism: Women’s Vote in Britain, 1880–1914 (Palgrave Macmillan:

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Basingstoke, 2007), p. 157; Krista Cowman, Mrs Brown is a Man and a Brother. Women in Merseyside’s Political Organisations, 1890–1920 (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 2004). 39. Frank K.  Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1980); Kathryn Gleadle, Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender and Political Culture in Britain, 1815–1867 (Oxford University Press for the British Academy: Oxford, 2009); Megan Smitley, The Feminine Public Sphere: Middle-class Women and Civic Life in Scotland, c. 1870–1914 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2009). 40. Anne Logan, ‘Professionalism and the Impact of England’s First Women Justices, 1920–1950’, The Historical Journal, 49, 3 (2006), p. 837. 41. Eve Colpus, ‘Women, Service and Self-actualization in Inter-war Britain’, Past & Present, 238, 1 (2018), pp. 197–232. 42. Estelle Freedman, ‘Separatism as Strategy: Female Institution Building and American Feminism, 1870–1930’, Feminist Studies, 5, 3 (1979), pp. 512–529; Mary Ann Elston, ‘“Run by Women, (mainly) for Women”: Medical Women’s Hospitals in Britain, 1866–1948’, in L.  Conrad & A.  Hardy (eds), Women and Modern Medicine (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2001), p. 77. 43. Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, p. 9. 44. Caitríona Beaumont, Mary Clancy and Louise Ryan, ‘Networks as “laboratories of experience”: exploring the life cycle of the suffrage movement and its aftermath in Ireland 1870–1937’, Women’s History Review, 29, 6 (2020), pp. 1054–1074. 45. Ellen Jordan, The Women’s Movement and Women’s Employment in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1999); Oram, Women Teachers and Feminist Politics; Diana Copelman, London’s Women Teachers: Gender, Class and Feminism, 1870–1930 (Routledge: Abingdon, 1996); Hilda Kean, Deeds not Words: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers (Pluto Press: London, 1990); Alison Oram, ‘Women Teachers and the Suffrage Campaign: Arguments for Professional Equality’, in June Purvis and Sandra Stanley Holton (eds), Votes for Women (Routledge: Abingdon, 2000), pp.  203–225. For some women, however, this meant curtailing their feminist demands to safeguard their professional reputations: J.  F. Geddes, ‘The Doctors’ Dilemma: Medical Women and the British Suffrage Movement’, Women’s History Review, 18, 2 (2009), pp. 203–218. 46. Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power: The Women’s Movement, 1919–1928 (I. B. Tauris: London, 1997); Julie V. Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2013); Esther Breitenbach and Pat Thane (eds), Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the

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Twentieth Century: What Difference did the Vote Make? (Continuum: London, 2010). 47. Caitríona Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens: Domesticity and the Women’s Movement in England, 1928–64 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2013). 48. Helen McCarthy, ‘Service clubs, citizenship and equality: gender relations and middle-class associations in Britain between the wars’, Historical Research, 81, 213 (2008), pp. 532, 545. 49. Helen Glew, ‘[A] stronger position as women alone’: women’s associations in the British civil service and feminism, 1900–1959’, Women’s History Review, 30, 4 (2021), pp.  669–687; Kaarin Michaelsen, ‘“Union is strength”: the medical women’s federation and the politics of professionalism, 1917–1930’, in Krista Cowman and Louise A. Jackson (eds), Women and Work Culture: Britain c.1850–1950 (Routledge: Aldershot, 2005), pp. 161–176; Philippa Haughton, ‘Fashioning Professional Identity in the British Advertising Industry: The Women’s Advertising Club of London, 1923–1939’, in Leah Armstrong and Felice McDowell (eds), Fashioning Professionals: Identity and Representation at Work in the Creative Industries (Bloomsbury Academic: London, 2018), pp.  95–114; Linda Perriton, ‘Forgotten Feminists: The Federation of British Professional and Business Women, 1933–1969’, Women’s History Review, 16, 1 (2007), pp. 79–97. 50. Lynne Walker, ‘Locating the Global/Rethinking the Local: Suffrage Politics, Architecture, and Space’, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 34, 1/2 (2006), pp. 174–196. 51. Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History; Pat Thane, ‘The careers of female graduates of Cambridge University, 1920–1970s’, in John Brown, Marco H. D. van Leeuwen and David Mitch (eds), Origins of the Modern Career (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2004), pp. 207–224; Thane, ‘Girton graduates: earning and learning, 1920s–1980s’.

CHAPTER 2

Educating a Nation?

The University of Wales is, par excellence, an institution of the people. Its first college was founded on the pennies of the people, its constitution is the most democratic of all the universities of the United Kingdom, and its students are drawn almost entirely from the ranks of democracy. The classrooms at Cardiff, Aberystwyth, Bangor, and Swansea are filled with the sons and daughters of the peasantry—the small shopkeepers, the upland farmers and agricultural labourers, the miners and metal workers of South Wales, and the quarrymen of North Wales. —Western Mail, 27 December 1923

Published in 1923, this editorial encapsulated a narrative which had developed around education in Wales from the late nineteenth century.1 Seeking to distinguish themselves from what they considered to be the socially exclusive practices of the ancient universities, Welsh educationalists promoted a rhetoric of Celtic liberty which was centred on two key tenets. First, they claimed that wealth was no barrier to education in Wales and that the university lecture halls were filled with the children of the working classes who had helped finance the colleges in their early years.2 Second, they depicted the University of Wales as ‘the most liberal of all the resident British Universities’ because of its policy to admit women onto degrees and to membership of its constituent governing bodies from its inception.3 What R. D. Anderson has termed the ‘democratic myth’, evident in both Wales and Scotland, was mythologised through successive © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880-1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_2

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generations.4 This chapter traces the roots of this ideology and critically examines the proportion of women at the university colleges, their social backgrounds, funding opportunities and geographical origins across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. * * * During the second half of the nineteenth century, the emergence of a Welsh educational infrastructure was underscored by a burgeoning sense of national identity. The erection of the early university colleges received widespread financial support from their local communities and became the first major landmarks in the development of a Welsh education system.5 At the same time, educational campaigners whose aims were coupled with a more feminist agenda sought to ensure that the interests of girls were firmly embedded in this national programme of educational reform. A group of women with Welsh connections were the most vocal and ardent advocates for the improved educational provision for girls in Wales.6 This included Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, Dr Frances Hoggan, Dr Sophie Bryant and Dilys Davies (later Glynne Jones). Their beliefs were moulded by their experiences in middle-class English establishments and their connection to prominent educational reformers including Emily Davies, Frances Buss and Dorothea Beale. These early campaigners of girls’ and women’s education were, nonetheless, able to frame their agenda within a broader cultural nationalist ideology. Dr Frances Hoggan, one of the few women invited to give evidence to the Aberdare Committee, which was tasked with producing a report into intermediate and higher education in Wales in 1880, summarised her recommendations in a book, Education for Girls in Wales, together with a series of letters published in the Welsh press.7 She appealed to the patriotic sentiments of those ‘who desire to see Wales take its proper place, side by side with England, Scotland and Ireland, in affording to the young of both sexes those educational advantages’.8 At the heart of this campaign was the Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales (APEGW), which played a key role in advocating for women’s education between its establishment in 1886 and its dissolution in 1901.9 Underpinned by these wider feminist networks, the association derived inspiration from and shared aims with sister associations in England.10 The APEGW organised public meetings and petitions,

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published pamphlets and provided financial assistance to girls seeking an education. While the initial aims of the association focused on the expansion of girls’ intermediate and higher education, it gradually included other demands to ensure fair representation of women on all aspects of the new educational machinery: school governing committees, mixed schools, coeducational institutions, professional bodies and their fair share of nondenominational scholarships.11 The wives of academics and principals of the university colleges, such as Katharine Viriamu Jones and Lady Aberdare, whom the first purpose-built women’s hall of residence in Cardiff was named after, were also firm supporters of women’s education and active members of the APEGW.12 They ensured that women’s education was kept on the agenda of the university colleges and successfully lobbied for suitable residential provision to be made for them. These campaigners linked their case for women’s further education to the need for suitably qualified Welsh teachers to staff the new schools.13 Whilst they advocated for native teachers who would understand the specific needs of Welsh pupils and play a key role in the development of a distinctly national education, they also recognised the importance the expansion of the education system would have in creating new employment opportunities for women.14 Lamenting the low number of Welsh candidates for an opening at Dr Williams’s school in Dolgellau in 1887, Dilys Davies highlighted that of all the applicants ‘only one was Welsh’.15 During the same year, Elizabeth Phillips Hughes also argued that Wales should lead the way by insisting on professional preparation for teachers.16 As the first Principal of Cambridge Training College, founded to train university women to teach in girls’ secondary schools, Hughes believed that women’s higher education would raise the standard of the teaching profession and of girls’ education in Wales more broadly.17 Drawing on a similar rhetoric of national progress, Hughes later contrasted Wales’s supposed ‘advanced position’ to women’s education with the less welcoming reception they received at ancient English institutions.18 She stated that she was ‘glad and proud to think that future Welshwomen will never know in our Welsh university educational privations such as we suffer from here [in Cambridge]’.19 For these leading figures in the Welsh education scene, it was advantageous to situate their demands within a nationalist framework. In turn, the educational position of women and supposed socially inclusive nature of the colleges was used by nationalists as evidence of Wales’s liberal and progressive national culture.20

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2.1   Proportion of Women Students at the Welsh University Colleges: An Overview If we begin by looking broadly at the numerical proportion of women at the university colleges, educationalists’ claims were not completely unfounded. Like other civic universities which sprung up across late nineteenth-­century Britain, women were, in theory at least, admitted to the Welsh colleges from their inception.21 Similarly, when the University of Wales was founded in 1893, women’s equal access to all the bodies, offices and degrees was enshrined in its Charter—although, it should be noted that this was in accordance with most of the newer institutions by this point. Throughout the period under study women accounted for around one-third of the student body, peaking at 46 per cent in 1906 if we exclude the anomalous war years. There were also slight variations between the Welsh colleges too: between 1904 and 1907, women students in Aberystwyth even outnumbered their male counterparts.22 Between the mid-1880s and the outbreak of the First World War, a growing sense of educational fervour was reflected in the burgeoning number of women students which largely kept pace with the increase of men students. Across Britain the expansion of the state education system stimulated a demand for suitably educated teachers. Like other civic universities, as Carol Dyhouse has shown, the opening of the day training departments in Cardiff (1890), Aberystwyth (1892) and Bangor (1894) contributed to a significant spike in the admission of women students during the final decade of the nineteenth century (Table 2.1).23 Table 2.1  Number of full-time women students and their percentage of the student body in Wales by college, 1890–1938 Aberystwyth

Cardiff

Bangor

Swansea

Year

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1938

35 208 192 299 288 213

28 44 42 27 40 31

61 262 361 308 317 288

36 42 44 28 30 31

52 103 104 180 174 108

41 34 32 31 33 24

No.

8 150 82

Total %

No.

%

9 32 18

148 573 657 795 929 691

35 41 41 28 33 28

University of Wales Calendar, 1883–1938; John Williams, Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics (Cardiff: Welsh Office, 1985), p. 238

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These figures also fared favourably when compared to England and Scotland, with women comprising a significantly higher proportion of students in Wales than the other British nations at the turn of the century. Reports from the University Grants Committee highlight that women represented 38 per cent of full-time students in Welsh colleges by 1900, compared with 15 per cent in England and 14 per cent in Scotland for the same year  (Table 2.2).24 However, it should be noted that there were major differences across universities and other institutions with similarly high proportions of women during this period. In Scotland, for example, Lindy Moore has noted that in 1907–1908 women comprised 31 per cent of the student total in Aberdeen, 40 per cent in St Andrews, 24 per cent in Glasgow and 18 per cent in Edinburgh.25 Moreover, she attributes St Andrews’s large proportion of female students to its well-publicised support for women students and its established connections with many schools through its Lady Literate in Arts diploma.26 Broader demographic shifts also underpinned the driving forces of women’s higher education during the final decades of the nineteenth century. The expansion of the middle classes and the accompanying professional and business sector, the rising age of marriage for men and a surplus of women meant more girls were no longer able to rely financially on fathers or husbands.27 The onset of war in summer 1914 drastically upended the composition of the student body and cultural life of the university colleges. Military conscription from 1916 meant that the number of men students plummeted, whilst a simultaneous steady increase of women inverted the gender order of the university colleges. During that year, women became a sizeable majority across all colleges.28 Although the number of women Table 2.2  Total number of university students and percentage of women students in Britain by country, 1900–1938 England

Wales

Scotland

Great Britain

Year

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

1900 1910 1920 1930 1938

13,845 19,617 33,868 33,808 37,189

15 18 23 25 22

1253 1375 2838 2868 2779

38 35 28 33 27

5151 6736 11,746 11,150 10,034

14 24 26 32 27

20,249 27,728 48,452 47,826 50,002

16 20 24 27 23

University Grants Committee Reports, 1900–1938; Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p. 17

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continued to climb in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, this did not match the dramatic influx of male students bolstered by returning servicemen on government scholarships. In 1922–1923, women comprised 36 per cent of all full-time students in Wales. Again, this compared slightly more favourably to Scotland (30 per cent), English civic universities (33 per cent) and Oxbridge (12 per cent).29 Yet the optimism of the early twentieth century and war years was short-lived, and the number of women students largely stagnated throughout the interwar years, peaking in 1925 and declining thereafter (Fig. 2.1). Across Britain, a bitter economic depression between the wars was largely averse to any expansion in educational opportunities. Significantly, as the number of women students declined in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the male intake increased, further exacerbating women’s diminishing proportion of the student body. One contemporary researcher attributed the fall in numbers of women going to university to the prioritisation of sons in times of hardship and to the paucity of scholarships available to girls.30 In particular, a significant oversupply of teachers by the 1930s curtailed the availability of funding for many aspiring students.31 This pattern was not unique to Wales, and throughout the interwar decades, the gender balance of students in Wales corresponded more closely to other universities in Britain than it had done hitherto.32 Women’s entry into higher education, then, was not a linear march of progress;

3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500

1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 1907 1909 1911 1913 1915 1917 1919 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937

0

Men

Women

Fig. 2.1  Number of men and women students at the Welsh university colleges, 1883–1939. (University of Wales Calendar, 1883–1938; Williams, Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics, p. 238. For a breakdown of data by college, see Appendix A)

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advances made in the early twentieth century largely stagnated and were even reversed between the two wars. The remainder of this chapter delves deeper into the social backgrounds, geographical origins, choice of subjects and availability of funding for women throughout this period.

2.2  Early Women Students: Class, Funding and Geographical Origins The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (UCWA), was the first higher education institution to open its doors to students in Wales in 1872. Whilst it was to be more than another decade before women would enrol on a regular degree course, between 1874 and 1878 at least 35 women attended music classes under eminent composer Joseph Parry, representing the college in the university choir and at concerts in the town.33 The majority of these women hailed from the local area, had studied at the private Ladies School in Aberystwyth and resided at home throughout their course. Several were also supported by exhibitions. Ranging from 16 to 29  in age, most came from lower-middle-class or skilled working-class families and subsequently worked as music teachers, singers, a seamstress in a workhouse, contributed to family businesses or married.34 However the college authorities were keen to draw a clear distinction between these women and those who attended ‘ordinary classes’, and it was not until 1884 that women pursued degrees at the college.35 This also coincided with the first women entering the newly opened University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (UCSWM) in Cardiff in 1883 and the University College of North Wales (UCNW) in Bangor in 1884. Yet founders’ hopes that the university colleges would serve the communities in which they were situated were not to be realised during these foundational years. The establishment of the first three Welsh university colleges preceded adequate provision of elementary and intermediate education in the country. Prior to this, there were a handful of endowed schools for girls in Wales including the Howell’s schools in Llandaff and Denbigh, and Dr Williams’s school in Dolgellau, alongside around 150 private schools.36 However, the Howell’s schools identified closely with the Anglican church and complaints were made about the exclusion of Nonconformists from the endowments and governing bodies at a time when nonconformity was dominant in Welsh society and closely aligned to

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national identity.37 Limited elementary and secondary provision meant that most early women entrants received their education outside of Wales, usually at private establishments in England, or at the Welsh Girls’ School in Ashford. These first cohorts of university women had to be wealthy enough to obtain private schooling and subsequently tended to come from firmly middle-class or more affluent backgrounds: the daughters of local influential landowners, MPs, colliery owners, slate merchants and professionals. Consequently, during their formative decades the university colleges served students from a broad geographical base. Between 1874 and 1890, only 64 per cent of women students across the colleges in my sample hailed from within Wales’s borders. The remainder predominantly came from England, with a handful of others also originating from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Australia and the USA.  Poor secondary provision, coupled with the limited number of universities open to women in Britain at the time, meant that a significant proportion were drawn from outside of Wales. Aberystwyth attracted the highest number of women from English schools, comprising around half of all women students between 1874 and 1893; here, the remote setting by the sea, away from the perceived dangers of industrial cities and towns, helped to assuage parental concerns about their daughters being away from home.38 Moreover, the close relationship between educationist Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, the college principal and prominent headmistresses also ensured a steady supply of women from a select number of English schools. During its early years, the women’s hall in Aberystwyth was filled with successive cohorts of pupils from a handful of establishments in Canterbury, Birmingham and the Welsh Girls’ School in Ashford.39 A similar picture was also evident in Cardiff, where just under half of the students residing at Aberdare Hall by 1896 came from England.40 This relatively high number of English students was a source of both concern and pride for college authorities. Several governors of the hall saw it as an encouraging sign that prestigious English girls’ schools were sending their pupils to the college and believed they would exert a positive influence among the Welsh girls.41 Yet critics highlighted what they perceived to be the misallocation of resources with most scholarships going to pupils from outside of Wales. As Dilys Davies argued, ‘[w]hen scholarships are thrown open, the English girls, who have had the advantage of good previous education, carry all before them, while the Welsh maidens, with equal natural gifts, are left behind in the race’.42 Some colleges sought to

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counter this by reserving at least half of their scholarships for Welsh candidates.43 In these early years of the colleges, there was a striking incompatibility between the liberal rhetoric of social inclusivity and the material realities faced by many students. University authorities quickly realised that it was impossible in many cases for students to enter the colleges without financial help and were forced to establish entrance scholarships which covered matriculation and tuition fees.44 Cardiff offered small exhibitions of £10 which were tenable at Aberdare Hall and awarded on the results of entrance examinations.45 But these scholarships were insufficient for those who had no other financial support. Janet Greener, whose father had died, was the first woman to be awarded an entrance scholarship at the newly opened UCSWM in Cardiff in 1883. However, she was subsequently disqualified from holding it because she could not enter a full course of study on account of her professional duties—a part-time teaching post which she was using to support herself.46 Instead, the college devised an arrangement whereby Greener was admitted as an honorary scholar and allowed to attend any class for the next three years for free.47 Whilst such individualised responses did enable some women to continue their studies, they did not solve the underlying structural problems which prevented most women from attending college altogether. Indeed, economic precarity also jarred with the university policy which dictated that women students not living with their parents or guardians must reside in the universities’ women’s halls. Despite the residential fees in the Welsh colleges being comparatively lower than most provincial universities, the cost was still prohibitive for most working-class and lower-­ middle-­ class students. From its inception, several women residing at Aberdare Hall found difficulty meeting the cost of residence.48 Edith Thomas, a cookery school student whose father was a tip foreman, for instance, was forced to relinquish her place at the hall because her parents could not meet the expense.49 Although the college authorities recognised that it was impossible for many students to board at the halls without financial help, they did not relax the regulations which prevented the more economical option of living independently in private lodgings. Sympathetic wardens provided a reduction in fees in some cases, but this operated on a largely ad hoc basis. In 1887, the warden in Aberystwyth reduced the fees for one student, Elizabeth Cornell, in return for her help in the general management of the women’s  hall. A former teacher from Australia,

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Cornell, was 31 years old and had no family to supplement the exhibition she had won to undertake a science degree.50 A lucky few did benefit from scholarships which were attached to specific university colleges. The women’s halls across Britain received large endowments from local wealthy benefactors such as Caroline Williams in Cardiff, Lady Verney in Bangor and Emily Pfeiffer in Aberystwyth. Particularly during the early years when they had small numbers of students, the halls were beset with financial difficulties and dependent on such charitable donations. These bequests also provided a small number of scholarships each year for students at the halls. Caroline Williams, who was President of Aberdare Hall (1897–1902) and the first woman member of the College Council, also founded the Catherine Buckton Scholarship in memory of her sister.51 Local coal owners Richard and John Cory donated funds for a scholarship in Cardiff, while the Drapers’ Company sponsored two exhibitions for women students from the Diocese of St Asaph to study at Bangor. The APEGW also set up a loan fund for Welsh women students who intended to train as teachers. Following the dissolution of the association in 1901, the surplus funds was divided between the three women’s residential halls in Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff ‘to assist promising Welsh women students in following the course of training in educational theory and practice provided for intending secondary teachers’.52 Across the colleges, the work of students during these early years was varied. Until the University of Wales received its degree-awarding charter in 1893, students were prepared for the University of London degree. Whilst most women undertook arts degrees, a not insignificant number also pursued science. It was, however, in the day education departments from the 1890s that the largest proportion of women were located as normal students, initially training for elementary school teaching.53 Some enrolled on special courses in music, midwifery, agricultural or dairying science. Other women undertook diplomas at the Training School of Cookery and Domestic Arts, which opened in connection with the university in Cardiff in 1891. The school initially gave instruction in cookery and later began training teachers in laundry-work, dressmaking, needlework and housewifery.54 Although many women who attended the school pursued the diploma, others undertook short courses in domestic subjects to qualify for posts as matrons, housekeepers or wardens or to train ‘for the domestic duties of home life’.55

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2.3  The 1889 Welsh Intermediate Education Act and the Social Composition of Students It was not until the expansion of intermediate schooling that the university colleges could really begin to accommodate aspiring graduates from their local communities. The 1889 Welsh Intermediate Education Act and the 1902 Education Act created a system of state secondary schools available to those able to pass an entrance exam and pay for the fees. Just over a decade after the passing of the 1889 Act, the first fruits of this new system slowly became visible. According to W. Gareth Evans, 3513 of girls were in secondary education in Wales by 1900—a figure almost on par with the number of boys (3877).56 But the effects on the university colleges were not truly felt until the turn of the twentieth century when the first cohorts of county school students became eligible for admission.57 This, in turn, served to bolster the proportion of Welsh students, who comprised around three quarters of women across the University of Wales between 1894 and the outbreak of the First World War.58 The expansion of intermediate education acted as both a supply and stimulus for women’s higher education: the new schools provided a steady pipeline of students eligible for admission to their local university college, while also creating the demand for suitably qualified teachers. In the years preceding the First World War the majority of students were drawn from firmly middle-class backgrounds: the daughters of ministers, teachers, doctors, merchants and commercial travellers. Families who could be defined as intermediate or lower-middle-class—such as clerks, grocers, shopkeepers, chemists, butchers, bakers and watchmakers—accounted for around a quarter of women’s parental occupations for most of the period under study (Table 2.3).59 The regional economy also shaped the specific student demographic at each college. Aberystwyth, situated in the Welsh-speaking rural heartland, attracted a greater number of farmers’ daughters, while the port city of Cardiff drew from a larger commercial class as well as its neighbouring coalfield.60 Bangor’s proximity to the slate quarrying plains of north-west Wales meant that it initially boasted a higher proportion of working-class students than other colleges. These women were predominantly quarrymen’s daughters, some of whom had attended the slate quarries boy school. Indeed, working-class students were more heavily represented at Bangor, and later Swansea, because of their closeness to the mining and quarrying districts and facilities for daily travel which reduced costs.

4 1 0 1 1 1

Landowner% 28 27 26 22 21 25

Professional% 25 24 19 21 18 18

Commercial%

Based on sample data. See Appendix B for breakdown of figures by college

1883–1893 1894–1903 1904–1913 1914–1919 1920–1929 1930–1939

Year 2 4 9 10 4 3

Agricultural%

Table 2.3  Parental occupations of women students in Wales, 1883–1939

24 22 27 20 28 26

Intermediate%

2 11 10 22 20 17

Working class %

14 11 8 5 8 10

Deceased%

38  B. JENKINS

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There was, however, a lag in working-class women reaping the benefits of these new, albeit limited, educational opportunities. The first daughters of miners, quarrymen and tinplate workers to enter the university colleges began to trickle in from around 1893 as the effects of state-funded elementary and intermediate schooling materialised into students eligible to meet the entry requirements. J. Gwynn Williams estimated that the total proportion of Bangor students whose fathers were manual workers increased steadily from 26 per cent in 1886–1887 to 44 per cent in 1912–1913.61 It is clear, however, that the number of women hailing from solidly working-class families was smaller than it was for men; a trend also evident in other civic universities, in part because of the preference given to sons when money was scarce. In my Bangor sample, the proportion of women whose fathers worked in manual occupations rose from 15 per cent of those entering college between 1894 and 1903, to 17 per cent of students who enrolled between 1904 and 1913.62 A distinction must also be drawn here between the skilled and unskilled working class, the latter of whom were significantly underrepresented inside the college walls. Nonetheless, a small number of working-class women began to enter the university colleges by the turn of the century. The novelist Kate Roberts, who enrolled at Bangor in 1910, took a route typical of this first generation of working-class women graduates. Hailing from the local slate quarrying community of Rhosgadfan, her father worked as a quarryman and her mother a midwife. She won a scholarship from Rhostryfan Primary School to her local county school in Caernarfon, and in 1910 entered the UCNW.63 Families used a range of strategies to fund their children through college, borrowing money from extended kinship networks or even local businessmen. When she entered college, Roberts’s mother obtained a loan from a local man which she managed to pay back gradually by the end of the year.64 Extended families also clubbed together to provide what they could, with Roberts also recalling that her grandmother pressed a gold sovereign into her hand when she started college—the equivalent of a month’s pension for her at the time.65 She was, however, clearly aware of the social differences between the community which she had come from and the world she now inhabited. As J.  Gwynn Williams summarised, ‘always in the forefront of her mind was the knowledge that a railwayman earned only eighteen shillings a week (and his clothes) and a quarryman between three and four pounds a month’.66 Most working-class students usually attended their local board school and enrolled as queen’s or king’s scholars. Elementary teacher training

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was initially achieved through a system of pupillage. Pupil teacher grants enabled promising scholars to stay on at school, where they would help the teacher in the classroom and receive extra lessons. At 18 they could apply for the queen’s or king’s scholarship examination to attend the day training departments.67 During these initial years, academic and professional work were usually combined in a two-year course of training, although students could remain in college for a third if they could afford to study for a degree. Students received their general education in ordinary classes of the university, while their professional training was the responsibility of the day training college. These grant-aided trainee teachers received around £20 from the Board of Education and in 1904 this was increased by £5 as the result of the recognition of the costly expense of women’s residential halls.68 In 1905, the number of king’s scholarships tenable at Aberystwyth was 120, all of which were restricted to matriculated students.69 The life of a pupil teacher, however, was exhausting. College authorities expressed concern about the health of their kings’ and queens’ scholars, with students often enduring long commutes to their school practice on top of a demanding university timetable.70 The pupil teacher practice was increasingly integrated into the secondary system and had largely died out by the outbreak of the First World War. The establishment of the day training departments went hand-in-hand with a rapid increase in women students. By the turn of the century, students in the day training departments comprised around a quarter of the student body in Cardiff and Aberystwyth and over a third of students in Bangor, with women filling the majority of these places.71 These trends were also evident elsewhere. Mabel Tylecote noted that at the University of Manchester, a third, and in some years nearly half, of women students were members of the day training college between 1899 to the outbreak of the war.72 Women’s training departments for intermediate teaching were also opened in Cardiff (1891) and in Aberystwyth (1905).73 But progress was slow in the development of the women’s secondary department in terms of student numbers, predominantly because of the initial lack of grant-aid.74 In 1908 a demonstration school in connection with the women’s secondary training department was established in Cardiff under the leadership of Professor Millicent Mackenzie, with students undertaking teaching practice there until 1924.75 In return for agreeing to a career in elementary or secondary teaching, students could obtain Board of Education grants which covered their tuition fees and provided maintenance support. After the Board of Education revised grant conditions,

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from 1911 the majority of women undertook a four-year course: the first three years were devoted to studying for a university degree, followed by a years’ professional training.76 Moreover, these grants provided an important income stream for universities; the early years of the colleges were fraught with financial difficulties and, as Carol Dyhouse has noted, Britain’s new civic universities ‘could not afford not to enrol women’.77 Before the war, the funding available to prospective students was patchy and based predominantly on merit rather than need. Local Education Authorities (LEAs) were primarily responsible for scholarship provision, and this varied dramatically from authority to authority. County exhibitions were the biggest source of support to students and were awarded on the result of school examination results.78 However, women did not enjoy their fair proportion of these awards compared to men and some counties, such as Brecon, initially only awarded scholarships to men. Moreover, the percentage of leavers proceeding to universities from all Welsh intermediate schools on the grant list was miniscule: in 1911, just 4.3 per cent of boys and 2.6 per cent of girls leaving secondary school made it to university.79

2.4  Medical Students, Girls’ Science Education and the First World War A small but increasing number of women also undertook their pre-clinical medical training at Cardiff Medical School (CMS) from its inception in 1893.80 As medicine entailed the longest and most costly course of professional training, aspiring women doctors tended to come from wealthier backgrounds.81 The number of women medical students, however, remained small and they did not enter the school in significant figures until the war. Prior to the establishment in 1921 of the Welsh National School of Medicine (WNSM), 121 women undertook their pre-clinical medical training in Cardiff, along with a handful of dental students and women enrolled on sanitary courses.82 Options for women to complete their clinical training were also restricted, with most female medical students from Wales proceeding to the London School of Medicine for Women. The first two women to enrol at the CMS, Victoria Evelyn May Bennett and Mary Elizabeth Phillips, for instance, joined a larger network of British medical women in completing their clinical training in London.83

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Limited science provision in girls’ intermediate schools also proved a significant handicap for those wishing to pursue medicine. In these early years, the goodwill and determination of supportive teachers was crucial for many aspiring women doctors to gain the appropriate qualifications to enter medical school. Like elsewhere, the Welsh Department of the Board of Education advocated different curricula for boys and girls, with greater time allocated to domestic subjects for girls.84 A few resourceful headmistresses found ways to circumnavigate these restrictions. Following objections from the charity commissioners, the renowned headmistress of Cardiff High School for Girls, Mary Collin, reportedly included a chemical laboratory into the school plans by labelling it a ‘sewing room’.85 This balance of gender prescriptions and equal educational opportunities played out in a school’s curriculum between academic subjects and domestically orientated ones. Collin sought to incorporate the two when she stated: ‘training must be provided which should make it possible for girls to enter professions and business careers, as well as the general culture of mind, and hand, and character which should fit them to be home-makers in the fullest sense’.86 Indeed, most teachers of these new intermediate girls schools sought to tread the careful line of what Sara Delamont has coined ‘double conformity’; that is, they adhered to both dominant male academic standards whilst simultaneously complying with conservative codes of lady-like behaviour and deportment.87 Girls interested in pursuing science at Newport High School for Girls, however, were not so fortunate. The architectural plans for the school were completed before the headmistress was appointed, and, for the first few years, pupils had to use the laboratory in the neighbouring boys’ school after 5 pm.88 During the First World War, the need for suitably qualified professionals also stimulated the number of women entering vocational courses, with medical authorities encouraging women to pursue medicine. An increased demand for medical service, the losses sustained from doctors serving abroad and the depletion in the number of medical students due to military service made the call for women doctors urgent.89 In 1916, the General Committee for the Promotion of the Medical Training of Women in Wales was established to provide financial assistance to Welsh women medical students.90 Headed by the social reformer and then deputy-chancellor of the University of Wales, Daniel Lleufer Thomas, the committee offered annual grants and loans of up to £50 a year which were tenable for the final three years of training. The initiative was largely effective in attracting candidates and the number of women medical students enrolled at the

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pre-clinical CMS more than quadrupled from five in the 1915–1916 academic year, to an intake of 21 by 1918–1919.91 Wales was not alone in seeking to increase the number of women medical students during the conflict.92 In 1916, the University of Edinburgh began coeducating women and men medical students for the first time, and shortly after both Oxford and Cambridge opened their medical examinations—though not degrees—to women. By 1918, 7 out of the 11 London medical schools admitted women.93 While the Welsh scheme was originally initiated to meet the shortage of doctors caused by the war, it continued throughout the interwar decades at time when many of the London medical schools who had opened their doors to women during wartime closed them again or capped their intake. But despite the financial support offered to some prospective medical women, headmistresses still highlighted that the expense was a deterrent to many girls who wished to pursue medicine and advocated the need for more scholarships.94 The scheme also threw into sharp relief the inadequacies in girls’ science education, with few girls equipped to take advantage of these incentivised opportunities. After a year, concerns were raised by the committee about the standard of women students.95 Barbara Foxley, Professor of Education at Cardiff, was tasked with compiling a report for the Senate in 1916 on science education available to girls in Welsh secondary schools.96 Foxley’s report showed that whereas botany predominated, only 12 of the 71 schools surveyed taught physics to girls in their final years at school. Schools also reported insufficient laboratory accommodation and an inadequate supply of science teachers.97 This reflected a gendered curriculum dictated by dominant assumptions of women’s intellect and the type of careers which were considered appropriate for them. Foxley’s recommendations were circulated to the headmasters and headmistresses of all secondary schools in Wales to better prepare aspiring medical students for the preliminary scientific examinations.98 Change, however, was slow. Rosentyl Griffiths, who was to become the first woman to complete all her medical training at the WNSM in the 1920s, faced similar barriers that her counterparts had encountered two decades prior. Lacking laboratory facilities at her school in Merthyr, her headmistress arranged for her to use the facilities at the twinned boys’ school to enable her to obtain the necessary qualifications required to enter medical school.99 Although the WNSM remained open to women, the number of women medical students in Wales, like elsewhere in Britain, declined

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throughout the 1920s and did not regain their wartime levels until the 1930s.100

2.5   Women Students 1914–1939: Ethnicity, Geographical Origins and Class Despite the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the south Walian port towns and cities, the representation of minority students at the neighbouring colleges was miniscule. Most ethnic minority women students were distinguished from other students by their class, as well as their race. They tended to be slightly older and upper-middle-class: the daughters of landowners, traders and merchants. Dorothy ‘Dorf’ Noel Bonarjee, who studied at Aberystwyth between 1913 and 1916, fits this profile.101 Born in India, Bonarjee moved to England with her family in 1904 when her father entered Lincoln’s Inn. She came from a highly westernised, middle-­ class family, who boasted a long tradition of lawyers.102 Bonarjee’s mother was the honorary secretary of the Indian Women’s Education Association in London, and both parents were strong advocates of education for Indian girls.103 Her family were also nonconformist by creed which may have influenced their decision for Bonarjee and her older brother, Bertie, to attend the remote college at Aberystwyth.104 Her younger brother, Neil, joined Hertford College, Oxford, in 1919 and later published an autobiography in which he spoke of ‘the inner voice, the so-called nonconformist conscience of Wales and the North’.105 Sumita Mukherjee notes that most Indian men and women who attended university in Britain usually came from upper-middle-class professional backgrounds.106 A British education was considered an important marker of prestige, and law was the most popular qualification sought by Indians who came to Britain to study. Bonarjee graduated from Aberystwyth in 1916 after sitting exams in law and French, before becoming one the earliest women to gain a law degree from the University of London the following year.107 In 1920, the opening of the University College of Swansea (UCS) provided a more accessible choice for aspiring graduates living in the western coalfield and south-west Wales. Throughout the interwar years 97 per cent of the women students at Swansea in my sample came from within Wales’s border, with the overwhelmingly majority hailing from nearby towns such as Porthcawl, Ogmore, Neath, Port Talbot, Ammanford and the southerly region of west Wales. Lacking the established reputation of

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the other Welsh colleges, its ability to attract from a wider geographical base was limited during its early years. Across the other constituent colleges, the percentage of students from England also continued to decline as civic universities sprung up elsewhere in Britain and the standard of secondary education in Wales increased. Between 1914 and 1920 Welsh students constituted around 88 per cent of women students at the University of Wales, and by 1921 this had risen to 93 per cent.108 This was significantly higher than other provincial universities of the time, which tended to draw around two-thirds of their students from the local area.109 A smaller proportion of women also came from Ireland and Scotland, while a handful travelled from further afield including France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, India, Jamaica, Bermuda, China, Japan, USA, South Africa and Australia. The trend of widening access to higher education also continued throughout the First World War and its immediate aftermath. By 1920, the percentage of lower-middle-class and working-class women students in Wales had surpassed the proportion who came from middle-class professional and managerial homes.110 This was aided, in part, by the introduction of state scholarships and increased availability of LEA grants. There were variations across the colleges too, with the parental occupations of students reflective of the local economy. Swansea, for instance, drew from a much lower social stratum than its sister colleges due to its proximity to the local copper, steel and tinplate industries.111 By contrast, Cardiff’s students comprised a higher social status, reflecting the more cosmopolitan make-up of the city and its larger professional class. Like most civic universities, opportunities for working-class girls were narrower than for their male counterparts. A greater proportion of women continued to have fathers employed in professional occupations than men, but this was not as noticeable as the pre-war trends. A small number of women also had fathers who had died. Going to university in the hope of securing some financial security, they were often supported through college by guardians, relatives or mothers in paid employment. One student’s mother worked as a housekeeper to fund her daughter through her degree at Cardiff in the 1920s.112 Yet while the war years and its immediate aftermath witnessed a widening of the social profile of the student body, a bitter economic depression prevented the continuation of this trend throughout the following decade, and the proportion of women students from working- and intermediate-­ class backgrounds slightly declined during the 1930s.113 This was linked to

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the fluctuating demand for teachers, with the Board of Education attempting to control the supply of teachers by curtailing the number of grant-­ earning places. A series of surveys undertaken by the National Union of Students also confirms that the trend towards widening access to university at the constituent Welsh colleges largely stagnated throughout the 1930s.114 One study showed that in Cardiff the dominant social class of women students entering by 1938 was 38 per cent from professional homes, followed by 26 per cent working class, 18 per cent intermediate, 11 per cent deceased or not mentioned, 5 per cent managerial or commerce and 1 per cent agricultural.115 By contrast, 34 per cent of male students hailed from working-class backgrounds, followed closely by 29 per cent intermediate, 18 per cent professional, 10 per cent managerial, 8 per cent deceased or not mentioned and 1 per cent agricultural. By the outbreak of the Second World War, then, the social make-up of the student body had changed little from what it had been half a century prior. Nonetheless, the Welsh colleges still drew from a lower social profile than most other universities during this period. For instance, Carol Dyhouse’s survey revealed that just over half of women at England’s civic universities between the wars came from middle-class families, although she also highlights institutional variations too.116 Indeed, when broad comparisons are drawn with other nations, we find that opportunities for children of lower socioeconomic status to climb the educational ladder were still greater in Wales than elsewhere in Britain throughout the interwar years. A major survey of the university scholarship system in the 1920s by G. S. M. Ellis highlighted that accessibility to university for poor students was three and a third times higher in Wales than in England.117 Both Wales and Scotland had a significantly higher proportion per population in university: in 1930–1931, 1 in 189 of the population were at university in Wales, compared to 1 in 434 in Scotland and 1 in 1306 in England.118 This was partly due to higher rates of secondary education participation. As historians of Welsh education have noted, the network of secondary schools, all rate- and grant-aided, charged low fees and had a relatively higher number of free places; indeed, by the outbreak of the Second World War, almost two-thirds of secondary school pupils in the country were exempt from paying fees.119 Some local education committees were able to obtain sanctions from the Board of Education to award free places in their county schools in excess of the 50 per cent of the number of admissions usually allowed.120 Moreover, these schools were almost totally dependent on state elementary schools for their

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intake.121 Consequently, the proportion of university students who had attended state elementary schools was starkly higher in Wales than elsewhere in Britain. Ellis’s survey found that in 1920, 87 per cent of students in Wales had attended state elementary schools, compared with 37 per cent in Scotland and 38 per cent in England.122 This pattern continued throughout the interwar years, with a follow-up survey on the scholarship system by L.  Doreen Whiteley nearly a decade later reporting similar findings.123 The greater accessibility of higher education in Wales was also due to the more generous financial provision available to students on entry to college. A study undertaken by the University Grants Committee in 1928–1929 showed that almost 50 per cent of university students in Britain had some form of financial assistance: from private charities, open scholarships, government grants or LEA scholarships.124 In Wales this proportion was even higher (67.4 per cent), when disaggregated from Scotland (52.7 per cent) and England (40.6 per cent). However, it should be noted that the English figures were partly skewed by the lower proportion of students in receipt of funding at Oxbridge, the University of London and the London medical schools.125 Developments in the state education system in Wales had in theory paved a way for a pupil with limited means to progress from elementary school to intermediate and secondary schools, and onto university. There were, of course, gaps in this system and it certainly was not the dominant path taken by most children throughout this period.126

2.6  Funding, Families and the Interwar Depression For most working-class or lower-middle-class girls, going to university still meant cobbling together a patchwork of financial support from their families, charities or LEA. During the interwar decades, the primary source of funding continued to be LEA scholarships and Board of Education grants for those who pledged themselves to a career in teaching. Most prospective teachers undertook a four-year course: the first three years were devoted to the preparation for a University of Wales degree, followed by a postgraduate course which prepared students for either the University of Wales’s Teacher’s Certificate, the Cambridge Teacher’s Certificate or the London Teacher’s Diploma.127 Graduates from other universities could also undertake the one-year University of Wales teaching diploma. Government scholarships were available to students in primary training

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departments as well as for a limited number for graduates taking this course.128 By 1930, honours graduates received grants of £28 per year towards living expenses at the residential halls, together with an exemption of tuition fees.129 The availability of financial help varied dramatically across institutions and LEAs. Aspiring graduates’ fortunes could also be determined by their postcode, with the number, eligibility criteria and value of funding changing from authority to authority. Glamorganshire LEA, for instance, had one of the highest expenditures per head on university funding for all of England and Wales in 1930.130 Most controversial, however, was the introduction of county council loans in the 1930s. These loans fell most heavily on poorer students, shifting the financial responsibility of education away from the local authority and state towards the individual. Even those who took out the maximum loan they could often found it did not cover their basic expenditure. Edna Thomas, a tinplate worker’s daughter who entered Swansea in 1928, had a loan of £30 per annum for four years and, for the last session, a tuition grant of £15. The actual cost of her college course for one year came to £47 11 s. Her father, who faced irregular work because of the depression in trade and his old age, was unable to supplement her loan with the less than £3 a week he earned.131 As a global economic depression tightened its grip on mining communities during the late 1920s and early 1930s, the already precarious position of working-class students was made even more challenging. Many families found themselves in financial distress because of accidents, unemployment or low wages caused by the depression.132 Limited employment opportunities were felt acutely in industrial regions like the south Wales coalfield. Conversely, this contributed to a temporary rise in student numbers amongst men, while the number of women students dwindled. Historians have argued that this decrease in the proportion of women students was related to the falling demand for schoolteachers and, consequently, a reduction in the number of Board of Education grants.133 Neither had the situation improved for working-class students by the midto late-1930s. A study undertaken by the National Union of Students showed that funding opportunities for working-class students had, in fact, declined, with the percentage of British students in receipt of some form of assistance dropping from 44.1 per cent in 1928 to 41.7 per cent by 1934.134 During the interwar years, a small number of women students in Wales did win one of the prestigious state scholarships which were open

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to pupils from grant-aided secondary schools, tenable for three years and subject to an entrance examination. However, the provision of awards was wholly inadequate and a significant proportion of the 300 scholarships available each year went to Oxbridge entrants.135 Yet unlike the teacher training grants, they did leave a woman free to choose her future career—at least within the confines of the occupational opportunities that were available to her at the time.136 There were also scholarships attached to specific subjects. For example, the eminent musicians Morfydd Llwyn Owen and Gladys May Jones were recipients of the Caradog Music Scholarship at Cardiff, while other charitable endeavours supported the children of specific tradesmen or servicemen.137 Major awards offered for courses in the arts, science and medicine were given equally to boys and girls, but special provision for boys was made by scholarships in metallurgy and engineering. In Swansea, several women received the Mary Towyn Jones Welsh Language Scholarship and the Swansea Cymmrodorion Society Welsh Language Scholarship.138 Similarly, a small number of women also pursued postgraduate degrees supported by University of Wales research fellowships, LEA postgraduate studentships (the availability and conditions of which again varied by authority) or research council grants.139 A survey by the Welsh Student Self-Help Council in 1929 estimated that the minimum cost of studying at a Welsh university per year was £94 for women in hostels, £74 for men in lodgings, and £44 for students living at home. The higher tuition fees, books and apparatus added an additional £14 for students undertaking a science degree.140 The cost was also greater for women because of the requirement to live in the university halls rather than independent lodgings. Institutional desire for respectability was more important than social inclusivity and grants rarely met the costly residential fees, even in shared dormitories. Many students who were struggling financially applied to live outside the hall to save on costs, but usually met with an unsympathetic response from college authorities.141 Variations in the cost of accommodation and tuition across British universities persisted throughout the interwar decades too. Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea were cheaper than Cardiff. But all four Welsh colleges were significantly cheaper than Oxford, Cambridge and London, where the expense was more than double.142 Indeed, the elite universities were out of reach for most women, even if they had managed to obtain funding. For instance, Cardiff High School for Girls’ pupil Muriel Williams won a scholarship to Girton College,

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Cambridge, but found that it was nowhere near enough to enable her to go.143 Those who did manage to cross the threshold of the Oxbridge colleges faced difficulty meeting the higher cost of living and incidental expenses. One Welsh student, Doris Matthews, who had won a scholarship from Glamorgan County Council for her place at Ruskin College, Oxford, soon found it was impossible to afford the extensive list of books required and the expense living in Oxford entailed.144 Although her application to the Welsh Student Self-Help Council for an emergency grant was ineligible because she was studying outside of Wales, its secretary personally gave her a small grant and books from her own collection.145 Within Wales, too, most students with funding found it insufficient without additional family support. The case of Florence Scammell, who entered Cardiff in 1922, encapsulates the inadequacy of grant provision for working-class students. During her first year, Scammell commuted to college from Ebbw Vale, a steel town situated 30 miles north of Cardiff, where her father worked as a tinsmith. Facing a period of unemployment, her father unsuccessfully asked the college authorities if his daughter could live outside Aberdare Hall with a relative in Cardiff during her second year.146 Scammell entered the hall in 1923 but soon struggled to meet the expense of board and lodging, and again sought permission to live with a relative. Her £28 Board of Education Grant and a £20 bursary from Ebbw Vale Education Committee did not fully cover her Aberdare Hall fees which were £65 7 s. To put this into perspective, the average daily wage of a miner in south Wales in 1922 was 9 s. 6d—by which, the full residential fees would have amounted to 138 days of labour.147 The family managed to scrape together additional money, but Scammell was still left with a shortfall of £4 13 s 8d. The hall warden, Kate Hurlbatt, did not consider this an adequate reason for her to live with family and instead provided her with a grant of £10 out of the hall’s general funds.148 Florence Scammell was, in some respects, one of the lucky ones: she obtained her BSc degree in 1925, and after completing her subsequent training year, returned to her hometown as an assistant mistress in Ebbw Vale Council School.149 These individualised remedies to a wider problem persisted throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Unexpected downturns in circumstances exposed the precarity of many students who had no safety net to catch them. Edith Lorraine George was in her final year of professional training at Cardiff when she found herself destitute following the discontinuation of her grant in 1938. Her father had been killed during the war, and she had been financially supported through university by the British Legion.

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However, her mother’s remarriage during the summer vacation had automatically halted the grant, despite her stepfather not being able to provide for her. Again, the warden of Aberdare Hall worked out an arrangement whereby George was able to occupy a room given up by another student at reduced fees, and an anonymous donor made a small weekly contribution towards her expenses for clothes and personal needs, including her vacation railway fares and travel costs for her school practice. A small grant obtained from the Lady Vestey Trust was also used for her examination fees the following term.150 The impact of the economic depression was felt acutely in industrial communities, with the collapse of the post-war boom resulting in a slump in trade. Consequent wage cuts, widespread unemployment and periods of industrial unrest had profound implications for students whose families’ livelihoods were dependent on the fortunes of these heavy industries. For instance, the 1926 miners’ lockout rippled across the wider region affecting those typically considered ‘middle’ or ‘lower-middle’ class too. The hotel proprietor parents of Swansea student Dilys Evans were acutely aware of how precarious their ability to financially support their daughter was. Evans had resided at Beck Hall during her first year at Swansea and intended to return the following year. Writing to the authorities to ask if she could relinquish her place giving less than the required notice, she outlined: ‘trade is so very bad in all branches and it seems to be hitting us too pretty badly. My parents seem both very worried over financial worries. … I should be far more satisfied in mind if I were allowed to travel for next year at any rate until financial matters improve.’151 A subsequent letter from her mother reflected the families’ desperation, outlining how the worry of keeping his daughter in Beck Hall was profoundly affecting her husband’s health.152 Financial insecurity also affected the wellbeing and educational experiences of students too, with one miner’s daughter, Muriel Evans, noting how ‘my financial difficulty greatly impedes my studying’.153 As Chap. 3 will illustrate, during the late 1920s students began to take matters into their own hands and founded their own self-­ help schemes to alleviate some of the effects of financial hardship many encountered at the peak of the depression. Others did not even make it as far as the college gates, with periods of intense hardship scuppering the plans of many aspiring graduates altogether. The 1926 industrial strike and lockout forced countless parents, who had saved money for their children to go to secondary school or university, to use all or part of these savings to keep their home going

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during the stoppage.154 One woman recalled how her plans to attend university were halted by the 1926 lockout when her father and brother were on strike: I was ready to go to College. I was supposed to have gone to Cardiff University, and the headmaster was very annoyed about that, and he had arranged a special class for me in Anglo-Saxon, so that I would have Latin and Anglo-Saxon to go to Cardiff University. Well, it wasn’t possible. And my mother said, ‘Well you’ve just got to tell him, you can’t go. You can manage perhaps two years in a training college, but you can’t go to University for four years.’155

Instead, like most certificated teachers during this period, she attended her local teacher training college in Barry for two years. Although the more expensive route through university training departments was deemed superior to that of training college, it was, ultimately, financial considerations which dictated where many women trained and taught. Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s the ongoing economic depression further thwarted the ambitions of many working-class children who hoped to obtain a degree. In 1929 the Welsh Student Self-Help Council sent a circular to the heads of schools in colliery areas, asking how many pupils were prevented from going to college through lack of funds.156 The general conclusion from their replies was that the struggle to keep children on at school after the age of 14 or 15 was so great for those who were unemployed or earning low wages that few were able to qualify for entrance to college. Examples were given of at least eight cases where pupils would have proceeded to the university that year but for distress at home.157 Financial investment in higher education was, as Carol Dyhouse has shown, often a family endeavour.158 Many families made heroic efforts to send their children to college despite enduring months and in some cases years of unemployment and depleted savings.159 Even in relatively well-off families, parents and siblings still made significant personal sacrifices to send their children to university. The daughter of a chapel minister in Bala remembered how she had no new clothes for over three years while her parents supported her sister through her degree at Bangor.160 It was not unusual for women and men to pay the favour forward and support their younger siblings through education. Recalling how he and his siblings

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were able to attend university in the 1930s, Llanelli-born Labour politician Frederick Elwyn-Jones wrote: All of us were good at exams and won scholarships at every stage of our careers. One of my mother’s regular bits of advice was gwna dy orau, do your best. I was fortunate in being the youngest of the family. By the time I went to school my sister Winnie had graduated from Aberystwyth University College and become a schoolteacher and Idris was leaving Cambridge to be a scientist with ICI. Both Idris and Winnie sent money home regularly to my mother as soon as they were earning, and Winnie delayed her marriage for this reason.161

Delaying life events, sending money back home and huge sacrifices by parents and siblings were a common theme for many working-class graduates throughout this period. Families often saw it as a collective effort, especially in communities which were blighted by widespread unemployment. A university education was, for many families, an economic strategy: sending their children to college was considered the best way of securing future income and greater financial stability. In 1930 one miner from the Rhondda wrote to an emergency fund founded for Welsh students to seek financial help for his daughter who was studying at Bangor. The savings he had put aside for her education were quickly exhausted when he faced a period of illness. He wrote: ‘I am anxious that my daughter should attend College because I feel that she will be of greater benefit when she will come home than if I sent her away now. She is the oldest of four children.’162 The expectation that graduates would have higher earning potential and support their younger siblings was at the forefront of many families minds when they invested in their children’s education. Another mother applied to the fund on behalf of her daughter, Bridget Lee-Davies, who was at Aberystwyth. Estranged from her father, she was anxious for Bridget to take her degree ‘to enable her to obtain a suitable post later on, as she must her own living’.163 Support extended far beyond the family unit too. The daughter of one north Walian miner who was only able find part-time work had the limited funding she had won supplemented by the staff of her former school for one year, in the hope that she would obtain a grant from the Miners’ Federation.164

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2.7   Coalfield Communities and the Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme Though sometimes romanticised, there was a high social value attached to education in many working-class communities. Each year local papers published the names of successful scholarship holders, with the inclusion of a son or daughter’s name being a significant source of pride for families.165 Trade unions and charitable bodies also sought to plug the gap left by insufficient state provision by offering their own scholarships. One example was the Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, founded in late 1926 to provide funding for ‘workers in or about coal mines and their sons and daughters’ to attend higher education. The scheme was part of the Miners’ Welfare Fund (1920–1952) which aimed to improve social conditions in coalfield communities through education and amenities such as pithead baths, welfare halls and libraries. More generous than the state scholarships, the grants included both tuition fees and a maintenance allowance for clothing, food and accommodation. The founders hoped that it would bring benefit to the wider mining communities, with the scholarship holder ‘not only attaining educational distinction, but also … benefiting from social intercourse in the laboratory, the lecture room and the playing fields, and from the general atmosphere of residence at a University’.166 The high demand for such financial assistance was evident in the large number of applicants. In its first year, the committee received 2259 applications from coalmining districts across Britain, half of whom were miners and the remainder children of coal workers.167 But the number of qualified applicants far exceeded the number scholarships available, with only between 11 and 15 scholarships awarded annually. While the number of applicants decreased slightly in subsequent years, the success rate remained pitifully low at below 2 per cent. The scheme also awarded special grants to students who were already at university and in need of financial support. South Wales and Monmouthshire consistently supplied nearly half of all applicants to the scheme each year, despite accounting for around 20 per cent of the mining population.168 The committee believed this disproportionate representation was due to the close proximity of university facilities to mining communities in south Wales, and the comparatively lower tuition fees relative to England and Scotland. They also noted a correlation between districts which sent larger numbers of candidates and the severity of unemployment in the region.169

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Girls made up around 20 per cent of the applications from miners’ children for the duration of most of the scheme, although they were more successful than their male counterparts in obtaining awards and comprised about a third of award-holders each year.170 Significantly, the proportion of applications from girls fell in 1934 to 16.5 per cent and even further to 13 per cent in 1934 in accordance with the declining number of women entering university across Britain during this period.171 Several applicants were working as domestic servants, district nurses or uncertificated teachers; many of whom had left school after their elementary education and continued private study alongside work.172 Although the scheme was also designed for miners’ dependents, wives were not included in the category of beneficiaries and there were no comparable opportunities for adult working-class women. This reflected the broader male-dominated culture of adult education which, from its inception in the early twentieth century, was intimately connected to the labour movement. Throughout the scheme’s duration, only one woman applied under the ‘worker in or around mining’ category, having been employed as a clerk in a pithead office.173 In terms of career aspirations, nearly 73 per cent of applicants expressed their intention to become teachers.174 As the most common career path for both men and women graduates at the time, this was perhaps unsurprising. But the high levels of unemployment in their communities also encouraged them to choose a profession which seemed at least to offer them reasonable security. The prospect of training for a more secure and better paid career path was the key driving force behind many working-­ class students’ desire to gain a university education. Indeed, applicants’ letters provide a glimpse into the significant sacrifices made by parents to provide their children with an education and reveal the major motivating factor for many working-class students to gain a degree was to be able to contribute the family purse. The scheme also enabled a small number of working-class women to qualify as doctors, although these were very much exceptional cases due to the lengthy and costly period of training. In 1926, Nellie Eirwen Jones, the daughter of a repairer at Gellyceidrim Colliery, won a miners’ welfare scholarship to enter the WNSM, writing in her application that there is ‘a useful sphere in the mining districts of South Wales for women medical practitioners’.175 Jones received her early education at her local elementary school, and gained a scholarship to the county school before entering medical school.176 After qualifying, she became a school medical inspector under Glamorgan County Council.177

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Two years later, in 1928, Margaret Baber (later Jennings), the daughter of a miner at Blaenserchan Colliery, was also awarded a scholarship to study medicine at Cardiff. She subsequently transferred to a London medical school where she won a prestigious Goldsmid open exhibition to the University College Medical School.178 She practised at hospitals in Birmingham and Windsor, before becoming an assistant medical officer at a children’s hospital.179 Other miners’ daughters were awarded special grants to enable them to pursue PhDs or research work. For instance, Anne Bryant, the daughter of a repairer at Coedcae Colliery, undertook a degree at Cardiff supported by a state scholarship, and subsequently received a grant to complete a PhD in zoology. She later became a biology teacher.180 Similarly, Eunice Rees, daughter of a coal cutter at Rock Colliery, attended Cardiff on a state scholarship and one attached to Aberdare Hall. She was awarded a Miners’ Scholarship to enable her to continue her research work in zoology, alongside a University of Wales Fellowship.181 Whilst it was in theory possible to progress through secondary and tertiary education on scholarships, this was not a representative experience of most working-class women and only benefited a fortunate few. At the heart of these efforts for Welsh communities to give their children a university education was differing, though sometimes overlapping, conceptions of the purpose of education. Gareth Elwyn Jones has highlighted the irreconcilable aspirations of many Welsh parents and Welsh educationists.182 For the former, a degree was a route to social mobility: the most promising way to secure an additional contribution to the family income in a fiercely competitive job market. For the latter, education was the primary vehicle of bolstering a national identity and protecting the Welsh language and culture. These tensions were heightened during the interwar decades as the economic depression gripped Wales and many families saw university education as a way for their children to escape the poverty which engulfed their communities. At the same time, as we will see in Chap. 6, a surge in national sentiment after the war, spurred on in part by awareness of a decline in the Welsh language, led to an increased disillusionment of the education system and its perceived failures to develop a distinctly national education.183 * * *

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Education and nationalism were closely linked in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Feminist advocates of women’s education in Wales successfully carved a role for women within this broader programme of educational reform, and their ability to frame their demands within the burgeoning nationalist movement gave women’s higher education added credence. Romanticised claims of ‘progressive’ attitude towards gender equality in Wales did have some substance when comparisons are made with other universities, although the reasons for it were slightly more practical. The number of women students increased rapidly in the final decade of the nineteenth century, driven primarily by an influx of Welsh students from the new network of intermediate schools and the establishment of the day training departments. A symbiotic relationship existed between secondary and higher education system in Wales: by the final decade of the nineteenth century the new secondary schools provided a steady pipeline of students for the new university colleges, while these early cohorts of graduates staffed the expanding intermediate schools. Despite this initial educational fervour and gains made in women’s education, by the outbreak of the Second World War the gender composition of the colleges had changed little from what they had been at the turn of the twentieth century. While the University of Wales never truly lived up to its depiction as a ‘university of the people’, opportunities for working-class students were higher in Wales than elsewhere in Britain. The make-up of the student body did, albeit slowly, change to be more reflective of the communities in which the university colleges were situated, and by the interwar decades the constituent colleges drew most of their intake from the local region. The comparatively high proportion of working-class students was fuelled, in part, by developments in secondary education and greater funding opportunities, but also reflected the country’s socioeconomic structure. Despite the relatively low fees of the Welsh colleges many students still faced difficulties covering the basic costs, and a university education was a far more remote prospect for a pupil from a humbler background. Local authority provision usually lagged-behind the demand for financial support and the number of qualified candidates far exceeded the relatively small number of exhibitions available. The harsh economic conditions of the interwar decades meant that even those who were able to scrabble together funding for fees often struggled to make ends meet. Higher education was, however, never just a middle-class ideal. Many families scrimped and saved to send their daughters and sons to university which they

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perceived to be the surest route to social mobility—whether these hopes were to be realised, or not.

Notes 1. The Dragon, 52, 3 (1930). 2. Young Wales, 2, 17 (1896). 3. The University College of Wales Magazine, 17, 3 (December 1894); Report of the Proceedings at the Formal Opening of the County School for Girls Bangor, and the University Hall for Women Students, 9 October 1897, XM.6149/4, Caernarfon Record Office; Western Mail, 15 October 1904. 4. R. D. Anderson, Universities and Elites in Britain since 1800 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1995), p.  23. For example, see: W. Cadwaladr Davies and W. Lewis Jones, College Histories: University of Wales (London, 1905); J.  O. Francis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. A Short History (Aberystwyth, 1920), p. 24; A. H. Trow and D. J. A. Brown, A Short History of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff, 1883 to 1933 (Western Mail: Cardiff, 1933); Western Mail, 18 July 1933. 5. Gordon W. Roderick and David Allsobrook, ‘Welsh Society and University Funding, 1860–1914’, Welsh History Review, 20, 1 (2000), p. 38, p. 41, p. 45. Though often romanticised, the university colleges—particularly in Bangor and Aberystwyth—received significant financial support from the local community in their early years. 6. W. Gareth Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act 1889 and the Education of Girls: Gender Stereotyping or Curricular Assimilation?’, Llafur, 5, 2 (1988), pp. 84–92. 7. Frances Hoggan, Education for Girls in Wales (London, 1882); South Wales Daily News, 22 August 1878; January 1881; February 1881; Western Mail, 20 August 1878. For further information on Frances Hoggan, see Angela V.  John, Rocking the Boat: Welsh Women who Championed Equality 1840–1990 (Parthian: Cardigan, 2018), Chapter 1. 8. Hoggan, Education for Girls in Wales, p. 1. 9. South Wales Daily News, 10 January 1887. See also: The Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales: Pamphlets and Reports, 1887, WG12.A, Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives (CUSCA). 10. For example, the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women, which was founded in 1867, played a similar function. Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities 1870–1939 (Routledge: London, 1995), p. 14.

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11. The Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales, Analysis of Education Schemes, 1893, X/GB290, Bangor University Archives and Special Collections (BUASC). 12. Katharine Viriamu Jones, Life of John Viriamu Jones (London, 1915). The first Principal of UCSWM and first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, John Viriamu Jones, was also a keen supporter of women’s education and suffrage, alongside his wife Katharine Viriamu Jones. 13. E. P. Hughes, ‘The Educational Future of Wales’ (1894), CUSCA. 14. E.  P. Hughes, ‘Dual Schools in Wales’ (Bedford, 1897), X/ GB289ASS, BUASC. 15. Dilys L. Davies, ‘The Problem of Girls’ Education in Wales’ (Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales, 1887), X/GB289, BUASC. 16. The Association for Promoting the Education of the Girls of Wales: Pamphlets and Reports (1887), WG12.A, CUSCA. 17. Hughes, ‘Dual Schools in Wales’. 18. Young Wales, 2, 18 (June 1896); E. P. Hughes, The Education of Welsh Women (London, 1887). 19. APEGW Pamphlets and Reports, 1887, WG12.A; Hughes, The Education of Welsh Women. 20. Ursula Masson, ‘For Women, for Wales and For Liberalism’: Women in Liberal Politics in Wales 1880–1914 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2010). 21. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p. 12. 22. See Appendix A. 23. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, pp. 19–22. 24. This figure of 38 per cent is slightly lower than the sources I used which showed 41 per cent. Possible reasons for this disparity may be a different point in the year the data was recorded or the University Grants Committee’s disaggregation of part-time and full-time students. 25. Lindy Moore, Bajanellas and Semilinas: Aberdeen University and the Education of Women 1860–1920 (Aberdeen University Press: Aberdeen, 1991), p. 43. 26. Moore, Bajanellas and Semilinas, p. 43. 27. Janet Howarth and Mark Curthoys, ‘The Political Economy of Women’s Higher Education in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Britain’, Historical Research, 60, 142 (1987), p. 215. 28. Cambria Daily Leader, 9 October 1916. 29. G. S. M. Ellis, The Poor Student and the University: a report on the scholarship system with particular reference to awards made by Local Educational Authorities (London, 1925), p. 15. 30. L. Doreen Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University: a report on the scholarship system (London, 1933).

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31. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 21. 32. Mabel Tylecote, The Education of Women at Manchester University 1883 to 1933 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1941), p.  117. In Manchester, for instance, the number of women students was 504  in 1918, and continued to increase up to the session 1923–1924, the peak year, when 754 were registered. After that their numbers subsequently declined and averaged around 690 until 1932. 33. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Student Registers, 1874–1878, Aberystwyth University Archives (AUA). 34. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Student Registers, 1874–1878. 35. W. G. Evans, Education and Female Emancipation: The Welsh Experience, 1847–1914 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1990), p. 106; E. L. Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1872–1972 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1972), p. 85. 36. Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act 1889’, p. 184, p. 186. 37. Viriamu Jones, Life of John Viriamu Jones, p. 95. 38. The University College of Wales Magazine (December, 1894). 39. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Student Registers, 1884–1907. 40. Aberdare Hall, Annual Governors Meeting Minutes, 15 October 1896, DUCAH/1/1, Glamorgan Archives (GA). 41. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Calendar 1886–1887, p. 141. 42. Dilys L. Davies, ‘The Problem of Girls’ Education in Wales’ (Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales, 1887), X/GB289, BUASC. 43. The University College of Wales Magazine, 9, 1 (November 1886). 44. South Wales Daily News, 25 November 1898. 45. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Calendar, 1886–1887, p. 141. 46. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Calendar, 1883–1884. 47. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Senate Minutes, 29 October 1883, UCC/Sn/M/1–3, CUSCA. 48. Aberdare Hall House Committee Minute Book, 2 May 1895, DUCAH/6/1, GA. In 1895, fees for residence varied between £31 10s. and £42 per annum. See also: The Hon. E. F. Bruce, ‘Women Students in Wales, II. Cardiff’, Young Wales, 1, 11 (November, 1895), p. 259. 49. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 12 and 21 March 1898, DUCAH/7/2, GA. 50. University College Wales, Aberystwyth, Council Minutes, 21 October 1887, AUA. 51. Barbara How, ‘A History of Aberdare Hall’, 1936, H/Ab/Hist, CUSCA.

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52. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 27 February 1902. 53. How, ‘A History of Aberdare Hall’. 54. Viriamu Jones, Life of John Viriamu Jones, p. 166. 55. Trow and Brown, A Short History of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, p. 83. 56. W.  G. Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act 1889 and the education of girls’, Welsh History Review, 15, 2 (1990), p. 184, p. 215. 57. The first school under the 1889 intermediate education act was opened in Caernarfon in 1894. 58. Figure based on my sample data. 59. See Appendix B. 60. ‘Farmer’ is a broad umbrella and does not distinguish between farmers owning their own land and tenant farmers. 61. J.  Gwynn Williams, The University College of North Wales, Foundations 1884–1927 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1985), p. 289. 62. See Appendix B. 63. Katie Gramich, Kate Roberts (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2011), p. 5. 64. Kate Roberts, Y Lôn Wen/The White Lane [Translated by Gillian Clarke] (Gwasg Gomer: Llandysul, 2009), p. 210. 65. Roberts, Y Lôn Wen, p. 148. 66. Williams, The University College of North Wales, p. 292. 67. Keith Vernon, Universities and the State in England, 1850–1939 (Routledge: London, 2004), p. 127. 68. How, ‘A History of Aberdare Hall’. 69. Western Mail, 29 June 1905. 70. Aberdare Hall, Annual Governors Meeting, 10 February 1897, DUCAH/1/1. 71. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p. 20 72. Tylecote, The Education of Women at Manchester University, p. 52. 73. Western Mail, 29 June 1905. 74. S.  B. Chrimes (ed.), University College Cardiff: A Centenary History 1883–1983 (Unpublished, Cardiff, 1983). 75. Chrimes (ed.), University College Cardiff, p. 280. 76. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p. 19. 77. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p. 8. 78. Gareth Elwyn Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1982), p. 34. 79. Ellis, The Poor Student and the University, p. 31. 80. Alun Roberts, The Welsh National School of Medicine, 1893–1931: The Cardiff Years (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2008). Before the pre-­

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clinical medical school opened its doors in Cardiff in 1893, several women undertook science degrees at one of the Welsh constituent colleges before proceeding to the London School of Medicine for Women, including Elizabeth Jane Moffett (Bangor, 1885) and Erie Evans (Bangor 1890–1894). 81. Faculty of Medicine Prospectus, 1911, UCC/FC/M/SchM/Pro/1–13, CUSCA. A 1911 prospectus for CMS estimated that the total cost was between £145 and £175. 82. Register of Students of Medicine, Cardiff, 1893–1920, UCC/FC/M/ SchM/Reg/1, CUSCA. 83. Roberts, The Welsh National School of Medicine, p. 34. 84. W. G. Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate Education Act and the Education of Girls: Curriculum Assimilation and the Quest for Differentiation’, in O.  E. Jones (ed.), The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889: A Centenary Appraisal (Welsh Office, Cardiff, 1990). 85. City of Cardiff High School for Girls (Western Mail: Cardiff, 1924), p. 18. 86. City of Cardiff High School for Girls, p. 15. 87. Sara Delamont, Knowledgeable Women: Structuralism and the Reproduction of Elites (Routledge: London, 1989). 88. The Jubilee Book of the Newport High School for Girls, 1896–1946 (R. H. Johns: Newport, 1946), p. 14. 89. South Wales Daily News, 23 February 1916. 90. Correspondence relating to the General Committee for the Promotion of the Medical Training of Women, 1916, C1/7, Sir Daniel Lleufer Thomas Papers, National Library of Wales (NLW). 91. Register of Students of Medicine, Cardiff, 1915–1918. 92. Moore, Bajanellas and Semilinas, p.  44; Tylecote, The Education of Women at Manchester University, pp. 100–01. 93. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Women Students and the London Medical Schools, 1914–1939: The Anatomy of a Masculine Culture’, Gender & History, 10, 1 (1998), p. 113. 94. Aberdare Hall, Annual Governors Meeting Minutes, 8 December 1918, DUCAH/1/2, GA. 95. North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser for the Principality, 7 June 1918. 96. University College South Wales and Monmouthshire, Senate Minutes, 1 May 1916. 97. University College South Wales and Monmouthshire, Senate Minutes, 1 May 1916. 98. University College South Wales and Monmouthshire, Senate Minutes, 19 June 1916; British Medical Journal, 4 March 1916 and 28 July 1917. 99. Rosentyl Griffiths (1903–1999), unpublished memoirs. I am grateful to Angela V.  John for providing a copy of Rosentyl’s memoirs. See also:

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Angela V. John, ‘Cures from Carmarthenshire: Generations of Alternative Medicine’, Carmarthenshire Life, 142 (Summer, 2008). 100. Register of Students of Medicine, Cardiff, 1893–1935. 101. Beth Jenkins, ‘Dorothy ‘Dorf’ Noel Bonarjee (1894–1983)’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2020); Andrew Whitehead, ‘Dorothy Bonarjee: Bard of Aberystwyth’, Planet, 238 (2020). 102. Shompa Lahiri, Indians in Britain. Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity 1880–1930 (Routledge: London, 2000), p. 184. 103. N. B. Bonarjee, Under Two Masters (Oxford University Press: London, 1970), p. 16. 104. Bonarjee, Under Two Masters, p. 61. 105. Bonarjee, Under Two Masters, p. 30. 106. Sumita Mukherjee, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned (Routledge: London, 2009). 107. J. H. Baker, ‘University College and Legal Education 1826–1976’, 30, Current Legal Problems (1977), p. 7 108. Analysis based on my sample data. 109. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 12. 110. See Table 2.3 and Appendix B. 111. ‘University College of Swansea ‘Occupations of Parents of students entering College in 1929 and 1934, SIM/4/7/2/1/2, Brian Simon Papers, Institute of Education (IOE). 112. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Register, 1926, CUSCA. 113. See Table 2.3 and Appendix B. 114. ‘University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Parental Occupations of Students Entering in October 1938’, SIM/4/7/2/1/2, Brian Simon Papers. Situated in a sparsely populated agricultural region of mid-Wales, it is perhaps unsurprising that farmers and smallholders continued to constitute the largest occupational group at Aberystwyth, accounting for a quarter of students entering the college in 1938. This was followed closely by students from professional, intermediate and working-class families, each of whom comprised around 20 per cent of that year’s cohort. 115. ‘University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Parental Occupations of Students entering in October 1938, SIM/4/7/2/2/2, Brian Simon Papers. 116. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Going to university in England between the wars: access and funding’, History of Education, 31, 1 (2002), pp. 1–14. 117. Ellis, The Poor Student and the University, p. 23. 118. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 23.

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119. Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education, p. 74; Gareth Elwyn Jones and Gordon Wynne Roderick, A History of Education in Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2003), p. 132. 120. Hilda Jennings, Brynmawr. A Study of a Distressed Area (London, 1934), p. 6. 121. Ellis, The Poor Student and the University, p. 21. 122. Ellis, The Poor Student and the University, p. 22. 123. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 25. 124. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 30. 125. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 31. 126. ‘The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889’, Address at the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1939). 127. Alexandra Hall, Rules and Regulations, R/H/ALEX/1, AUA. 128. Alexandra Hall, Rules and Regulations. 129. Alexandra Hall, H1/8/1, AUA. 130. Whiteley, The Poor Student and the University, p. 46; Evidence submitted by the National Union of Students of the Universities and University Colleges of England and Wales, Youth Hearing, January 1939, SIM/4/7/7, Brian Simon Papers. 131. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Emergency Relief Fund, 1929–1931, 0210/24, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers, NLW. 132. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Memorandum and Reports 1929–1932, 0210/25, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 133. Tylecote, The Education of Women at Manchester University, p.  117; Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p. 18. 134. Evidence submitted by the National Union of Students, January 1939. 135. Vernon, Universities and the State in England, p. 190. 136. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Signing the pledge? Women’s investment in university education and teacher training before 1939’, History of Education, 26, 2 (1997), p. 219. 137. For example, some women received funding from the following organisations: Royal Masonic Institution for Girls; United Services Fund; Swansea Chamber of Commerce; Ministry of Pensions Grant; The ‘Lloyds Bank’ Scholarship; Samuel Bros Cardiff. 138. For instance, Inez Beret Nell, a miner’s daughter from Llanelly, held the Mary Towyn Jones Welsh Language Scholarship between 1931 and 1934, while Eleanor James, a solicitor’s daughter from Swansea, was awarded the latter in 1935. 139. University College, Swansea, Tenth Annual Report, 14 November 1930, Richard Burton Archives (RBA). 140. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Memorandum and Reports 1929–1932.

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141. Muriel Evans application to the Welsh Student Self-Help Council Loan Fund, 1929–1932, 0210/26, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 142. Phoebe Sheavyn, Higher Education for Women in Great Britain (International Federation of University Women: London, 1922), p. 20. 143. Letter from Muriel Williams to Miss Collin, 31 March 1920, DX263/18/1, GA. 144. Letter from Doris Matthews to Kitty Lewis, 1 January 1930, 0210/24. 145. Letter from Kitty Lewis to Doris Matthews, 13 February 1930, 0210/24. 146. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 1924, DUCAH/7/4. 147. Hansard, Mining Industry (Conditions and Wages), 13 December 1922. 148. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 1924, DUCAH/7/4. 149. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Register, 1922–1923. 150. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 1938, DUCAH/7/4–60. 151. Letter from Miss Dilys M. Evans to Registrar, 14 July 1927, H40, RBA. 152. Letter from Margaret J. Evans to the Registrar, 20 July 1927, H40, RBA. 153. Muriel Evans application to the Welsh Student Self-Help Council Loan Fund. 154. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, First Report of the Selection Committee, 1927, POWE 1/48/6, The National Archives (TNA). 155. ‘Interview 6’ in Neil Evans, Pamela Michael and Annie Williams (eds), Project Grace: Sources for Welsh Women’s History (Bangor, 1994). 156. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Memorandum and Reports 1929–1932. 157. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Memorandum and Reports 1929–1932. 158. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Family Patterns of Social Mobility through Higher Education in England in the 1930s’, Journal of Social History, 34, 4 (2001), pp.  817–41; Carol Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History (Routledge: London, 2005), pp. 28–33. 159. Ellis, The Poor Student and the University, pp. 8–9. 160. Unpublished interview between Beth Jenkins and Eluned Evans, Llanuwchllyn, Bala, Wales, 12 June 2013. 161. Frederick Elwyn-Jones, In My Time: An Autobiography (London, 1983), p. 9. 162. Applications to the Welsh Student Self-Help Council Loan Fund, 1929–1932. 163. Letter from Mrs. Lee-Davies to Kitty Lewis, 10 November 1929, 0210/26. 164. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Emergency Relief Fund, 1929–1931. 165. Elwyn-Jones, In My Time, p. 18.

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166. Miners Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, Memorandum 14 January 1926, ED 54/23, TNA. 167. Miners’ Welfare Fund, Reports of the Scholarship Selection Committee, 1927, POWE 1/48/6–10, TNA. 168. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, First Report, 1927. 169. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, First Report, 1927. 170. Miners’ Welfare Fund, Reports of the Scholarship Selection Committee, 1927–1936. 171. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme Reports, 1932 and 1934. 172. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, 1927, 1934 and 1935 annual reports. 173. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, First Report, 1927. 174. Miners’ Welfare Fund, Reports of the Scholarship Selection Committee, 1932, POWE 1/49/11–15, TNA. 175. Reports of the Council to the Court of Governors, 1926/7, UCC/CL/ Rpt/1, CUSCA; Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, First Report, 1927. 176. Belfast Telegraph, 14 January 1933. 177. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, First Report, 1927. 178. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, Fifth Report, 1931. 179. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, Second Report, 1928. 180. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, Second Report, 1928. 181. Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, Fifth Report, 1931. 182. Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education. 183. Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education, p. 73.

CHAPTER 3

College Cultures

Reminiscing about her time as one of the earliest women students at Aberystwyth, Louie Davies recalled how she was greeted with a burst of applause when she attended her first university class in 1884.1 Despite the colleges adopting coeducation from their inception, powerful notions of gender and respectability dictated that men and women be physically segregated, with Davies seated alone in front of her male peers. When she was joined by six other women later that academic year, they were given one of the professor’s private rooms as a tiny common room to use in between classes. Davies noted that she and this small band of women ‘could not have met with a kinder and more chivalrous reception from Professors and men students alike’.2 In some respects, these pioneers were treated as an anomaly and source of curiosity—not yet a significant enough presence to threaten the status quo. The university colleges, too, were quick to pride themselves on their coeducational experiment in contrast to some of the more ‘elite’ institutions in England and the United States, who were to resist mixed classes for many more decades.3 In reality, however, women occupied an uneasy space within the college walls and their interactions with male students were strictly regulated. This chapter examines how gender shaped the material, spatial and social cultures of the coeducational university. Educationalists considered college life to be appropriate training for the professional world, equipping students with skills for a variety of careers and wider public life. Analysis of the college cultures, therefore, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_3

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provides an important insight into how gender and class ideals shaped and influenced professional culture more broadly. Whilst institutional accounts of the constituent University of Wales colleges have provided a rich insight into student life at their respective institution, there has been limited analysis of their collective significance as a ‘Welsh’ student culture and for our understanding of gender relations in Wales more broadly.4 Historians have questioned the extent to which the new civic universities which sprung up across the late nineteenth century were truly coeducational, highlighting how segregation and gender ideologies were inscribed in their architectural, spatial and wider cultures.5 Recent research has also explored the diverse activities of students from a variety of perspectives, including voluntarism, internationalism and activism.6 These studies, moreover, have presented ‘bottom-up’ accounts which privilege the student voice and consider how the shifting social demographic of students shaped their involvement in a range of social movements. Building on such scholarship, this chapter argues that university cultures were informed by and increasingly reflected the changing social, gender and national make-up of their student body in Wales.

3.1   Coeducation, Gendered Spaces and Scandals From their inception, spatial segregation between men and women students was mirrored in both the general culture and architectural design of the colleges through separate doorways, common rooms and pastoral arrangements. In Cardiff, there were even questions in 1887 as to whether women students were permitted to enter the college through the front entrance.7 These gender prescriptions permeated all elements of university culture. An ornamental inner roof in Aberystwyth’s main building, known as the ‘quad’, was the focal point of student life at the college. Movement was regulated around the quad: women on one side and men on the other, segregated by a long line of museum cases.8 Segregation was also reflected in the workplace culture for men and women staff, with an increase of women academic staff at Cardiff in 1905 prompting the college authorities to provide a separate common room to accommodate them.9 Whilst in practice spatial ideologies and sex segregation were never fully realised, nor always abided by students who still found opportunities to mix in communal settings, such regulations and architectural designs did help to shape social practices and are revealing of contemporary concerns.

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Although women attended classes alongside their male peers, in lecture halls and meetings it was customary for them to sit in front of men with a rows’ gap ensuring physical segregation.10 Backs were even provided for women’s desks in Bangor to materially demarcate this division, underscoring notions of modesty and propriety.11 Women medical students were coeducated at Cardiff Medical School from its inception, unlike some of the larger medical schools across Britain where separate provision—particularly in anatomy and dissection—was the norm.12 In 1897, a medical professor reported back to the warden of Aberdare Hall on what he considered the success of the approach: One thing I am very pleased with—I have had the opportunity of imitating something which has never been tried before in this country viz—teaching Human Anatomy to mixed classes and I am firmly convinced that the experiment has not revealed any drawbacks which need interrupt its continuance.13

However, despite the liberal rhetoric, it was far more economical for the medical school to adopt mixed classes because of the small numbers of women students and costs entailed with separate provision. Several other of the smaller civic universities also ran mixed classes in their medical faculties during this period; for instance, Lindy Moore notes that whilst Edinburgh and Glasgow had separate provision for their medical students, Aberdeen University allowed women to attend classes with men from the 1890s as a ‘labour saving’ measure for the staff.14 By contrast, in the teacher training departments, where a significant number of women studied, there were separate departments for men and women across all colleges. In Cardiff this was not without contention, with one member of the university council noting: ‘the separation of the sexes in this matter of normal training was quite inconsistent with the general policy of the College ... [and] quite contrary, apparently, to the whole theory of their University education in Wales’.15 Outside the classroom, women’s attendance at concerts and social activities was carefully chaperoned during these early years—usually by the hall wardens, professors’ wives or the small number of women academic staff. Students’ plans for a mixed picnic in Cardiff in 1888 were curtailed by the Aberdare Hall Committee because ‘the unrestrained intercourse during a long walk makes it difficult for those ladies who act as chaperones

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to exercise sufficient vigilance’.16 Chaperones were tasked with preventing any charges of sexual impropriety, but also policed women’s exposure to what some considered undesirable political ideologies. At a debating society meeting in Bangor, for instance, the warden Frances Hughes quickly returned the women students to their hall after a speaker mentioned socialism.17 Strict practices of chaperonage for the first cohorts of women students offered reassurance to parents and authorities that women’s higher education would not harm their respectability. Social class also played an important role in the stringency of these regulations with, as we have seen, a noticeably higher proportion of working-class men than women at the colleges during these early years. Neither did a series of scandals which beset the university colleges in the final decade of the nineteenth century help matters. These episodes, concerning relations between men and women students, each attracted a significant level of publicity in the local and national press, and students found breaching the rules of conduct met with harsh punishment. In 1898, students’ conduct came under scrutiny in Aberystwyth after what the local press termed the ‘Romeo and Juliet affair’.18 Responding to the whistles of a male student outside her window, a resident of Alexandra Hall called out to the man from an open window of the hall. The woman was expelled from the hall but allowed to remain as a student, while the male student was suspended for two terms.19 Three years later, two men were suspended after being caught ‘whispering sweet nothings to young girl graduates’ during the college eisteddfod in Bangor, while their female companions fared slightly better with a 5 pm curfew.20 Shortly after this incident, two students felt the full wrath of the college authorities when they were spotted hand-in-hand in nearby Anglesey and swiftly expelled.21 As a consequence, the principal banned men from meeting, accompanying, walking or visiting women students.22 These regulations were, for the most part, stipulated by the college authorities for fear of reputational damages, with Principal Reichel underscoring that the rules were ‘essential to the successful continuance of the system of mixed education … as well as to the standing of the College as a public institution’.23 Reichel’s fears that such events could compromise the reputation of the university were not completely unfounded. One particular earlier episode in Bangor in 1892 had reverberations far beyond the college walls: it led to the closure of the women’s hall, gained the attention of Parliament and culminated in two libel suits, several resignations and the replacement of the lady principal.24 Whilst perhaps humorous anecdotes to the modern

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reader, the heightened reactions from all parties—the press, college authorities, wardens and students—showed the sensitivity of the development of women’s higher education in the late nineteenth century. Proponents of women’s education were conscious that they were under scrutiny and that any failure or negative publicity would be amplified. These episodes have been richly documented in the respective institutional histories, and it is evident that they also intersected with political and religious divisions in the early years of the colleges. The Welsh authorities were acutely sensitive of the need to detract from any negative publicity, particularly when Parliament was considering—or had recently granted— the Royal Charter of the University of Wales in 1893. Although disciplinary regulations were not unique to the Welsh colleges, the University of Wales quickly earned a reputation among the broader British student population for the severity with which they enforced them.25 In 1911 an Aberystwyth graduate who had spent time at two English northern universities wrote to his former college’s student magazine, The Dragon, to express his concern that rules governing relationships between men and women were excessively rigorous, unlike other civic universities where, he wrote, ‘there was a really delightful spirit of “camaraderie”’.26 It was clear that the strictness of rules varied from one institution to another. 27 While some of the larger civic universities allowed for a greater degree of freedom and anonymity, others were far more stringent in their approach. Students at colleges located in smaller cities and towns such as Bangor and Aberystwyth were more closely subject to the watchful eye of college authorities and wardens.28 Coupled with a burgeoning number of women students at these colleges and the comparatively lower social profile of men, the University of Wales Charter was also the culmination of a long political movement and educational authorities were keen to avoid any charges of impropriety which would hinder these efforts.

3.2   Women’s Residential Halls As the number of women steadily grew, the colleges quickly recognised the need to provide suitable accommodation in accordance with gendered norms of respectability.29 From the mid-1880s, the establishment of women’s residential halls attached to the university colleges in Cardiff, Aberystwyth and Bangor were central to the development of women’s higher education in Wales. Their existence reflected gendered societal

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expectations of respectability and proprietary, but also nurtured a unique women’s culture and formed the institutional focus for networks of educated women across Wales. By 1890, both Bangor and Aberystwyth stipulated that women students not residing with their parents or guardians must live in university hostels.30 Residence was considered physically, mentally and culturally beneficial to students, but also served to insulate women against perceived dangers and disrepute which many associated with living in private lodgings.31 The women’s halls were quasi-­autonomous from the colleges: they provided separate residential provision and had their own social events, but, unlike the women’s academic colleges at Oxbridge and London, they were not responsible for teaching. The geographical siting of the halls was also ideologically significant. Often located in quieter and what were considered more respectable districts, they were physically distanced from the main university buildings to minimise the visibility of women students. Richmond Road was chosen for the first women’s hostel in Cardiff in 1885 because it was deemed ‘one of the most quiet thoroughfares’ in the town.32 As the number of women students swelled during the final decade of the nineteenth century, the need for new premises became urgent. A purpose-built residence, Aberdare Hall, was ‘erected on an acre of ground, overlooking Cathays Park, away from the bustle and turmoil of the town and approached on each side by a quiet road’.33 Yet the warden still expressed concern that students in the side study bedrooms could be overlooked at night by the neighbouring houses and swiftly issued a warning to students to draw their curtains and arranged for blinds to be  installed.34 In Aberystwyth, Alexandra Hall, which opened in 1896, was located on the extreme north end of the seafront away from the main college building.35 Similarly, following the closure of the University College Hall for Women in Bangor in 1893 after the scandal, a new women’s hostel was opened about a 20-minute walk away from the university college.36 Wardens and college authorities were acutely aware of the reputational damages any negative publicity could cause to both the institution and women’s education more broadly, and this affected the siting, material culture and even visibility of the halls. Colleges appointed ‘lady principals’ or ‘wardens’ who were responsible for the welfare of halls’ residents. They were also tasked with negotiating appropriate conduct between men and women students, and carefully chosen by the Welsh colleges for both their ‘business-mindedness’ and the moral tone they would set for the students under their supervision.37 When Aberystwyth advertised for a lady superintendent in 1887, it sought

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someone who could exercise ‘a salutary influence, and [be] entrusted with general disciplinary authority over the women students’.38 Letters of support for applicants to these posts frequently cited the religious and moral influence they would exert. The class credentials of prospective candidates were considered important too, with one testimonial in support of an application to a vacancy at Aberystwyth in 1905 outlining how she was ‘a lady by birth, as well as in appearance and in manner’.39 Familial and educational networks underpinned the earliest appointments of the hall wardens. Frances Emily Hughes, sister of Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, became the first principal of Bangor’s University College Hall for Women in 1886. The hall’s committee hoped that Hughes ‘will not only be able to make the Hall of Residence a home for the female students of the North Wales College, but also exert a powerful influence in deepening and spreading the desire for the education of girls in North Wales’.40 Similarly, in its early years there was a strong connection between Aberdare Hall and Somerville College, Oxford, with a succession of the early principals having either previously attended or worked at Somerville.41 This first generation of wardens had to tread a delicate line. They were acutely aware that any negative publicity could compromise the gains that women had made in higher education. Yet, in their attempts to prevent scandals, they could be ridiculed as being draconian and outdated in their methods. Ethel Hurlbatt’s letter to students on her retirement from Aberdare Hall in 1898 reflected the fragile line wardens negotiated in the early years of the college. Highlighting the role students had in upholding the reputation of the institution, she wrote: ‘I want to ask you to remember always that if you value the sphere of privilege of this Hall life you must remember that you are each one of its guardians. … I can say this frankly because the responsibility of failure has of course rested with me also.’42 Sensitive to the scrutiny that women’s place within coeducational institutions was under, these early wardens largely worked within the system to ensure the continuation of higher education for future generations. Similarly, on her retirement in 1905, Emily Ann Carpenter, the first warden of Alexandra Hall, explained the reasoning behind her strict approach: I have had but one purpose, to strengthen the position of our women in their efforts after the higher education and personal freedom that were denied to all women in my young days. And if, at times, I have seemed obstructive, it had only been because it was evident to me that too early an advance would lose them the whole field.43

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Despite restlessness from some of the women students who viewed Carpenter’s policies as old-fashioned, her desire not to break gendered codes of respectability was, for her, a carefully cultivated strategy to prevent any charges of impropriety that may harm their cause. A widening gulf between the social profiles of the wardens and the slowly changing demographic of the student body, however, undoubtedly contributed to another series of controversies by the turn of the century. Whilst educationalists sought to promote a distinct national education, they also chose wardens with experience in elite women’s colleges in England whom they thought would exert a positive influence on the Welsh county school leavers.44 As E. L. Ellis has explored in his detailed account, some senior college staff recognised the departure of Emily Carpenter in 1905 as an opportunity for change: We need not be provincial because we are Welsh. … We must, if we can, touch the level of the older universities. This is a great opportunity of raising the whole tone and level and standing of the women’s side of the College.45

This tension came to the fore with the appointment of Helen Stephen as Carpenter’s successor, whom the authorities considered the best candidate to strengthen the reputation of the hall. The daughter of a distinguished judge and sister of the vice-principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, Stephen had been educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and was a former warden of Ashborne House in Manchester.46 One academic, Charles Herford, who had taught at Aberystwyth before moving to Manchester suggested that ‘her name would probably attract a class of girl who would benefit the college’.47 However, he also cautioned that for all her credentials, Stephen would be too rigid in her approach and uppermiddle-class demeanour to succeed in Aberystwyth, ‘especially [with] the Welsh girls’.48 One of the earliest students at Manchester also  echoed these sentiments when she recalled how Stephen embodied a ‘gentle courtesy, a culture of perhaps an earlier and more southern type than our clamouring northern activities’.49 Indeed, Herford’s warnings were not to be misplaced. As an increasing number of Welsh women drawn from humbler homes enrolled at the college during the first decade of the twentieth century, cultural and social differences between the warden and students caused relations to slowly deteriorate. Coupled with a series of minor

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disagreements and a rapidly changing cultural backdrop, these tensions came to a head in 1907 in what became known as the ‘Alexandra Hall Revolt’.50 Led by Olive Wheeler, who would later assume the position of Professor of Education at Cardiff, the students addressed the Senate and the College Council with a long catalogue of complaints regarding the conduct of the warden, and food and services in the hall. The students were dissatisfied with what they considered to be old-fashioned constraints placed upon them. One of grievances submitted was that privileges were given to Anglican Church students: Stephen reportedly provided refreshments for church girls after social functions, but chapel goers had to source their own suppers.51 Religion was a clear distinction between the chapel-going Welsh and predominantly Anglican English students. Although all the women’s halls were un-denominational in principle, prayers were read daily, and students were expected to inform the wardens what place of worship they chose for regular attendance.52 College authorities arranged for an investigation to be made by two women inspectors in November 1907. Despite the inspectors’ report concluding that the complaints had ‘no reasonable foundation’, relations between students and the warden were already irreparable by this point. Stephen’s health deteriorated shortly afterwards, and she resigned the following year.53 The episode was illustrative of the increasing cultural and social disconnect between the wardens and the students under their care. But it also encapsulated an emerging tension between pervasive ideas of respectable femininity and women’s growing assertiveness of their right to participate in collegiate and public life without constraint. Following Stephen’s resignation in 1908, women actively sought to influence the choice of her replacement, with 221 past and contemporary students signing a letter in support of the candidature of their ‘former fellowstudent, teacher, and colleague’, Caroline Tremain. They wrote: ‘We all feel strongly that she combines the business capacity necessary for a post of such financial and general responsibility, with that knowledge of Aberystwyth tradition, and that quality of personal sympathy, which can so materially contribute to the success of the Women’s side of our College’.54 The petition was ultimately unsuccessful, although Tremain would later assume the wardenship in 1914. It did, however, demonstrate how students sought to shape the culture and governance of the hall in accordance with their changing social composition. Moreover, it

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pointed towards the beginning of a trend of appointing past students to such posts, who perhaps better reflected the profile of the halls’ residents and had a more sympathetic understanding of the respective institutional cultures and traditions.55 For the small but increasing number of working-class women, collegiate life could present a stark reminder of their anomalous social status within higher education. Class distinctions were marked in the architectural layout of the halls. In Alexandra Hall, the ground floor included the matron’s room, servants’ hall and kitchen, while the remaining four floors were occupied by general studies, private studies, shared dormitories, ordinary bedrooms and study bedrooms. The warden’s private room was on the first floor, with its bay window allowing a watchful eye over the hall’s entrance.56 The existence of domestic servants was perhaps the clearest signifier of class status. One hall resident, Olive Marsh, noted in her diary that there were 20-odd servants waiting at the table during dinner at the turn of the century.57 By 1907, there were reportedly 35 servants to the 198 students in the hall.58 Fragmentary evidence suggests that the relationship between the hall’s domestic staff and women students was at times affectionate and, at others, ambiguous.59 In 1898, Emily Carpenter marked the occasion of two maids reaching ten years of service to the hall with a ‘Servants’ Blue Ribbon Day’.60 Held in the hall’s main assembly room, the event was a ceremonious affair attended by ‘forty maid-servants and four men-­ servants’, the warden, students, as well as the minister and deacons of the chapel where the maids worshiped. The two longest-serving maids were each presented with inscribed ‘wardrobe[s] of walnut with prettily carved panels’ and the ‘blue ribbon of the profession’, on which hung the wardrobe keys.61 Students sang Welsh hymns, and a short speech was made by the minister in which he referred to ‘faithfulness which is the outcome of good character’. The other servants, cooks and the watchman were called up in order of the length of their service to receive gifts of ‘thimbles, inkpots and the like’.62 Notions of religiosity and duty were all invoked in the ceremony, with the servants rewarded for their dedication and service to the hall. There was, nonetheless, an implicit class hierarchy demarcated between the domestic servants and the assumed higher social status of the hall’s residents. Even during the 1920s, the  students who sat on the Women’s Common Room Committee in Bangor were able to determine the rate of pay for domestic service staff who cleaned the common room.63

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3.3   Collective Identities, Gender and Feminism The collegiate environment nurtured the formation of collective student identities and, as Chap. 6 will show, provided an institutional focus for a range of networks to flourish. The opening of the women’s halls were occasions of considerable public interest covered extensively in the national and local press.64 A distinct collective feminine identity was inscribed in the material culture of the halls from their inception. At the official opening of Aberdare Hall in 1895, a portrait of its founder, Lady Aberdare, was unveiled from under a cloth embroidered with a Welsh dragon.65 This was the first in a succession of portraits of prominent benefactors and wardens which adorned—and indeed, still do—the walls of the dining halls and day rooms. In Alexandra Hall, a picture fund administered by a student committee was used to purchase pictures for the hall, while others were donated by past students.66 This visual culture promoted an awareness of the historical legacy of women’s higher education and of shared experiences. Moreover, as Carol Dyhouse has highlighted, anniversaries commemorating the separate histories and foundation of women’s halls continued throughout the twentieth century and further engendered a consciousness of the struggles that their predecessors had faced.67 Unlike the main spaces of the university colleges, the residential halls provided an important institutional setting in which a distinct women’s culture could develop and women had greater agency to make their own.68 An early graduate of Aberystwyth, Annie Dobell, extolled the virtues of corporate hall life for fostering cooperation among women and instilling in them that ‘the good of many is the acknowledged aim of all’.69 Historians have also shown how women’s halls reflected nineteenth-century gendered ideologies through their social and architectural design and quasi-­ domestic feeling.70 College authorities and wardens were keen to promote a domesticated image to diffuse any derogative stereotypes which had become associated with educated women during the late nineteenth century.71 Yet, as Jane Hamlett has demonstrated, students did not always adopt these gendered prescriptions, instead making their own decorative choices in their rooms.72 Students expressed their identities in the adornment of their rooms, competing with one another in their display of books, luxuries, curtains, ornaments, pictures, flowers and photographs.73 The material culture of the communal spaces was also shaped by women students, alumnae, female members of staff and supporters of women’s education. For example, Dr Frances Hoggan, a key figure in the early campaign

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for women’s education in Wales, donated 30 volumes of classic authors to the first women’s hostel in Cardiff on its opening in 1885.74 In Bangor, the Women’s Common Room Committee had discretion on the choice of literature, flowers, pictures, interior decorations and even the colour of the walls.75 Similarly, it was customary in Aberystwyth for each student to present a book to the hall’s library on her departure.76 The halls’ bookshelves provide an important glimpse into the culture of these single-sex institutions and the changing priorities of the students. During the 1890s, the reading material available to Aberdare Hall residents conformed to a middle-class domestic orientation through magazines such as Health & Home, The Girls’ Own Paper, The Woman at Home, The Woman’s Realm, The Queen and The Lady.77 By the first decade of the twentieth century, however, the library catalogues reflected an engagement with the burgeoning women’s movement. Prominent titles on the shelves included histories of women and work, Elizabeth Blackwell’s Pioneer Work in Opening Medical Profession to Women (1895), J. S. Mills’s The Subjection of Women (1869), Welsh history and poetry books, and a collection of pamphlets and reports by the Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales.78 In 1909, women students at Bangor voted to discontinue their common room’s subscription to the socially conservative periodical The Lady, adopting instead the militant Women’s Social and Political Union’s newspaper, Votes for Women.79 The suffrage paper was recommended by Gwladys Hudson-Williams, a graduate and wife of an academic at the university and a prominent figure in the city’s suffrage branch.80 These alumni and academic networks ensured the women’s halls often became the hub of suffrage activity in their respective towns and cities, a theme which will be discussed further in Chap. 6. At the same time, women were active participants in a vibrant mixed-­ sex student social scene which proliferated during the late nineteenth century: from debating and literary societies, to subject specific associations and sports clubs, and drama and musical groups. Crucially, women’s involvement in these  activities provided them with an opportunity to develop organisational, leadership and debating skills which, in turn, would prepare them for the political and professional work many would undertake after graduation. In Cardiff, attendance at a debate on the ‘Question of the Higher Education of Women’ in 1889 was reportedly larger than any other of the debating society’s meetings, with one witness claiming that interest was ‘enhanced by the fact that on each side, the

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debate was to be led by a lady’.81 Arguing against the motion, one debater opposed women’s higher education as an enabler to their entry into medicine and law which, they argued, was unsuitable because it involved ‘work in dissecting rooms, or the equally unpleasant task of reading criminal records’.82 The ‘woman question’ was a  popular topic and numerous debates were held on coeducation, women’s suffrage and women’s entry into the professions.83 The inclusion of such topics was a sobering reminder to women of their debated existence within the colleges and public society, and are revealing of the different arguments in circulation at the time. Women’s participation in these activities also provided them with a rare opportunity to hone their public speaking skills and develop self-­confidence in a mixed-sex setting. This contrasted with women’s experiences at elite universities and some other coeducational colleges where they were formally excluded from the main university debating halls.84 Instead, Sarah Wiggins has highlighted how women in single-sex colleges at Oxbridge and the University of London established their own debating structures and separate societies which enabled them to forge collective feminine political identities.85 Feminism and support for women’s enfranchisement was an integral part of the culture of the women’s residential halls and amongst women staff on the margins of coeducational colleges too.86 Yet this was not necessarily the dominant feeling across the wider university college, with women’s increased presence raising concern among some of their male counterparts. A spike in the number of women students in the final years of the nineteenth century prompted one student from Aberystwyth to ask: ‘is there a danger of the institution being turned into a Ladies’ College?’87 In 1910, students in Bangor intervened at a meeting held by suffragists who, unjustly it was thought, were opposing Lloyd George in the election.88 Similarly, in Cardiff, the university’s first woman professor, Millicent Mackenzie, met with a hostile reception when her attempts to speak on a platform with Millicent Fawcett were reportedly ‘drowned by the bell-ringing, whistling, shrieks, and groans from the students’.89 Hostility or ambivalence to women’s rights could also extend to male academic staff too: when Aberystwyth’s college paper, The Dragon, canvassed staff opinions on women’s suffrage in 1911, the warden of Alexandra Hall, women academics and college principal were all in support, but the response from male members of staff was more mixed.90

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3.4  Nationhood, War and Reform By the eve of the First World War, an emerging sense of national identity among students at Bangor was also reflected in the replacement of the women’s common room subscription to the English Review with the newly founded The Welsh Outlook, a socially liberal and culturally nationalist periodical.91 The early years of the university colleges were characterised by a continual tension between the promotion of a distinct Welsh culture, and aspirations to an English middle-class ideal. Throughout their histories each college also developed their own traditions, with the specific social make-up of each institution subtly shaping its respective culture. Cardiff came to reflect the cosmopolitan, mercantile concerns of anglicised south-east Wales, while Aberystwyth and Bangor were more closely linked to the new national movement. Despite these differences, the University of Wales became a focal point for a growing sense of nationalism. Culturally, it nurtured an educated elite who would staff the schools and promote a distinct national culture among future generations. Politically, it bolstered claims of national distinctiveness and provided a concrete focus for people to congregate, share ideas and organise. A series of inter-collegiate events punctuated the annual student calendar and helped to further underscore a distinct national identity, with regular sporting events and debates providing an important link between the colleges. The publication of letters sent to sister colleges—from the ‘Banks of the Menai’ to the ‘College by the Sea’—in the student magazines also allowed students to envisage themselves as part of a Welsh national student community.92 St David’s Day was a significant event in the annual student calendar and celebrated by  the Welsh colleges’ Old Student Associations across Britain.93 It was also a big occasion in the women’s halls, with rituals including singing the Welsh anthem and toasting to Wales and their sister colleges. In Aberystwyth, however, ‘too great indulgence in the Welsh language was avoided’ in 1907, reportedly out of courtesy to the presence of so many English-speaking girls.94 The establishment of an inter-collegiate Eisteddfod helped to nurture a national student identity across the constituent colleges. Like graduation ceremonies, it rotated around a different college each year with students from the other constituent colleges descending on the host institution. Colleges also held their own eisteddfodau. Indian-born student Dorothy Bonarjee attracted significant acclaim from her peers when she won the bardic chair in Aberystwyth for her poem on Owain Lawgoch in

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1914.95 Her achievement received widespread publicity in the local and national press, with both her ethnicity and gender a being a source of wonderment and curiosity.96 Her father, giving a speech at the ceremony in response to demands from the students, reportedly said: ‘if India had given birth to a poet, Wales had educated her, and had given her an opportunity to develop her poetic instincts’.97 Bonarjee took an active role in student life during her time at Aberystwyth between 1912 and 1916: she was treasurer of the Literary and Debating Society, and a member of the editorial board for the student magazine, The Dragon, in which several of her poems appeared. Embracing Welsh cultural traditions, Bonarjee also published poems in The Welsh Outlook. But the absence of evidence does not, of course, mean that such students did not endure personal and institutional racism—which often operated in more pernicious and insidious ways.98 The experience of ethnic minority students was one of hostility as well as integration: Bonarjee’s three-year engagement to a Welsh student at Aberystwyth was eventually broken off after his parents disapproved of the fact that she was Indian.99 By the eve of the First World War, social and spatial segregation between men and women had already begun to disintegrate. Women students at Bangor agitated for their fair representation in the leadership of student activities and challenged their nominal position. However, their proposal that rather than customary male president of the Students’ Representative Council, they have two presidents, one man and one woman, met with resistance.100 By the first decade of the twentieth century, women were nonetheless able to move more freely around the university campus and town than their predecessors had been able to a decade or so prior. In Cardiff, women students frequented the city’s popular Kardomah Café, as well as regularly attending the theatre and cinema.101 Freshers in Bangor recalled the exhilaration they felt when first donning their cap and gown, parading around the city in full garb, only to be told by seniors that there was no need to do so.102 Serenades, smokers and chorals were regular features in the student social scene.103 In 1914, Bangor students petitioned for a joint common room so that ‘enthusiasts [could] win converts to Socialism or Woman’s Suffrage’.104 The onset of war quickly put paid to some of these demands, though they would be picked up again after the conflict when some of the more stringent regulations were relaxed. The First World War upended the cultural life of the colleges and quickly inversed the gender composition of the student body. Women students engaged in a wide range of war-related activities: organising

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fundraising events, working on the land, undertaking scientific research and forming Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs). In 1916, a VAD branch comprised of staff and students of Alexandra Hall, Aberystwyth, was founded by the warden Caroline Tremain and educationist Elizabeth Phillips Hughes.105 Some of the members worked in the Cardiganshire Red Cross Hospital which was run by a past student, Alice Boddy.106 Women staff and students at Cardiff were recruited by the Women’s National Land Service Corps to help with the summer flax harvest.107 Due to the reduction of male students, the war provided women with an opportunity to assume greater leadership positions than hitherto and to assert their authority in mainstream educational structures. This was not without resentment, however, with one male student in Aberystwyth accusing women of taking advantage of the depleted numbers of men to set up a ‘Petticoat Government’ and acquire new privileges.108 The end of the war was initially seen as an opportunity for reform and further relaxation of regulations. Pre-war demands for greater social integration in college life gained momentum again, with student calls for joint common rooms firmly back on the agenda. A third-year student highlighted that Aberystwyth was one of the few university colleges in Britain where rules restricting conversation between men and women students still existed. He outlined that the only opportunity men and women had for conversation was during the seven-minute interval between lectures or in the ‘quad’: The lack of space compels men and women to form separate processions; and the din makes conversation between more than two persons almost impossible. The result is that our boasted social intercourse is limited to a conversation between one man and one woman. This inevitable “coupling” is the great evil of the quadding system. It induces a wrong and unhealthy idea of the relations that should exist between men and women … men and women leave here after being co-educated for four years almost as much strangers to each other as when they came.109

In 1918 Aberystwyth students formed ‘The Responsibility Movement’, a sub-committee of the Student’s Council which drew up reformed rules regarding conduct between men and women students, and presented their recommendations to the Senate. In return for greater freedoms, they pledged to suspend anyone found breaking the rules from college

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societies.110 Among their proposals were mixed dances and the permitting of  conversation between men and women students in the town during daylight hours.111 This new post-war student body comprised hundreds of ex-servicemen who were less willing to bend to the strict rules and regulations which had governed the pre-war colleges.112 These changes in the student demographic, in part, led to a greater level of cooperation between the college authorities and student representatives. The Senate and the Discipline Committee in Aberystwyth were receptive to students’ negotiations and agreed to implement the proposals, at least as an experiment, in that session.113 Nonetheless, there was an increasing disconnect between the attitudes of older generations of staff and the changing social and cultural climate after the war. University authorities still considered the women’s residential halls an important mechanism for maintaining respectability, but also as important preparation for the wider professional world. Appealing for funds for Aberdare Hall in 1917, the college principal wrote: ‘Women students from South Wales, and Women Medical students from all parts of the Principality, derive great benefit from their experiences of communal life at the Hall—an experience which is invaluable when they enter professional life’.114 However, this sentiment was not always shared by women students who were becoming more assertive in their demands for greater independence. In December 1918, 33 medical students at Cardiff submitted a petition to the Senate for them to reconsider the rule that women not living with parents or guardians must reside at Aberdare Hall.115 They argued that medical women should have the same privileges as men in residence, highlighting the relative freedom that their female counterparts enjoyed in many of the English and Scottish universities. Moreover, the petition suggested that it was a particular advantage to second- and third-­ year students to have experience living in private accommodation before they went to London to complete their training. Crucially, they claimed that ‘life among a body of fellow-students engaged in varied pursuits is exceedingly helpful as a preparation for professional life’.116 The Senate subsequently granted them some concessions, allowing women over 21 to live in approved lodgings (Image 3.1).117 Reputational concerns and anxieties about women’s respectability continued during the interwar years and measures were still taken to minimise the visibility of the women’s halls. Beck Hall, the university hall of residence for women students in Swansea, was located away from the main

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Image 3.1  Photograph of women medical students in Cardiff, Aberdare Hall, c.1917. (Reproduced with permission of Glamorgan Archives and deposited by Friends of Aberdare Hall. Document reference: DUCAH/46/9)

university college in nearby Sketty. In 1928, the warden Mary Wilkinson rejected a proposal for the name of ‘Beck Hall, University Hall of Residence for Women Students’ to be prominently placed at the entrance to Gwydr Gardens. Outlining her reservations about the attention it could attract, she argued that ‘most neighbourhoods have their undesirable layers, and a single untoward occurrence, or a mere scare arouses attention totally disproportionate to the incident and may shake the confidence of parents and friends’.118 By the 1930s, the stringency of the regulations in the women’s halls had become an increasing source of ridicule and satire among students.119 Yet, even towards the end of the decade wardens were still conscious of the repercussions of any negative publicity surrounding their halls. Following press reports of a food strike in Alexandra Hall in 1936, the senior warden, Mrs Guthkelch, complained to the Western Mail and Cambrian News about their coverage of the incident.120 Despite the persistence of some regulations, there was a greater degree of mixing between men and women between the wars—in lectures and

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libraries, concerts and committees and dances and debates.121 In Bangor, regulations forbidding men and women from walking together in college grounds were relaxed after the war and, from 1925, mixed meetings were allowed in the common room.122 By the late 1920s, women students at Aberystwyth were permitted to join their male peers on social excursions to Devil’s Bridge. Yet within the town itself they had to keep within certain bounds: while secluded gardens were prohibited, they could walk along the more exposed promenade and seafront with a male companion.123 Women students did also slowly begin to assume more leadership positions in wider college life. In Bangor, vice-president of the Students’ Representative Council, Olwen Davies-Lloyd, founded a branch of the Twentieth Century Club to promote greater prominence for women in college affairs.124 Iris de Freitas, the first black woman to study at Aberystwyth, also served as vice-president of the Students’ Representative Council as well as president of the Women’s Sectional Council in the early 1920s.125 Whilst some women achieved positions of authority in mixed-­ sex societies, this was mainly reflected in subjects which they were most dominant, such as modern languages, literature and botany. By contrast, Jay Rees has noted that women members of the Physics Society at Swansea were confined to making tea during social gatherings.126 In tandem with a broader national revival, the 1920s saw a proliferation of Welsh political and cultural student societies in which women played an active role. Y Gymdeithas Geltaidd [The Celtic Society] was particularly active in Aberystwyth during the interwar years, hosting talks by eminent Welsh figures, heated debates and Welsh plays.127 Prominent student members included the educationist Cathrin (Cassie) Davies, who played an important role in developing Welsh language entertainment at the college.128 In Bangor, a Welsh nationalist society, Gymdeithas Genedlaethol Gymreig, was formed in 1921.129 Eirwen Meiriona Gwynne, who was to later gain a PhD in Physics, subsequently established a Plaid Cymru branch at the college. Another consequence of the increasingly local demographic of the student body was a significant proportion of Welsh speakers, particularly in Aberystwyth and Bangor. In 1921, around half of the students in Aberystwyth’s women’s residential halls spoke Welsh.130 Moreover, the colleges provided an institutional home for the language to flourish. Cymdeithas Gymraeg y Merched [The  Women’s  Welsh Society], was founded for Welsh-speaking women to meet in Bangor, with the society organising regular socials, lectures and debates.131 But language could also be a source of contention with non-Welsh-speaking students; in 1937, for

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example, there was a debate at the college about whether Welsh should be spoken in the Students’ Representative Council.132 Gendered distinctions also continued to be reflected in the architectural layout and spatial practices of the colleges. Separate common rooms for women staff remained a feature of academic life throughout the interwar years and, in December 1919, the UCSWM furnished a common room on Newport Road to accommodate the increased number of women on the teaching staff.133 When the Welsh National School of Medicine (WNSM) opened in 1921 separate provision was made for the instruction of women medical students in certain subjects, with Dr Erie Evans, a local doctor and Bangor graduate, appointed as a part-time lecturer of venereal diseases in 1923.134 Spatial segregation was also mirrored in their clinical training, with men and women medical students having separate common rooms in the hospital.135 By the late 1930s, however, women medical students were at least permitted to eat their lunch in the Students’ Refectory at the WNSM.136 In Swansea, the women’s common room, which the historian Glanmor Williams infamously described as a ‘particularly dark and pokey little cubby hole’, was located in the attic of the Abbey—a significant distance away from the men’s common room near the building’s entrance.137 Women staff were not admitted to the men’s senior common room in Swansea until after the Second World War, and when the college principal, Charles Edwards, discovered this, he reportedly never went in there again.138 There was also a continued expectation that women lecturers would provide pastoral care to female students, with some living in the women’s halls.139 Even those who did not have formal responsibility for women students in their academic roles were informally tasked with looking out for their welfare. A scrap of paper found in Professor Mary Williams’s personal archival collection, for instance, contains a list outlining the inadequate facilities for women students and staff in the arts building at Swansea.140 Among the provisions she identified were needed was a social room during lecture hours, retiring rooms, a cloakroom and ventilation in the corridors because, she scribbled, there was ‘no dignity’ in overcrowded corridors.141 Women academics, wardens and alumnae also played important roles in shaping the material cultures of the residential halls.142 In the 1930s, the warden of Aberdare Hall, Miss Parry, furnished the new library wing with Brynmawr furniture, a venture started by the Quakers in support of the Brynmawr Co-operative to relieve unemployment in the

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mining town.143 The furniture was particularly fashionable and gained a loyal following among Welsh middle-class and academic circles throughout the 1930s; following her visit to Aberdare Hall, the warden of Swansea’s Beck Hall, Mary Wilkinson, wrote, ‘[S]eeing your beautiful Brynmawr furniture heightened one’s regret at the closing of the factory’. 144 However, for others, it was perhaps a visual reminder of the widespread unemployment and deprivation in the neighbouring coalfield.

3.5  The Industrial Depression, Working-Class Students and the Social Service Movement Another key feature of the interwar decades was the high proportion of students commuting daily from home. This was a consequence of the increase in the number of local students attending their nearest college, but also due to the acute financial stringency many families operated at the peak of the depression. The number travelling to college varied from institution to institution. Carol Dyhouse notes that 33 per cent of women in her sample of students at English provincial universities in the 1930s chose to live and study at home, while the University Grants Committee recorded that over 42 per cent of women undergraduates across Britain commuted.145 This figure was undoubtedly higher in Wales where, as Chap. 2 showed, the colleges served an increasingly local demographic by the 1920s. Swansea had a particularly low number of women students in residence: in 1926, the number of students residing in Beck Hall averaged 31 (or 21 per cent of women), with the remaining 79 per cent living at home or with relatives.146 The following year the number of hall residents diminished even further, with 84 per cent of women students commuting.147 Focusing solely on the culture of residential halls, then, skews our understanding of the experiences of the majority of women students during this period. Women who travelled to college often missed out on the social and athletic events and networking that those who lived in halls enjoyed. This largely affected working-class students, most of whom lived at home and struggled to afford the extra-curricular activities or field trips which gave their more fortunate peers an advantage in a saturated interwar job market.148 But it also shaped the dominant culture of the colleges and, coupled with a decrease in the number of women students by the mid-1930s, led to a closure of several women’s halls.149 Those working-class students

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who did reside in halls, or were forced to as a condition of their final teacher training year, could still find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings. Class distinctions were reflected in the different room options, with students of more limited means opting for a cubicle in a shared dormitory rather than the more expensive private room. However, many quickly found that these dormitories were not a conducive environment for studying.150 As the student body became more democratised by the 1920s, new questions were raised about the role and responsibilities of the university to their students beyond the lecture halls—towards their health, wellbeing and employment prospects. Keith Vernon has noted an increasing concern about the health and welfare of university students in Britain throughout the interwar period, which led to a corresponding expansion of amenities.151 In 1923, Aberystwyth was the first university college to inaugurate a health insurance scheme for its students.152 In return for a flat fee of 10s per session, students could consult a college doctor and receive prescriptions.153 Inspired by similar initiatives in Europe, the Aberystwyth scheme was upheld as an exemplar by the National Union of Students.154 Contemporaries and historians have also identified a growing student ‘movement’ in the interwar period whereby students became increasingly involved in social and political issues, such as unemployment, health, education, pacifism, internationalism and anti-imperialism.155 In the immediate aftermath of the war, League of Nations Union branches were founded in Cardiff, Bangor and Aberystwyth. Students focused their attention on their counterparts across Europe, fundraising for the Imperial War Relief Fund to help impoverished students in Austria.156 Kitty Lewis, an Aberystwyth student and daughter of the University of Wales Liberal MP Sir Herbert Lewis, was the Welsh Secretary of the International Student Service (ISS). She played a significant role in organising the University of Wales appeal for the European Student Relief initiative, drawing on her extensive family connections and selling artwork by Austrian students from her home.157 Georgina Brewis has also detailed the wide range of voluntary activities undertaken by university students across the twentieth century which, she argues, served to strengthen a distinct student identity and nurture connections with a wider student movement beyond Britain.158 Moreover, those who were involved in social reform and welfare schemes during their studies were often inspired to pursue careers in social work after graduation. Despite their marginalisation within broader student culture, women

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played a significant role in the student social service movement and often assumed positions of authority. For instance, women held both the positions of president and secretary (Eirwen Owen and Margaret Parry respectively) of the University Social Service Group in Aberystwyth in the 1930s, running initiatives such as camps for unemployed men.159 Such philanthropic endeavours chimed with gendered notions of ‘service’ and ‘duty’, and were in some respects considered acceptable work for women to be involved. The widening social demographic of the student body, coupled with a global economic depression, brought into sharp relief the precarious financial position of many students during the interwar years. Those involved in the social service movement increasingly turned their attention to the hardships faced by their peers—not only of fellow students across the continent, but within their own college walls. By the late 1920s, a student self-help movement began to flourish in Wales. The movement stemmed from the attendance of two Aberystwyth students at a self-help school in Dresden in the summer of 1927, following a discussion at the Welsh National Conference earlier that year. Muriel Jolliffe and W. F. Jones attended a meeting of 80 international delegates to study the development of the student self-help movement and the German Student Co-operative Association, which had been a response to the economic hardship many European and American students endured in the early aftermath of the First World War. Writing in The Welsh Outlook on their return, they advocated developing a similar movement in Wales where, they noted, the ‘conditions seem rather favourable, and the self-help idea is gripping the mind of the student world’.160 At the same time, the ISS also turned its focus to the depressed regions of Wales and pledged £100 towards promoting self-help in the country.161 By the end of the decade, self-help committees had been formed at all four Welsh colleges, and in the autumn of 1929, a Welsh Student Self-Help Council was established.162 The council comprised one staff member and two students from each college, with Kitty Lewis acting as secretary. It had three main functions: to promote and coordinate self-help activities in the Welsh university colleges; to raise an educational loan fund and emergency fund for students facing particular hardship and to spread knowledge about international self-help in Wales.163 One of the first schemes introduced by the Welsh Student Self-Help Council was a cooperative initiative for students to buy academic and personal equipment at a reduced or cost price.164 Many students struggled to afford new clothes, books or train fares home. Despite

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provision for tuition and residential fees, most grant schemes did not include these costs in their consideration of college expenses.165 The council issued a self-help handbook in 1930, enabling students to obtain textbooks, stationary, clothing and railway tickets at a reduced price from local businesses. It also helped students to find temporary employment during the vacations, placing around 40 men and women in posts.166 However, it proved difficult for students to obtain local work during the holidays due to widespread unemployment in their communities. Several women students gained work as waitresses, governesses and domestic helps, while men found employment as guides, in excavations and on farms in England and France.167 It was more difficult for women to find temporary work than men, however, and careful inquiries were made by the council when women took posts away from home.168 Neither was widespread unemployment confined to Wales at this time, and students struggled to find holiday work abroad too.169 There was also a clear distinction between those students who sought vacation work out of financial necessity, and those who wanted to ‘enlarge their experience and sphere of usefulness, and learn things not found in the college curriculum’.170 The other main initiative was a loan scheme to help prospective students who lived in distressed areas, or to support those who, having begun their studies, found themselves in financial difficulty. In doing so, the scheme aimed to shift the onus of financial responsibility from their parents’ shoulders to the student, with repayments made after graduation on a percentage of earnings system.171 Before the fund was up and running, the council also established an Emergency Relief Fund in 1929 to help particularly urgent cases.172 The purpose of this fund was to provide relief to students whose families had met with unexpected misfortune, such as sickness or unemployment. The money was primarily raised through Kitty Lewis’s extensive family networks and it made a series of small grants to students who would not have otherwise been able to continue their university course. However, the council quickly struggled to deal with the large numbers of requests for help, and the scale of financial hardship among students is evident in the large volume of surviving letters to the council held at the National Library of Wales. During its two-year existence, it received 106 applications—74 from students studying at Welsh colleges, and 32 from Welsh students studying outside of Wales.173 A significant number of these were from Swansea, which had the largest proportion of working-class students. Its secretary Kitty Lewis also made several private grants and personally paid one woman student from Bangor

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who was struggling financially to respond to her correspondence while she was away.174 The industrial depression hit the Welsh coalfields hard and reverberated far beyond the immediate locality. The stress caused by financial worries led some students to become severely ill. Writing about the student self-­ help movement, Kitty Lewis noted that ‘[i]n the colleges themselves the continual scraping and saving, home worries, sometimes under-­ nourishment, and the uncertainty of being able to complete their training, result in a lowering of the vitality of individual students and of the college as a whole’.175 The mental toll their financial precarity had on students is evident in their applications to the loan fund, with most students expressing worry about the financial burden they were placing on their parents. One woman whose father had been unemployed for three years from his job as a checkweigher wrote how she ‘cannot help worrying about money in such circumstances though dad tells me not to worry’.176 Although she had a normal grant, this did not adequately cover all her university costs, and she sought to obtain a grant from the Student Self-Help Council as well as employment during the vacation. However, the committee found it difficult to raise the necessary money to get the Welsh Student Loan Fund truly off the ground. In late 1930, Kitty Lewis undertook a two-month tour of America, financed by the ISS, to raise money for the scheme. Drawing on her extensive familial and Welsh-American networks, she spoke at university colleges, in Welsh chapels and Sunday Schools across Montreal, Utica, New York, Washington, Chicago and Pittsburgh.177 The Welsh-American newspapers, Y Drych and The Druid, also ran appeals, and an American sub-committee of the loan fund was established. But Lewis found many communities she visited were also facing an economic slump. While the tour yielded £1300  in donations, in addition to subscriptions from Welshmen in South Africa, London and Manchester, this fell far short of the £5000 they had hoped to raise, and the scheme eventually petered out by the mid-1930s.178 Nonetheless, the short history of the scheme highlights how the priorities and activities of students adapted to and reflected their changing social profile during the interwar decades. The increasingly local demographic of the colleges’ intake meant that whilst students became more international in their outlook and networks in the aftermath of war, they simultaneously focused their attention on the struggles faced by their peers and communities much closer to home. At the same time, gender prescriptions of what was considered appropriate work for women to engage in enabled

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some to assume leadership roles in such social service initiatives, and, as Chap. 5 will demonstrate, many were able to apply these skills to their future professional and political work. Muriel Jolliffe, who played a key role in establishing the Welsh Student Self-Help Council, carried her experiences and political beliefs into her post-university work and life. After completing her PhD at UCL, Jolliffe returned to Wales to take up the post of lecturer in economics at Bangor. During her time in north Wales, she was an energetic branch secretary of the local Labour Party women’s section, whom Elizabeth Andrews, the Labour Party’s woman organiser for Wales, would later describe as having ‘plenty of courage and conviction’.179 * * * Throughout their histories, university cultures reflected subtle shifts in the social make-up of the student body along with broader changes in gendered ideologies. The early years of the colleges were characterised by a continual tension between a middle-class ideal and the slowly increasing number of local students who were  drawn from a lower socioeconomic background. Segregation between men and women was initially a pragmatic strategy by college authorities which conformed to societal expectations of respectability. It also served to nurture a unique women’s culture, with the women’s halls providing a space in which women could forge collective identities and assume positions of authority. Gendered distinctions were mirrored in communal spaces of the university, reflecting a pattern of wider segregation in the education system, labour market and public life. But women’s marginalisation within broader college structures had wider implications too; they did not fully gain access to the resources and networks enjoyed by their male counterparts and were, in many respects, excluded from both the physical and intellectual spaces in which professional authority was delineated and defined. Particularly by the interwar decades, it is important not to generalise about the experiences of women in higher education, nor use Oxbridge as a proxy for college cultures. In fact, many of the newer universities sought to actively define themselves in opposition to what they considered to be the socially exclusive practices of elite institutions in England and North America. The University of Wales provided an anchor onto which an emerging nationalist consciousness could flourish, with an array of Welsh cultural and political student societies springing up during the 1920s. By

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the end of the decade, the precarious economic position of many students prompted them to establish a range of initiatives to alleviate some of the worst effects of financial hardship endured by their peers. Yet, as Chap. 4 will explore, even those who managed to make it to the end of their three or four years at college soon found their employment prospects on graduation were uncertain, insecure and limited.

Notes 1. Louie Davies, ‘College reminiscences, 1884–1886 (by the first woman student)’, in Iwan Morgan (ed), University College of Wales, Aberystwyth: The College by the Sea (Cambrian News: Aberystwyth, 1928), pp.77–8. 2. Davies, ‘College Reminiscences’, p.78. 3. Student Prospectus, 1894/95, UCC/R/Pub/Pro/1-39, Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives (CUSCA); University College Magazine, 1, 2 (1885) and 1, 3 (1886). The UCSWM boasted that it was the first college in Wales to open all its classes to men and women students alike, whilst Aberystwyth heralded its success as a centre for the higher education of women to ‘the thorough way in which the “mixed” system is carried out … women-students attend the same classes as the men and take their full share in the social life of the College’. 4. E.  L. Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth 1872–1972 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1972); Gwyn Jones and Michael Quinn (eds), Fountains of Praise: University College, Cardiff 1883–1983 (University College Cardiff Press: Cardiff, 1983); J. Gwynn Williams, The University College of North Wales, Foundations 1884–1927 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1985); David Roberts, Bangor University, 1884–2009, (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2009); David Dykes, The University College of Swansea: An Illustrated History (Alan Sutton Publishing: Stroud, 1992); Sam Blaxland, Swansea University: Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945–2020 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2020). 5. William Whyte, Redbrick: A Social and Architectural History of Britain’s Civic Universities (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2015); Georgia Oman, ‘Segregation, regulation, and the gendering of space at the University of Wales, Bangor, 1884–1907’, Women’s History Review, 29, 2, (2020), pp.308–330; Lisa Robertson, ‘“We Must Advance; We Must Expand”: Architectural and Social Challenges to the Domestic Model at Westfield College for Ladies’, Women’s History Review, 25, 1 (2015), pp.105–123.

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6. Georgina Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering: Britain and Beyond, 1880–1980 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2014); Jodi Burkett (ed), Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2017); Keith Vernon, ‘Civic Universities and Community Engagement in Inter-war England’ in Peter Cunningham, Susan Oosthuizen and Richard Taylor (eds), Beyond the Lecture Hall: Universities and Community Engagement from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (University of Cambridge: Cambridge, 2009), pp.31–48. 7. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Council Minutes, 4 July 1887. 8. Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth 1872–1972, p.103. 9. Cap & Gown (February 1905). 10. The Dragon (1904), p.137; The Dragon, (1903), p.81. 11. Williams, The University College of North Wales, p.308. 12. Carol Dyhouse, ‘Women students and the London medical schools, 1914–1939: the anatomy of a masculine culture’, Gender & History, 10, 1 (1998), pp.110–32. 13. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 20 January 1897, DUCAH/7/2, Glamorgan Archives (GA). 14. Lindy Moore, Bajanellas and Semilinas: Aberdeen University and the Education of Women 1860–1920 (Aberdeen University Press: Aberdeen, 1991), p.41 15. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Council Minutes, 7 March 1900. 16. Aberdare Hall Executive Committee Minutes, 18 May 1888, DUCAH/7/1, GA. 17. Williams, The University College of North Wales, p.308. 18. South Wales Daily News, 11 November 1898; Aberystwyth Observer, 17 November 1898. 19. ‘Life at Aberystwyth and Alexandra Hall at the End of the Nineteenth Century: Being Extracts from the Letters of Lady Stamp (Olive Marsh)’, November 1898, UWA/C/9/24, Aberystwyth University Archive (AUA). 20. Roberts, Bangor University 1884–2009, p.32; Williams, The University College of North Wales, p.309. 21. Williams, The University College of North Wales, p.309. 22. Letter from Principal Reichel to Mr Elias Jones regarding women students, 29 March 1901, BMSS/21054, Bangor University Archives and Special Collections (BUASC). 23. Letter from Principal Reichel to Mr Elias Jones regarding women students.

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24. Barry Dock News, 10 March 1893; South Wales Daily News, 26 May 1893; North Wales Express, 12 Mary 1893; Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard, 1 September 1893. This episode has also been well documented in the following accounts: Williams, The University College of North Wales, pp.104–111; W.  G. Evans, Education and Female Emancipation: the Welsh Experience, 1847–1914 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1990), pp.248–252; Angela V.  John, Rocking the Boat: Welsh Women who Championed Equality 1840–1990 (Parthian: Cardigan, 2018), pp.205–207; Roberts, Bangor University, 1884–2009, p.9; Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities 1870–1939 (Routledge: London, 1995), pp.103–105; Oman, ‘Segregation, regulation, and the gendering of space’. 25. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p.73, p.196. 26. The Dragon (1911–1912), p.242. 27. For example, Julie Gibert contrasted women’s experience at Oxbridge with England’s civic universities and argued that the latter enjoyed greater freedom and were more integrated into student life. Julie S.  Gibert, ‘Women students and student life at England’s civic universities before the First World War’, History of Education, 23, 4 (1994), pp.405–422. By contrast, Sarah Barnes has noted that Manchester, one of the oldest civic universities, pursued a more cautious and conservative approach to women’s higher education: Sarah V. Barnes, ‘Crossing the invisible line: establishing co-­education at the University of Manchester and Northwestern University’, History of Education, 23, 1 (1994), p.57. 28. Phoebe Sheavyn, Higher Education for Women in Great Britain (International Federation of University Women: London, 1922), p.18. 29. Kate Viriamu Jones, Life of John Viriamu Jones (London, 1915), p.124. 30. The University College of Wales Magazine (December 1894); University College Wales, Aberystwyth, Minutes of the Council, 15 June 1887. 31. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 15 June 1911, DUCAH/7/3. 32. South Wales Daily News, 18 July 1887. 33. The Hon. E. F. Bruce, ‘Women Students in Wales, II. Cardiff’, Young Wales, 1, 11 (November, 1895), p.257. 34. Aberdare Hall, House Committee Minute Book, 23 February 1898, DUCAH/6/1, GA. 35. The first hall of residence, Abergeldie, was established in Aberystwyth in 1885, under the wardenship of Mrs Powell of Llandudno. However, financial difficulties due to its failure to attract many students meant it was short-­lived. University College Wales, Aberystwyth, Council Minutes, 9 June 1885 and 31 May 1886. 36. Williams, The University College of North Wales, p.111. 37. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Council Minutes, 24 March 1905, AUA; The Dragon (1908), p.2.

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38. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Council Minutes, 15 June 1887. 39. Letter of recommendation from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, for Miss K. P. Hammond, 3 May 1905, 3840–3846, AUA. 40. Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 30 July 1886. 41. Cap & Gown (October 1909). 42. Letter from Ethel Hurlbatt to students on her resignation, 1898, DUCAH/16/23, GA. 43. The Dragon (May 1905), p.220. 44. In her correspondence to the principal at Aberystwyth, Elizabeth P. Hughes wrote: ‘I believe strongly we ought to have a university woman of considerable standing, who would represent the hostel to the outside world at all conferences etc., and who would be a considerable intellectual stimulus to the students … and play the same role for example as the Head of Girton socially and to the students’. Letter from E. P. Hughes to Principal Roberts, 19 December 1907, AUA. 45. Correspondence between Humphreys-Owen and T. F. Roberts, 25 May 1905; Correspondence between Rendel and T. F. Roberts, 23 May 1905, AUA.  For a detailed discussion of this appointment, see Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, pp.146–48; Dyhouse No Distinction of Sex?, p.113. 46. The Dragon (1905–1906). 47. Correspondence between C. H. Herford and Principal Roberts, 3 May 1905, AUA. 48. Correspondence between C. H. Herford and Principal Roberts, 3 and 24 May 1905. 49. Mabel Tylecote, The Education of Women at Manchester University 1883 to 1933 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1941), p.88. 50. Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, p.148; Dyhouse No Distinction of Sex?, p.113. 51. Alexandra Hall, Special Enquiry, November 1907, Box 5, 3803–3824, AUA. 52. Aberdare Hall Rules, DUCAH/14/2, GA. 53. The Dragon (1908), p.23; University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Council Minutes, 24 April 1908. 54. Wardenship of Alexandra Hall, Letter of Support, June 1908, 3832–3839, AUA. 55. Mary Maude, a local resident and ex-student of Bangor, for instance, was appointed as the new lady principal to Bangor’s women’s hostel following the 1892 scandal. See also Chap. 4. 56. The University College of Wales Magazine, 17, 3 (December 1894). 57. ‘Life at Aberystwyth and Alexandra Hall at the End of the Nineteenth Century’.

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58. Alexandra Hall, Special Enquiry, November 1907. 59. See: Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, pp.121–22. An important study of domestic servants in university colleges is included in Laura Schwartz, A Serious Endeavour: Gender, Education and Community at St Hugh's 1886–2011 (Profile Books: London, 2011). For a broader analysis of the experiences of domestic servants in Wales and Britain during this period, see: Lucy Delap, Knowing their Place: Domestic Service in TwentiethCentury Britain (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011); Annie Williams, A Detested Occupation? A History of Domestic Servants in North Wales, 1800–1930 (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch: Llanrwst, 2016). 60. The University College of Wales Magazine (November 1898). 61. The University College of Wales Magazine (November 1898). 62. The University College of Wales Magazine (November 1898). 63. Women’s Common Room Committee Minute Book, 28 November 1925, BMSS/2528, BUASC. 64. University College of North Wales Magazine, 7, 1 (December 1897). 65. Western Mail, 9 October 1895. 66. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Students’ Handbook, 1903, PUB/UCW/S/3, National Library of Wales (NLW). 67. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p.223–24. 68. Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Virago Press: London, 1985); Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?. 69. Miss Dobell, ‘Women Students in Wales’, Young Wales, 1, 3 (March 1895), p.60. 70. Robertson, ‘“We Must Advance; We Must Expand”; Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Educational Institutions or Extended Families? The Reconstruction of Gender in Women’s Colleges in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, Gender and Education, 2, 1 (1990), pp.17–35. 71. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Students’ Handbook, 1913, pp.60–62. 72. Jane Hamlett, ‘Nicely Feminine, Yet Learned’: Student Rooms at Royal Holloway and the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges in Late Nineteenth-­ Century Britain’, Women’s History Review, 15, 1 (2006), pp.137–61. 73. Young Wales, 9, 101 (May 1903), p.102; University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Students’ Handbook, 1913, pp.60–62. 74. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Calendar, 1885–1886, p.139. 75. University College of North Wales Students’ Representative Council Minute Book, 1907–1922, BMSS/1871, BUASC;  Women’s Common Room Committee Minute Book, 1922–1926. 76. The Dragon (1905–1906), p.240.

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77. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes 17 May 1898. 78. Aberdare Hall Library Catalogue, c.1904–1930, DUCAH/23/1, GA. 79. UCNW Students’ Representative Council Minute Book, 25 January 1909. 80. Bangor and District Women’s Suffrage Society Minute Book, 1912–1921, BMS/25800, BUASC. 81. University College Magazine (March 1889). 82. University College Magazine (March 1889). 83. University College Magazine (June 1889); University College of North Wales Magazine, 5, 2 (March 1896); The Dragon (1906–1907), pp.48–49; The Dragon (1907–1908), p.255; The Dragon (1910–1911), pp.135–37. 84. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, pp.206–211. Whilst women were predominantly excluded from the most prestigious debating societies in older universities, women were also forced to form their own separate debating structures at coeducational universities too. 85. Sarah Wiggins, ‘Gendered Spaces and Political Identity: debating societies in English women’s colleges, 1890–1914’, Women’s History Review, 18, 5 (2009), pp.737–52. 86. As well as participating in these mixed-sex debating societies in the Welsh colleges, women also held their own debates in the women’s halls. University College of Wales Magazine (November 1898). 87. University College of North Wales Magazine, 3, 1 (December 1898). 88. Williams, The University College of North Wales, p.313. 89. Evening Express, 12 May 1908. 90. The Dragon (1911–1912), pp.236–37. 91. UCNW Students’ Representative Council Minute Book, 31 January 1914. 92. The Dragon (1911–1912); The University College of Wales Magazine (1902). 93. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, St David’s Day, 1892, Reunion of Former Students, ORG/FND/C/1-2, NLW. 94. The Dragon (1907–1908) p.186. 95. Liverpool Echo, 2 March 1914. 96. The Cambrian Daily Leader, 2 March 1914. 97. The Cambrian Daily Leader, 2 March 1914; Y Llan, 6 March 1914; The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard, 6 March 1914. 98. Shompa Lahiri, Indians in Britain. Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity 1880–1930 (Routledge: London, 2000), p.51. 99. Andrew Whitehead, ‘Dorothy Bonarjee: Bard of Aberystwyth’, Planet, 283 (2020). 100. ‘The Position of Women in College’, University College of North Wales Magazine, 22, 3 (June 1913). 101. University College of North Wales Magazine, 1, 2 (March 1912).

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102. ‘Llythyrau I Fresher’, University College of North Wales Magazine, 21, 1 (December, 1911). 103. ‘A Freshwoman’s First Impressions of College Life’, University College of North Wales Magazine, 19, 1 (December 1909). 104. The Mascot, 23, 3 (March 1914). 105. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1916. 106. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1917. 107. Letter from Sir L.A.  Selby-Bigge, 30 November 1917; Letter from Principal E. H. Griffiths to the Board of Education Secretary, 7 December 1917, CUSCA. 108. The Dragon (1918–1919), p.62. 109. The Dragon (1918–1919), pp.31–32. 110. The Dragon (1918–1919), pp.58–60. 111. The Dragon (1918–1919), pp.58–60; The Dragon (1919–1920), p.28. 112. Ellis, The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, p.211. 113. The Dragon (1918–1919), pp.59–60. 114. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, June 1917. 115. Letter from Medical Women Students to the Registrar, 9 December 1918, DUCAH/32/1–2, GA. 116. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Senate Minutes, 17 February 1919;  Memorandum submitted to the Senate by the Committee appointed to report on the application of the Women Medical Students for permission to reside outside Aberdare Hall, 10 May 1919, GA. 117. Memorandum submitted to the Senate;  University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Council Notice No. 3988, 28 May 1919. 118. Letter from Mary Wilkinson to the Registrar, 14 June 1928, I14, Richard Burton Archives (RBA). 119. ‘House Rules for Aberdare Hall’, Cap & Gown, 27, 2 (1930). 120. Food Complaints, 1935–1936, H1/12–31, Box 5, AUA. 121. The Dragon, 49 (1926). 122. Roberts, Bangor University 1884–2009, p.32; Women’s Common Room Committee Minute Book, 7 November 1925. 123. Frederick Elwyn-Jones, In My Time: An Autobiography (London, 1983), p.23. 124. University College of North Wales Magazine, 41, 1 (1932). 125. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1922. 126. Jay Rees, ‘Making Beds with Envelope Ends: Beck Hall and Women’s Experiences of Student Life at Swansea University, 1920–1939’. https://

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collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/Swansea-­2020/page/making-­beds-­with-­ envelope-­ends. Accessed 13 October 2021. 127. S.  G. Rees (ed), Our Golden Years: Aber in the Twenties (1973), p.50, PUB/OSA/0/2, NLW. 128. Llion Wigley, ‘Cassie Jane Davies (1898–1988), educator and Welsh nationalist’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2018). 129. Roberts, Bangor University 1884–2009, p.32. 130. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1921. 131. Omnibus: UCNW Magazine, 44, 2 (1936). 132. Omnibus: UCNW Magazine, 45, 2 (1937). 133. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Council Minutes, 3 December 1919, UCC/CL.cm/1-14, CUSCA. 134. The University of Wales Calendar, 1923–1930. 135. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Council Minutes, 31 May 1922. 136. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 1938. 137. Glanmor Williams, A Life (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2002), p.85. 138. Dykes, The University College of Swansea, p.100. 139. Barbara Foxley lived in Aberdare Hall between 1908 and 1914. A History of Aberdare Hall, 1885–1935, written on the College’s takeover of the Hall, c.1936, UCC/H/Ab/Hist/1, CUSCA. 140. Mary Williams Papers, scrap of paper [undated], 796, 0210, NLW. 141. Mary Williams Papers, scrap of paper [undated]. 142. Beck Hall, Fifteenth Annual Report, 1934, RBA. 143. Programme to mark the centenary of Aberdare Hall, DUCAH/47/, GA. 144. Letter from Mary K.  Wilkinson to Miss Parry following her visit to Aberdare Hall, 30 April 1940, DUCAH/16/14, GA. 145. Carol Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History (Routledge: London, 2006), p.12. 146. Report of the Warden of Beck Hall to the Hostels Committee, 2 November 1927, UNI/SU/AS/2/1/96, H34, RBA. 147. Correspondence relating to Beck Hall, 7 July 1928, UNI/SU/ A5/2/1/40, RBA. 148. Alice Roberts’ application to the Welsh Student Self-Help Council, 0210/26, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers, NLW. 149. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1935. 150. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, 1924, DUCAH/7/4-60. 151. Keith Vernon, ‘The Health and Welfare of University Students in Britain, 1920–1939’, History of Education, 37, 2 (2008), pp.227–252. 152. Vernon, ‘The Health and Welfare of University Students in Britain’, p.243.

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153. Vernon, ‘The Health and Welfare of University Students in Britain’, p.243. 154. Western Mail, 19 January 1938. 155. Brian Simon, ‘The student movement in England and Wales during the 1930s’, History of Education, 16, 3 (1987), p.190. 156. Y Gymraes (Ionawr, 1921). 157. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p.58. 158. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering. 159. Margaret Parry, ‘University Social Service Group’, The Dragon, 58, 2 (1936) 160. M.  Jolliffe and W.  F. Jones, ‘Student Self-Help’, The Welsh Outlook, March 1928. 161. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Memorandum and Reports 1929–1932, 0210/25, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 162. Later known as the Welsh Student Service Council. 163. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p.80. 164. W. S. H. T. ‘The Self-help movement in Wales’, The Dragon, 52, 1 (1929). 165. Letter from Elsie Baker to Kitty Lewis, 1929, 0210/26, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 166. The Welsh Outlook, May 1931. 167. The Welsh Outlook, May 1931. 168. Welsh Student Self-Help Council Report, April-July 1930, 0210/25, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 169. Catherine E. Lewis, ‘Self-Help’, Cap & Gown, 27, 2 (1930). 170. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Memorandum and Reports 1929–1932. 171. W. S. H. T. ‘The Self-help movement in Wales’. 172. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p.81. 173. Welsh Student Self-Help Council, Emergency Relief Fund, 1929–1931, 0210/24, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 174. Letter from Kitty Lewis to Doris Matthews, 13 February 1930, 0210/24. 175. Kitty Lewis, ‘Student Self-Help in Wales’, Printed material relating to the International Voluntary Service, 01210/22, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 176. Letter from Beryl Price to Kitty Lewis, 12 December 1929, 0210/24. 177. Letters from Kitty Lewis to her parents during her American tour on behalf of the I.S.S, October–November 1930, 0210/36. 178. Kitty Lewis, ‘Student Adventures’, London Welsh Weekly, 8 October 1932. 179. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1931; Stephanie Ward, ‘Heroic Housewives: Locating the Mam in Interwar Wales’, in Beth Jenkins, Paul O’Leary and Stephanie Ward (eds), Gender in Modern Welsh History from 1750 to 2000 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, forthcoming).

CHAPTER 4

Graduate Employment and Unemployment

At the opening ceremony of the first women’s hostel at Bangor in 1888, Principal Reichel made it clear that he did not see higher education as a stepping stone to paid employment when he proclaimed that women’s ‘most profound influence would make itself felt through her general culture and influence on family life rather than through the professions’.1 Supporters of women’s education in the nineteenth century often differed in their motives, which were not always coupled with an explicitly feminist agenda.2 While some advocates believed education would enhance women’s roles as wives and mothers, or be of moral and cultural benefit to the nation, they did not necessarily perceive it as a route to remunerated work.3 On the other hand, early feminist campaigners hoped a degree would grant women access to a professional world which, purportedly at least, was based on credentialism. Seven years later, in 1895, Principal Roberts struck a different tone at the laying of the foundation stone of the women’s college Alexandra Hall, Aberystwyth, when he outlined his hope that more women graduates would take advantage of the opportunities now available to them, particularly in medicine and teaching.4 Certainly, the expansion of girls’ secondary and tertiary education, in tandem with a highly organised women’s movement, meant more women were equipped for work that was available to them and gave campaigners ammunition of their proven intellectual ability. Nevertheless, both contemporaries and subsequent historians have been understandably pessimistic about the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_4

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extent to which women’s increased access to higher education during the final quarter of the nineteenth century entailed new career opportunities beyond the classroom.5 Among the earliest cohorts of students there was also a clear division between those who needed to earn an independent income, and those who did not. Gwen Warrington (née Davies), a student at Cardiff between 1890 and 1893, later recalled that ‘on the whole students worked hard for their London degrees though the girls who came merely for “culture” in the form of English or Music, could go more as they pleased’.6 Analysis by Mark Curthoys and Janet Howarth on the career destinations of early Oxford women shows that of the first generation studying in 1881–1883, only a third went into paid employment after leaving university. However, by the 1911–1913 cohort, this proportion had increased significantly to two-thirds, even when temporary war work was excluded.7 For women who attended civic universities and tended to be drawn from a slightly lower social profile, the numbers who entered waged work after graduation were undoubtedly higher. Carol Dyhouse suggests that by the outbreak of the First World War the majority of women studying at Britain’s civic universities pursued higher education in the hope that it would enhance their ability ‘of earning a living, either before marriage, or in the event of not marrying at all’.8 Social background was also a key determinant of whether women undertook paid work or married, with the Oxford data suggesting that the daughters of bankers, merchants and industrialists were twice as likely to marry as the daughters of schoolmasters, tradesmen and clerks.9 What, then, were the intentions of women who embarked on a university education in Wales? Reconstructing the lives of graduates who did not enter paid work is tricky, but evidence suggests that by the turn of the century only a small minority entered college without any intention of earning an independent living afterwards—not least because most women students by this point were drawn from middle or lower-middle-class households. Of those Welsh graduates it has been possible to trace between 1883 and the outbreak of the First World War, 84 per cent taught at some stage in their lives. A smaller proportion of women (8 per cent) also worked in education as researchers, lecturers or in teacher training colleges, while 4 per cent pursued medical careers. Only a handful of graduates earned their living through missionary and social work, in clerical roles, the civil service or the creative industries (Table 3.1). The occupational destinations of women at the Welsh colleges were slightly less

Teaching

184 107 231 522

Uni. Col

UCA UCNW UCSWM Total

27 11 14 52

Academia 1 1 24 26

Medicine 7 2 2 11

Social work 1 0 2 3

Clerical 2 0 1 3

Industry

2 0 1 3

Creative work

0 0 2 2

Civil service

Table 3.1  Occupational destinations of sample of women students at Welsh university colleges, 1883–1914

2 0 0 2

Missionary

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diversified than those who studied at elite universities during this period, with a noticeably higher proportion entering teaching. In her sample of women who attended Girton and Newnham before the war, for example, Gillian Sutherland notes that over three quarters were recorded as engaging in work—both remunerated and voluntary—after college. Of those, 70 per cent worked as teachers, mostly in secondary schools, but several also in the newly emerging institutions of higher education for women.10 The rapid expansion of the education system during the final decades of the nineteenth century in Wales and Britain went hand-in-hand with women’s entry into higher education. In 1889, the implementation of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act provided a network of intermediate schools for girls as well as boys. These schools, together with the municipal secondary schools established under the Education Act of 1902, equipped women for further study whilst simultaneously creating new job opportunities in a gender-segregated schooling system. Secondary school teaching rapidly became a graduate profession for both women and men.11 A degree undoubtedly gave women a significant advantage in the teaching labour market and the first cohorts of graduates assumed relatively prestigious positions, often as headmistresses in the newly established county schools throughout Wales. By the first decade of the twentieth century, almost all the headmistresses and headmasters of the Welsh intermediate schools were graduates: 19 out of 21 headmistresses, and all 74 headmasters in 1907–1908.12 However, over half of these reportedly came from outside Wales and concerns were raised by some commentators that this was diluting the national ethos of education. As we have seen in Chap. 2, women’s education was broadly situated within a nationalist framework, whereby an educated female population were considered safeguards and promoters of the Welsh language and culture in their roles as mothers and teachers.13 A scarcity of suitably qualified Welsh-speaking professionals was a continual concern for educational and medical authorities throughout this period, particularly in regions with a high proportion of monoglot speakers. By the early twentieth century, several bodies sought to address this by issuing pamphlets in Welsh which outlined training opportunities and application processes.14 Yet until adequate provision for Welsh  language education was made, parents had little choice but to prioritise their child’s English as the only way for them to climb the professional ladder. This was the route pursued by aspiring doctor Edith Jones’s (later Evans) family. Jones, who would later become medical inspector of schools in

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Glamorgan, grew up in a Welsh-speaking home in Cardiganshire. After she expressed a desire to pursue medicine at the age of 12 in 1893, her parents sent her to a local boarding school to improve her English and obtain the necessary qualifications to enter medical school.15 While educated Welsh candidates were in demand within Wales, their nationality could prove an economic disadvantage the other side of the border. Speech, accent and dialect—with their attendant class connotations—were linked to political and economic power and provided a clear marker exclusivity. During the nineteenth century an ‘educated’ dialect became homogenised across England through the public schooling system and universities.16 Notions of professionalism could be geographically variable. Whereas the Scottish accent was considered ‘a certificate of ability’, the secretary of the Welsh County Schools Association in 1907 lamented that the Welsh accent had become a ‘commercial disadvantage’ outside of the nation.17 Speech was highly gendered as well as classed too. P. J. Waller has argued that men could more easily switch between different types of syntax or regional accents, but women, or those most insecure in their class status, had to adhere closely to ‘appropriate’ speech for fear of being thought vulgar.18 Higher education was not the meritocratic leveller it was purported to be, with social class continuing to shape the subsequent career trajectories of women after graduation. Teaching was an occupation demarcated by internal hierarchies of status and financial reward: middle-class graduates tended to get the more prestigious and better paid posts in secondary schools, while those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to work in elementary schools. Usually entering university through the pupil teacher system, most early working-class women students gained posts in local infants or secondary schools in the towns and communities in which they had grown up, often as an economic strategy to contribute to the family purse. For example, a succession of quarrymen’s daughters at Bangor subsequently returned to their former elementary schools as teachers.19 Working-class graduates in Cardiff also staffed the infant and secondary schools in the south Wales valleys: miners’ daughters Mary Elizabeth Price and Annie Rees, who enrolled at the college in 1893 as queen’s scholars, both became headmistresses of the infant schools in Cwmtillery and Pentre respectively—the latter in the school in which she had previously worked as a pupil teacher.20 Most certificated elementary teachers during this period, however, attended the new training colleges

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rather than training departments attached to university colleges, and this constituted another important demarcation of occupational status. The establishment of teacher training colleges from the late nineteenth century also provided alternative employment for a small number of women graduates as lecturers and, certainly by the interwar years, the possession of a degree was a prerequisite for most staff.21 Swansea Training College was the first institution of its kind in Wales in 1872, followed by Bangor Normal College which admitted women from 1908, and Glamorgan Training College in Barry in 1913. Hilda Raw, who graduated from Cardiff in 1895, was appointed as head of the newly founded Glamorgan Training College after nearly two decades spent teaching at schools and training colleges across Wales, England and in Egypt.22 Another Welsh graduate, miner’s daughter Ellen Evans, joined the college staff in 1915 and would assume the headship in 1923.23 Lecturers in training colleges could expect to earn a wage starting at £100 in the first decade of the twentieth century, which was significantly more than teachers, but less than those employed in the university education departments.24 In principle, women’s access to higher education provided corresponding opportunities for graduates within the university colleges. Yet although the University of Wales admitted women to its constituent bodies as full members in its 1893 Charter, it was extremely difficult for them to obtain research funding and academic appointments. Educated women first gained posts in universities by taking up posts as wardens or principals of women’s halls and colleges. When initial plans were drawn up for a women’s hostel in Cardiff in 1883, the college authorities suggested ‘that some Lady interested in the work of Women’s Education might be willing to undertake it … at any rate for the first year or two, without a salary’.25 The first two principals—Isabel Bruce, the daughter of the hall’s benefactor Lady Aberdare, and Isabel Don—undertook this work without remuneration.26 There was, however, clearly a demand for such paid opportunities. Four years later, Aberystwyth received 83 applications in response to their advertisement for a ‘lady superintendent’ for their women’s hostel.27 Such roles were particularly demanding, with wardens living on-site and responsible for management of the hall, student’s welfare as well as unofficially their academic progress. Colleges increasingly sought graduates to fill the position of warden, though, as Chap. 3 highlighted, a candidate’s class credentials could be just as—if not more—important in these early years. Women lecturers, by contrast, were few and far between. The comparatively high number of female students at the University of Wales by the

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early twentieth century was not mirrored in the composition of academic staff. From the 1890s, the establishment of day training departments did provide openings for a small number of graduates who were responsible for women’s elementary, and later secondary, teacher training. It is perhaps unsurprising that the first woman professor in Wales, and the second in Britain, Millicent Mackenzie [née Hughes], was based in the education department.28 Initially employed as normal mistress in Cardiff, Mackenzie became associate professor of education in 1904 and was granted full professorial status in 1910—a post she held until her retirement in 1915.29 Despite the college authorities using her appointment as evidence of its progressive and liberal ethos, their institutional practices suggested otherwise: following her promotion, Mackenzie remained on a salary of £300, while her counterpart responsible for the men’s side of training, William Phillips, received £425.30 Between 1896 and the outbreak of the First World War, the number of women academic staff in the constituent colleges modestly doubled from five to ten. These women were nearly all employed in the education departments and often assumed unofficial responsibility for the welfare of female students—areas in which they constituted a limited threat to the status quo.31 Outside of the education departments, women were confined to the margins of academia. Some worked as temporary lecturers in botany, while others were employed as part-time demonstrators. Most spent several years teaching before returning to research, or vice versa. Even those who reached the upper echelons of the educational ladder struggled to obtain secure employment, though a few well-known University of Wales graduates did enjoy successful academic careers in Britain and abroad.32 Women in science often had particularly chequered and non-linear career paths. Maria Dawson was the first woman to be awarded a University of Wales degree (as opposed to the external University of London degree), after graduating from Cardiff with a BSc in 1896. She was the recipient of a prestigious 1851 Exhibition scholarship for scientific research and taught at her alma mater as a temporary demonstrator in 1897, in return for instruction in advanced botany.33 After receiving her doctorate in 1901, she obtained a temporary post as assistant lecturer in botany at Aberystwyth.34 She subsequently worked as a botany teacher in a boys’ county school, before moving into industry to work with fruit trees at a jam manufacturer. The commercial and business sector in Wales, however, was relatively small and this inhibited opportunities for science graduates’ employment. Particularly in their early years, Michael Sanderson has

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argued that the Welsh colleges tended to regard themselves as agencies for cultural and religious regeneration.35 This was in contrast to some of the northern English universities whose closer ties with local industries helped a considerable number of graduates intent on industrial or commercial careers.36 Moreover, Sanderson notes, the penalty for this disengagement with industry was to be paid in the interwar years in the relative failure of the Welsh to develop ‘new’ industries to absorb the unemployment of the old.37 For the small number of women who did seek employment in industry, sympathetic academic staff or familial connections could be vital. In their study of women chemists, Marlene and Geoff Rayner-Canham estimate that 15 Welsh graduates became chemists and associates or fellows of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Chemical Society between 1880 and 1949.38 Emily Jane Lloyd (Aberystwyth, 1884–1887) became the first woman associate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry in 1892, after using just her initials on her application form to conceal her gender identity.39 Yet, like most women of her generation, she quickly found paid opportunities for women in this field severely limited. Instead, she worked as a science mistress at a public girls’ school in Cape Colony for four years, before returning to Wales to teach until her early retirement in 1909 due to ill health. It was Bangor, however, which produced a succession of women chemists from the late nineteenth century. These women all worked under the mentorship of Kennedy Joseph Previté Orton, who was professor of chemistry from 1903 until his death in 1930. Alice Smith completed a BSc in chemistry in 1901 and later returned to Bangor as assistant lecturer in education and organic chemistry, where she collaborated with Orton.40 Similarly, Frances Burdett gained a BSc in chemistry from Bangor in 1905 and was subsequently appointed assistant lecturer in the college’s training department for two years, before working as a science teacher and, from 1920, as an assistant lecturer at Bradford Training College.41 Bangor’s other forte was forestry, with the college possessing the only department in Wales from 1904.42 In 1916 Mary Sutherland reportedly became the first woman forestry graduate in the world when she graduated from the college. She worked as a forewoman at the university’s nursery and on private estates, before joining HM Forestry Commission. In 1923 she left Britain to work for the New Zealand Forest Service, who later erected a plaque in her memory in Rotorua.43

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Opportunities for educated women in government and public institutions were also rare. The National Health Insurance Act in 1911 did create openings for a handful of graduates within the health inspectorate, while a small number also obtained posts as school inspectors—usually after several years teaching.44 By 1914, the Board of Education was one of the few public bodies in Wales to employ a female inspector, Mary Ellis.45 Ellis was educated at Dr Williams’s School in Dolgellau, before undertaking a degree at Aberystwyth and then studying at Bangor. Like most graduates, she spent a period teaching, at Whalley Range High School, Manchester, before lecturing in English in Paris and her subsequent appointment to the Board of Education. Another Bangor alumna, Rosa Mabel Lee, gained a post as assistant naturalist to the Board of Agricultural Fisheries in 1910, following a period of teaching at Blaenau Ffestiniog County School.46 Before students could complete their full medical training in Wales, aspiring women doctors usually proceeded to the London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) to undertake their clinical studies.47 The increasing specialisation within the medical profession afforded women the opportunity to carve a place for themselves in certain medical fields, with most clustered in maternal and child welfare—as medical inspectors to school children, or in children’s and women’s hospitals.48 The career trajectories of Dr Katherine Drinkwater (née Jay) and Dr Erie Evans, who studied at Aberystwyth and Bangor respectively in the 1890s, were typical of this first generation. Both women had fathers in medical fields— Drinkwater’s a surgeon and Evans’s a veterinary doctor—and both completed their training at the LSMW. Drinkwater worked briefly as a science teacher after receiving a BSc degree from Aberystwyth in 1896, before pursing her medical training.49 She served as a commanding officer at the Military Families Hospital in Malta during the First World War.50 After the conflict, she became Assistant Medical Officer of Health for Wrexham, where she founded the town’s first child welfare clinic and later established a joint medical practice with husband.51 Similarly, Evans was connected to a range of institutions in the city she practiced: acting as Medical Officer to Howell’s Girls’ School and in charge of medical provision for venereal diseases in Cardiff. She also became the Welsh National School of Medicine’s (WNSM) first female member of academic staff in 1923, lecturing in first aid, home nursing, midwifery and venereal diseases.52 Belonging to a pioneering generation of early women doctors who had had to navigate their way into a male-dominated field, it is perhaps unsurprising that both women became founder members of their respective region’s Medical Women’s Federation branches in the interwar years.53

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From the late nineteenth century, universities also played an important role in the development of social work through their social settlement schemes. Cardiff graduate Lilian Howell, for instance, was involved in the University of Wales settlement during her time as a student and subsequently went to London to train as a social worker. A small number of women also began to obtain work as welfare managers in department stores or factories, responsible for the welfare of female employees. It is clear, however, that graduates’ appointments to such posts in the 1890s were predicated as much on their cultural capital and social class, as their educational credentials or practical experience.54 Others found work as organising secretaries of philanthropic or moral reform associations, such as Oenwen Vida Rees (later Hughes), who spent a period teaching at her former school, Porth Higher Elementary, before becoming an organising secretary of the Llandaff Diocesan Association for Moral Welfare Work.55 During the first decade of the twentieth century, several graduates obtained work on the staff of the Labour Exchanges. Their involvement in student social activities and societies also spurred some graduates into paid roles as organisers of political movements. Aberystwyth graduate Dorothy Lenn, for instance, worked in a range of welfare positions before becoming National Organiser of the Women’s Labour League, for which she undertook a tour of Wales in 1909.56 While some women involved in social work were motivated by political beliefs, others were driven by their moral or religious convictions. A small number of graduates followed in the footsteps of a longer tradition of Welsh missionaries who travelled across the empire to promote an evangelical message. By the late nineteenth century, Welsh chapels had developed a range of missionary bases, most notably in north-east India, which were supported morally and financially by congregations back home.57 These bases included evangelic preachers, teachers, doctors and nurses. Underscored by the belief that the liberating potential of Christianity was held to apply particularly to women, a significant proportion of these missionaries were women, mostly young and unmarried.58 The consequences of such activity have, however, been subject to scrutiny in recent years, with historians highlighting how missionaries played a contributory role in British imperial expansion and colonial rule.59 Missionary work abroad enabled white women to exert a degree of status, visibility and influence than they might otherwise have enjoyed at home—although this form of gendered professional identity was largely at the expense of racial and class hierarchies.60

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One graduate who undertook missionary work was Jane Gwladus Hopkins Jones, following her studies at Bangor and Aberystwyth during the 1890s. Like most women who pursued this path, she came from a family of ministers and missionaries. Her upbringing had a strong influence on her vocational ambitions, with the evangelical ‘call’ reportedly coming to Jones at six years old when she met a missionary who was staying with her grandparents.61 Throughout her education she used her stipend to support a pupil in Kolkata and, during her time at Aberystwyth, played an active role in the Christian Union where she found herself among a ‘circle of ardent missionary devotees’.62 After graduating, she taught at Tregaron Secondary School for six years, initiating a Christian Union branch at the school. In 1905 she sailed to India with the Baptist Missionary Society and worked at a girls’ school in Calcutta until her retirement in 1944. During her furloughs, she returned to Wales to raise funds and support for the society’s activities.63 At home, however, there was growing frustration among women in the years preceding the war with the lack of opportunities outside of teaching—a path which for some was increasingly seen as monotonous, oversubscribed and poorly remunerated.64 A University of Wales Appointments Board was formed in 1912 to provide advice on alternative careers.65 Mary Silyn Roberts [née Parry], an Aberystwyth graduate and wife of the board’s secretary, wrote articles on employment for educated women in the student magazines, while Dr Mary Davies published a report on openings for educated women outside of teaching, which was subsequently distributed to schools and the university colleges.66 Davies noted that after completing their degree, Welsh students were often debarred by financial considerations from entering professional or business careers which required further specialised training. The board aimed to address this by later establishing a loan fund for women during the war.67 The scheme was financed by a grant from the University of Wales, and ‘partly by a private fund subscribed by patriotic Welshmen who are anxious to see the product of the University and the schools directed into avenues of employment of a wider and more diversified character than in the past’.68 Despite these interventions and a few notable exceptions, a woman’s graduate status offered her few prospects beyond the walls of the classroom before 1914. Moreover, the foundation of the board reflected the first signs that graduates were beginning to find difficulty securing posts in an increasingly oversubscribed field—an issue which would become particularly acute between the wars.

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4.1   The First World War In some respects, calls for greater diversification of women’s work were answered—at least temporarily—following the onset of war. Wartime economic demands and a depletion of men owing to military service enabled some women who graduated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to undertake a range of new roles during the conflict: acting as health inspectors in munitions factories, serving abroad in wartime hospitals, teaching in boys’ schools and conducting scientific research for the War Office. Others assumed new responsibilities in positions they had been establishing themselves in before the war, continued their employment on marriage or contributed to the war effort in a voluntary capacity. An extensive body of scholarship has debated the long-term impact of the First World War on women’s lives and gender roles more broadly.69 Within these debates, work is often regarded as a key indicator of women’s liberation, with most historians understandably sceptical about the transformative effects of the conflict on women’s subsequent economic opportunities.70 Nonetheless, the war provided some educated women with new opportunities to undertake work related to their academic expertise in various government factories or research departments, predominantly as chemists and doctors.71 Women physics students at Bangor engaged in scientific research, while staff and students from the chemistry department undertook research for the Ministry of Munitions’ explosives supply and chemical warfare departments.72 Others worked in the munitions factory at Pembrey as statisticians or medical officers.73 Phyllis Violet McKie, a Bangor student who worked under Orton, devised a new method for the preparation of the explosive tetranitromethane for the Ministry of Munitions. The daughter of a clerk at Penrhyn Quarry, she attended Bangor County School for Girls, before entering her local university college in 1912. Completing a BSc in 1916, she was awarded an MSc by research on the basis of her war work which had resulted in 12 publications. After the war, she pursued further research in chemistry and subsequently took up a role training future generations of women chemistry teachers.74 The recruitment of men to military service meant that a shortage of civilian professional labour became particularly pressing by 1915. This led some employers or public bodies to actively recruit women candidates or relax discriminatory regulations to meet their wartime shortages. A greater proportion of women students was also reflected in an increase of

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women academic staff employed by the University of Wales: before the conflict, their number did not exceed 10, but by the end of the war, there was more than a twofold increase, with 24 women employed in 1919 and 33 by 1921.75 There were even incidents of women candidates being favoured over men. When Florence Rea was appointed to a temporary lectureship in chemistry at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in 1917, the Council decided to choose her over a male candidate because, they noted, at 25 years of age, he was liable to be called up for military service.76 Similarly, in teaching, women found new opportunities for headships and posts in boys’ schools, as they began to exceed the number of intermediate men teachers for the first time.77 Attitudes towards women’s work, however, were much slower to change. Emrys Pride, who attended school in Cardiff during the war, recalled that it was an ‘affront to our personal sense of pride that women were employed in boys’ schools and taught subjects as diverse as Latin, Mathematics and Physical Education’.78 Wartime labour shortages also forced some universities and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to reluctantly suspend their marriage bars. There were no official rules on the employment of married women in academia, but as the war progressed, universities allowed some married members of staff, who in peacetime would have had to tender their resignations, to continue their employment at least for the duration of the conflict.79 Teaching, where marriage bars were more rigidly enforced, also saw a loosening of regulations. Due to the exigencies of war, by November 1915 it was proposed in Mountain Ash that married women teachers be engaged ‘as a makeshift’.80 The same year, Aberdare Education Committee allowed women who married soldiers to continue their employment for the duration of the war.81 Pembroke Education Committee, however, had certain caveats: married women teachers were only eligible for an appointment if no application had been received from unmarried teachers.82 Although rules towards married women’s employment relaxed, such concessions were undoubtedly dependent on supply and demand. Indeed, when local authorities employed a married woman to replace those on service, her position as a ‘temporary substitute’ was emphasised.83 The conflict did provide a brief window for graduates who had previously been confined to teaching to seek alternative paths. For example, after graduating from Cardiff, Edith Jenkins had taken up a post at the County School for Girls, Hengoed, before becoming senior mistress at Narberth County School. During the war, she relinquished this role to

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become a  quarter mistress and housekeeping assistant at the Red Cross Hospital in Manchester. Her enjoyment of this work inspired her career after the war, and in 1922 she became warden of the hostel for students at the Training College of Domestic Arts at Cardiff.84 Similarly, as women formed a significant body of the workforce making munitions, corresponding opportunities for graduates arose in industrial welfare work. This was particularly the case from 1916 when welfare supervisors and inspectors became compulsory in factories where explosives were used.85 In many instances, their education allowed them to assume positions of relative seniority—as officers in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, heads of munition workers’ hostels, in the Voluntary Aid Detachment or coordinating work in Red Cross hospitals. These women were motivated by a range of often overlapping factors including a sense of patriotic duty, self-­ fulfilment and professional ambition. Historian  Janet Watson has highlighted tensions between groups of women who saw what they were doing as work, and the better-known war participants who used the language and imagery of service—though, as she acknowledges, the two were not necessarily mutually exclusive.86 The inroads women had made into medicine from the late nineteenth century were undoubtedly accelerated by the conflict too. As Chap. 2 showed, the financial assistance offered by the General Committee for the Promotion of the Medical Training of Women in Wales helped to increase the number of women medical students, like elsewhere across Britain. But because of the long duration of study there was a lag in this being reflected in qualified women doctors, and the spike in the number of women medical students during the war did not materialise into practising doctors until the early to mid-1920s.87 Nonetheless, women’s medical work began to receive much greater public recognition from 1915 as male doctors and medical students were recruited for military service. At the beginning of the war medical women volunteered their service to the British War Office, but on being told it was amply supplied, formed voluntary units and offered their services to other allied nations instead—drawing, as Chap. 6 will explore, on their pre-war networks.88 One of these organisations was the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH), which comprised units entirely of women drivers, secretaries, interpreters, doctors, matrons, nurses, cooks, orderlies and relief workers.89 The first unit to leave Britain in December 1914 included Dr Mary ‘Eppynt’ Phillips, one of the first women to begin her training at Cardiff Medical School.90 Phillips served as a senior

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physician and then chief medical officer with the SWH in France, Malta, Serbia and Corsica between April 1915 and June 1917.91 After working in the Corsica unit, she became a medical officer at the Ministry of Munitions and then worked as an assistant medical officer in Merthyr Tydfil, where she started a scheme training Serbian girls as nurses.92 Such examples of women’s work were upheld as an integral part of Wales’s and Britain’s contribution to the war effort, with the Welsh press and educational institutions quick to celebrate their connections to women like Phillips.93 Yet this was undoubtedly an expedient strategy to bolster morale and their work was only praised when it conformed to conventional gendered notions of service and duty, rather than professional advancement or ambition. Violet Douglas-Pennant, a National Insurance Commissioner for Wales, summarised this when she stated that the funding scheme for aspiring Welsh women doctors aimed to help women who served in Serbia and Salonika, rather than ‘those who wished to make a splash in Harley-street’.94 While some women gained new experiences and demonstrated their occupational competency, their work was often placed in a framework of substitution—as taking over ‘men’s jobs’ for the duration of the war, or as an exceptional measure for exceptional circumstances. Moreover, despite being celebrated by the press and public institutions, the long-term reality of their economic opportunities rarely matched this wartime rhetoric.

4.2   New Opportunities? Any wartime optimism about women’s employment quickly proved fleeting, and the temporary displacement of men by women in factories, driving buses and on the land during wartime was largely reversed by the early 1920s. Graduate women, too, found their career opportunities diminished, as jobs were prioritised for returning servicemen. A glance at the University of Wales college registers shows that during the 1920s and 1930s the range of work women undertook did not diversify significantly from the previous decades. Whilst a small number of older women studied for ‘personal interest’, by the interwar years most women pursued a university education in the hope of improving their material circumstances. Carol Dyhouse highlights that for her respondents who entered university in the 1930s, their ‘somewhat hazy career aspirations had gone hand-in-­ hand with a sense of pressing urgency about the need to earn a living, and

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a market frustration about the lack of openings they remembered being able to envisage as young women’.95 Teaching still dominated the career paths of interwar graduates, though not quite as much as it had done for their pre-war counterparts. Of the women in my sample who entered the University of Wales between 1920 and 1938, 78 per cent are recorded as having taught at some point in their post-university lives. A smaller number pursued medical careers (11 per cent) and an even smaller proportion engaged in academic work (4 per cent). A handful of women also entered law, industry, secretarial and social work, or earned their living through creative work—as writers, performers and musicians (Table 3.2). Although the majority of graduates across Britain entered teaching, the exact proportion varied from institution to institution. Dyhouse notes that around 68 per cent of women in her sample who studied at England’s civic universities found themselves teaching for part, if not all, of their careers.96 Manchester had a higher proportion than average at 78.7 per cent, while only 45 per cent of UCL graduates went into teaching.97 Pat Thane’s analysis of the careers of Girtonians revealed that 62 per cent of graduates in the early 1920s became schoolteachers at some time, slightly fewer among 1930s graduates and about one-third of those who graduated in 1944–1953.98 That over three quarters of women in Wales went into teaching, then, was certainly at the higher end of the spectrum. In 1929 the British Federation of University Women (BFUW) sent questionnaires to the principals of women’s university halls and colleges seeking students’ and graduates’ views on how discriminatory practices and regulations affected their entry into the civil service. Replying on behalf of Bangor students, Mary O’Gorman, Vice-President of the Students’ Representative Council, wrote: ‘most of our women students, unlike those of other university colleges, belong to the Teachers’ Training Department and have their careers cut and dried before coming to college’.99 The Table 3.2  Occupational destinations of sample of women students at Welsh university colleges, 1920–1938 Uni. Col Teaching Medicine Academia Clerical Social Creative Civil Industry Law work work service UCS UCNW UCSWM Total

154 147 271 572

8 0 70 78

10 4 15 29

9 2 14 25

3 2 6 11

2 0 7 9

0 0 5 5

0 0 4 4

1 0 3 4

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University  of Wales Appointments Board echoed this response, noting that the proportion of university-trained women in Wales who compete in the civil service exams is very small, with the overwhelming majority entering teaching.100 Some were undoubtedly motivated by a sense of vocation, but many graduates saw school teaching as their only option—a combination of both funding conditions, as well as the lack of alternative opportunities. Yet those who went into teaching between the wars also entered a hostile labour market: most held temporary contracts and moved around the country, often taking two or three different posts before obtaining a permanent one. Within teaching there also continued to be a clear hierarchy in the types of posts women obtained. The most fortunate secured jobs in girls’ high schools and the intermediate secondary schools, whilst others found themselves teaching in elementary schools, which also increasingly became a graduate preserve during this period. This was also strongly correlated with class. Middle-class students were more likely to obtain secondary posts, whilst working-class and lower-middle-class tended to teach in elementary first. In the immediate aftermath of the conflict women were able to take advantage of the professional openings enabled by the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. Although historians have highlighted the limitations of the Act—not least its failure to prevent the widespread implementation of marriage bars—recent studies have offered a more nuanced reassessment of its achievements too.101 Perhaps most significantly, the Act did allow women to officially enter the legal profession for the first time, following a much longer and protracted fight by the women’s movement. Historians such as Leslie Howsam have shown how, prior to this, women found other ways to use their legal expertise and gain a foothold in the profession without formal accreditation for their work.102 From the late nineteenth century, small numbers had also already begun to attend lectures and examinations in law at some universities. The first law department in Wales was in Aberystwyth.103 Offering a level of prestige and status, law was a popular subject choice among foreign-born students, even for those who did not practise it. Following in the footsteps of longer tradition of lawyers and barristers in her family, Dorothy Bonarjee undertook exams in French and law at Aberystwyth in 1916, subsequently receiving a law degree from the University of London the following year.104

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Another early law graduate was Iris de Freitas. Born in Guyana, then known as British Guiana, de Freitas studied at the University of Toronto, Canada, before enrolling at Aberystwyth in 1919 at the age of 22. She graduated with a BA in 1922 and LLB in 1927, with her treatise on ‘civil conspiracy’ being strong enough to exempt her from an oral examination and be published in a law review.105 In 1928 she returned to Guyana and is considered to be one of the first women lawyers in the Caribbean.106 Those who did practise law in the interwar period tended to come from middle-class families and had pre-existing contacts within the profession.107 For example, Lillian Richards had parents who were both involved in legal practices: her father was a solicitor, and her mother a justice of the peace. She served articles with her father and joined him as a partner in his firm in Cardiff once she qualified in 1927.108 Such examples, however, did not represent any significant entry of women into the legal profession, and it was largely only an option for those who could afford the long and expensive training, or who had established connections  in the field. By 1931, the census records only 10 women (compared with 1034 men) as working in the legal profession in Wales.109 During the 1920s, a small number of women also began to make names for themselves in the architectural world. Elizabeth Darling has argued that it was the shift to training in architecture schools, away from the traditional system of training by pupillage, which significantly opened the occupation to women.110 Olwen Emmerson Price, the first woman student to undertake all five years of training at the Welsh School of Architecture, gained employment as an assistant at a Cardiff architectural firm in 1926, before being appointed as an architect at the Board of Education, London.111 The period of training for architecture was both long and costly, and, like the majority of women who undertook additional professional training, Price came from a middle-class background: her father was a school inspector and she was educated at Cardiff High School for Girls and in Paris. Women were often pigeonholed into gendered sectors within the field. She was asked by a journalist if she was especially attracted to designing homes, ‘bearing in mind the promises of the wonderful houses housewives are to have when there are more women architects’, to which she reportedly  replied, ‘“No I don’t think so” … “It’s early yet to talk about specialisation, but at the moment I confess I am most interested in the latest methods of construction—reinforced concrete, for instance”’.112 Despite these exceptional figures, women’s entry into architecture, along with accountancy and veterinary, was slow: the

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1931 census records only one architect, six women accountants and one veterinary practitioner practising in Wales.113 Following developments in mass marketing, opportunities for educated women in the world of business also broadened in the interwar years. From an employer’s perspective, women were seen to embody gendered qualities which were commercially relevant to advertising, welfare and buying.114 Large department stories such as Harrods and Marks & Spencer began to employ welfare supervisors from 1920s and brought their advertising in-house.115 In some respects, these were a continuation of the welfare supervisory roles that had arisen from the late nineteenth century. A handful of graduates took up these posts and benefited from the proliferation of stores across British towns and cities during this period. For instance, Swansea student Elizabeth Davies became an assistant welfare officer in the town’s Marks & Spencer store after graduating in 1935. In the 1930s, Harrods offered two appointments for graduates on their contingent staff annually, with another Swansea graduate, Kathleen Turner, obtaining one of these posts with the promise of training for higher administration.116 Some women gained positions as shop assistants or in advertising roles in  local newspaper offices, often following in the footsteps of their fathers who were clerical workers. By the outbreak of the Second World War, a handful of women had made inroads into journalism, advertising and marketing. However, women’s entry into the world of business was relatively haphazard and this was compounded by Wales’s small commercial sector. It is perhaps telling that a Welsh branch of the British Federation of Business and Professional Women was not formed until 1943 in Cardiff, a decade after the organisation was founded to promote and safeguard the interests of business and professional women.117 Whilst social work expanded as a field in Britain during this period, there was not the same level of remunerated opportunities and professionalisation that occurred in the United States.118 A handful of graduates continued to work at settlements in impoverished inner-city and docklands communities.119 But whereas the first generation had focused on those suffering the effects of industrialisation in major cities, by the 1920s they had begun to turn their attention to the depressed industrial regions hardest hit by the global economic downturn. The south Wales valleys, blighted by widespread unemployment, became a particular target for a range of social schemes which sprung up to address these challenges. As will be explored in more detail in the following chapter, these initiatives also provided paid employment opportunities for a small number of

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graduates. Such work was often demarcated by gender, with women predominantly obtaining posts as organisers responsible for girls’ and women’s activities. Crucially, most of these women had been involved in voluntary or social service work during their time at university. For some who did not want to spend the entirety of their career teaching, social work offered an alternative path. Following her graduation from Swansea in 1936, Olive Rees (née John) taught for a year  before becoming an organiser for Girls’ Clubs in the Rhymney Valley in 1937. The well-­ known Aberystwyth graduate Pearl Jephcott also became organising secretary of the Birmingham Union of Girls’ Clubs in 1927, and then county organiser for the National Association of Girls’ Clubs in 1935. This work provided a springboard for her subsequent career as a social researcher in the post-war period.120 Other openings for women included working as organisers for philanthropic or religious bodies and, for a small number, as social investigators.121 The census recorded 66 women employed as social welfare workers in Wales by 1931.122 Secretarial work was another route coveted by some graduates who did not teach. Although the openings were not numerous, in industry and business it was beginning to be regarded as suitable for educated women.123 Some women gained secretarial posts in academic and educational institutions or in business firms. A handful reached the middle echelons of the civil service, but these were the exception rather than the norm, with university women employed under the Board of Education, the Home Office, the Ministry of Health and the Local Government Board, as inspectors and medical officers by the interwar years.124 The proliferation of Welsh departments and institutions during the first half of the twentieth century entailed a small number of opportunities for women too. The Central Welsh Board offered a few women temporary clerical positions in their offices, and one student, Ruth Deere, withdrew from her studies to become a writing assistant at the Welsh Board of Health in 1930.125 Others obtained positions in the new national cultural institutions like the National Library of Wales, local libraries, the publishing house Gregynog Press, in broadcasting or as ‘lady assistants’ in the BBC.126 Several graduates also gained posts coordinating the activities of Urdd Gobaith Cymru, a Welsh language youth organisation founded in 1922.127 The wartime recruitment drive for women in medicine also gave a boost to the number of practising women doctors by the early 1920s, and these figures steadily climbed throughout the interwar years. Mainstream medical professional culture, however, continued to marginalise women.

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After qualifying, women doctors faced further obstacles accessing hospital residencies and appointments, the most prestigious areas of medicine, and postgraduate teaching facilities.128 The idea that women innately understood the needs of their own sex was still used pigeonhole them in a range of occupational sectors and roles associated with women’s and children’s healthcare and education throughout the interwar years—roles which were, in turn, perceived as lower status and usually lower paid. The 1918 Maternity and Child Welfare Act, which required local authorities to appoint committees for maternity and child welfare, led to corresponding openings for women as health visitors, medical officers, school dentists or in related research positions. Senior Maternity and Child Welfare Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health, Dame Janet Campbell, reinforced this idea in her address to the General Committee for the Promotion of the Medical Training of Women in Wales in 1924. She argued that women were particularly suited to certain branches of medicine concerning women and children and this was considered to alleviate the embarrassment and dangers women encountered when having to go to a male doctor.129 The demand for suitably qualified Welsh-speaking medical professionals continued to be an issue for many regions across Wales. In 1928, Denbighshire Mental Hospital, seeking a pathologist who was able to speak Welsh, approached the WNSM to recommend a suitable candidate.130 The school recommended Dr Ceinwen Evans because she had ‘extensive experience of pathological work’ gained in the tuberculosis laboratories of the university and the Welsh National Memorial Association.131 She worked for several years identifying the cause of the recurrent outbreaks of dysentery and colitis in Denbigh and also carried out joint investigations with her former colleagues in Cardiff into tuberculosis.132 Interviewing Evans in 1994, Pamela Michael suggests that a physical handicap partly contributed to Evans’s decision to follow a career in pathology.133 She had a mild form of deafness, which was predicted to get progressively worse. Because it presented a problem for detecting heartbeats, her professors in Cardiff advised that it would be better for her to become a pathologist. Michael notes that it was not uncommon for women to be directed into this occupation or into mental hospitals, which were regarded as lower status to general hospitals.134 An exodus of Welsh teachers to English schools during the economically turbulent interwar decades was a particular cause of concern among Welsh cultural and language groups. At the same time, regions with high

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numbers of Welsh speakers found it difficult to attract suitably qualified bilingual healthcare and educational professionals. The Court of the University of Wales attempted to address this by proposing a retention scheme whereby the best qualified teachers of Welsh were appointed directly by LEAs from the training colleges and university education departments.135 With the decline of the Welsh language at home, schools were perceived as the main agents of language maintenance.136 During the 1920s increasing emphasis was placed on teacher’s training in Welsh language and literature and nationalists were quick to criticise the appointment of non-Welsh-speaking candidates. Recounting recent headmistress and academic appointments in Wales, one reporter in 1925 lamented that ‘the plums of the profession … have all been picked off the tree by people other than Welsh-speaking scholars’.137 The University of Wales also nurtured the creative talents of a series of distinguished writers, singers and composers. Morfydd Llwyn Owen, who held the Caradog Music Scholarship at Cardiff between 1909 and 1912, had an eminent career as a composer, singer and pianist until her untimely death in 1918.138 Gladys May Jones, a subsequent recipient of the same scholarship, became a pianist, composer and producer of radio programmes.139 A succession of Welsh graduates also produced substantial bodies of work as fiction writers during this period. Literary scholars have recovered their work and explored the influence of their gender, class and national identities on their writing.140 Analysis of these women writers, moreover, has also shed important light on their experiences as gendered workers navigating historical social and cultural constraints. Bangor alumna Kate Roberts and later Swansea graduate Menna Gallie became two of Wales’s best-known women writers.141 In Cardiff, Michelle Deininger and Claire Flay-Petty have uncovered a distinct women’s literary culture in the 1920s involving women connected to the university college.142 Writers Kathleen Freeman (pseudonym Mary Fitt), Dorothy Edwards, Winifred Kelly, Sarah Beryl Jones, Sona Rosa Burstein and Liliane Clopet forged a literary network underpinned by close friendships and extensive correspondence. Few of these women were able to make their living solely from writing during this period, instead financially supporting themselves as teachers, academics and doctors. Although their graduate status was not a prerequisite to a literary career, it did provide some degree of status, access to networks and a platform which they would not otherwise have had. During their time at university, they also honed their craft in student magazines and literary and debating societies and

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gained exposure to political and nationalist circles which would shape their writing.

4.3  On the Margins of Academia Administrative roles within the university also provided work for some women after graduation. In Swansea’s early years, for example, a succession of new graduates found work as junior library assistants. However, the college authorities had clear views on appropriate careers for educated women and sought to deter students from pursuing what they considered to be a ‘blind-alley occupation’ by limiting their employment to one year, despite protestations from the college librarian Olive Busby.143 Becoming a warden or bursar of women’s university halls continued to offer employment for a handful of graduates, with most candidates also holding postgraduate qualifications by the interwar decades. Following a series of scandals outlined in Chap. 3, which led to fractious relations between wardens and the halls’ residents, former students who were familiar with the college traditions and cultures were considered particularly desirable for these posts.144 Unlike the appointment of early wardens in the late nineteenth century, being Welsh was increasingly perceived as advantageous: in support of Mary Wilkinson’s application to the wardenship of Beck Hall, her former professor at Bangor wrote, ‘[S]he is Welsh speaking, and has lived all her life among Welsh folk, coming to us from the Abergele County School’.145 Many of the women lecturers in the University of Wales had also attended one of the constituent colleges as undergraduates by this period. The number of women academics continued to steadily increase throughout the interwar years, although they remained clustered in certain fields and few achieved positions of seniority. Women working in scientific disciplines usually specialised in botany or chemistry and were often employed as demonstrators in the laboratories or unpaid assistants. Nonetheless, some did pursue paths which diverged from the norm. In 1924 geology graduate and research student at Swansea, Emily Dix, worked as a research assistant studying coal measures in the anthracite district, and in 1933 was awarded a DSc for her research on plant fossils in the coal seams of the south Wales coalfield.146 She temporarily worked at the National Museum of Wales in late 1920s, before being appointed lecturer of geology at Bedford College, London, in 1930.147 Another recipient of Department of Scientific and Industrial Research funding was Aberystwyth graduate

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Kathleen Carpenter (formerly Zimmerman).148 During the 1920s she continued her  postgraduate research at the college on methods of dealing with local river pollution.149 In 1924 she was nominated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to act as expert on an investigation into pollution of the River Ystwyth. She subsequently went on to have an illustrious research career in North America as an expert in freshwater ecology, before returning to Britain and working as a lecturer at the University of Liverpool during the Second World War.150 However, it was the education and humanities departments which continued to employ most women, and it was perhaps unsurprising that the women’s staff common room in the University College of Swansea was relocated to the arts building in 1932.151 Most women remained on the fringes of academic life: pursuing research, supervising students or contributing to university departments often in a voluntary capacity. According to a survey conducted by the BFUW, there were 583 women lecturers and demonstrators in England and Wales in 1931 (compared with 3103 men), and 13 women professors (compared with 829 men).152 In Wales for that year, the University of Wales Calendar records 44 women lecturers and demonstrators and three women professors: Lily Newton, Professor of Botany (Aberystwyth); Olive Wheeler, Professor of Education (Cardiff) and Mary Williams, Professor of Modern Languages (Swansea).153 These women who broke the mould and reached the upper echelons of academia did not fit comfortably within dominant conceptions of a professor, with their gender often a source of wonderment or ridicule amongst some male staff members and students. In a testimonial for Mary Williams’s application for the Chair of French Language and Literature at the newly established University College Swansea, her former colleague, Victor Spiers, described her as possessing ‘in an astonishing degree the power of grasping detail, without losing the due sense of proportion—as women are apt to do—in fact hers is a man’s mind in the best sense of the word’.154 Although perhaps intended as a compliment, Spiers’s reference reveals how women were still considered intellectually inferior to men. Similarly, when Dr Florence Mockeridge was appointed head of the department of biology at the same institution in 1921, some male colleagues reportedly expressed their disapproval by referring to her as ‘Miss’ Mockeridge.155 Discrimination continued to operate in insidious ways. Following a negative experience at Llanelli Boys’ School in her role as French oral examiner, Mary Williams wrote to the chief inspector of the Central Welsh Board to express her dissatisfaction that the culture and arrangements

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made at the school were ‘not suitable for any woman examiner’.156 No provisions were made for her during lunch and, she argued, ‘a male examiner would no doubt have been invited into the teachers’ common room’.157

4.4   Marriage, Motherhood and Paid Work Marriage and motherhood continued to be key determinants of women’s career prospects during the interwar decades. Although the choice between marriage and paid work was perhaps not as stark as it had been for the pre-war generations, it would not be until the 1960s that significant numbers of graduates were able to combine the two.158 In her survey of Girtonians in the 1920s and 1930s, Pat Thane estimates that around 65 per cent married, while Carol Dyhouse suggests that a similar proportion, 67 per cent, of women who studied at England’s civic universities during this period did so too.159 This was an increase from women who graduated a generation or two prior: a study of students at the University of Aberdeen  showed that  45 per cent of women who graduated between 1898 and 1910, and 43.5 per cent of those graduating between 1911 and 1920, had married.160 During the 1920s and 1930s, marriage bars were implemented (or reintroduced following a relaxation of wartime regulations) in England and Wales. The stringency with which they were enforced reflected the fiercely competitive nature of the interwar labour market, as well as cultural assumptions about marriage, motherhood and work.161 Most local authorities operated marriage bars for teachers, nurses and civil servants, while some county councils also forced their female medical officers to resign their posts on marriage.162 Alison Oram suggests that by 1926 around 75 per cent of LEAs in England and Wales operated a bar for married women teachers, with this rising to between 80 and 90 per cent by 1938.163 The practice operated at the discretion of the local authority and employers, and was largely dictated by supply and demand.164 In Wales, for instance, rural areas such as Caernarfonshire and Cardiganshire employed a higher proportion of married teachers than industrial districts because of the difficulty attracting suitably qualified teachers.165 In academia marriage bars were not uniformly or officially introduced, but often applied to more junior members of female academic staff— namely those who were not deemed to be past childbearing age.166 Women’s status of seniority within their occupations, level of social capital in workplace networks and, indeed, age, often determined whether

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employers granted concessions. Other women resigned on their own accord, with the societal expectation that a woman would relinquish her employment upon marriage extremely powerful.167 Supportive husbands were also a major factor in whether women continued their work. For instance, Millicent Mackenzie (née Hughes), who was to become the first woman professor in Wales, married her colleague John Stuart Mackenzie in 1898. The university allowed Mackenzie to retain her lectureship on marriage, and, for the next 17 years, Millicent and John Mackenzie remained colleagues until their joint retirement in 1915. Later editing her husband’s autobiography, Mackenzie wrote: ‘it was even more his wish than mine that the position I had secured for a woman should not be lost, and the years of work carried on side by side at the College drew us ever closer together’.168 Another professional partnership was Professor Mary Williams and Dr Arbour Stephens, a medical doctor and member of the Council of University College, Swansea, where Williams worked. Like Mackenzie, Mary Williams was established in her profession by the time of her marriage, well-respected in her wider academic and social community and did not have children. By 1932, a survey undertaken by the BFUW on married women in academia found that the Welsh colleges had four members of married women on their teaching staff and two widows.169 Yet even those who were able to continue their employment on marriage faced powerful gendered norms which positioned the two as incompatible. Following her marriage to a colleague in 1936, Dorothy Coveney, a lecturer in German at Swansea, faced difficulty ensuring that she continued to be known by her maiden name in an academic context.170 Disregarding her request, the registrar, Edwin Drew, continued to address her as ‘Mrs Medlicott’ in correspondence, after having reportedly received instructions from the college principal to use her married name in all official communications and publications.171 Coveney sought legal advice from well-known feminist Helena Normanton, one of the first women to be called to the Bar in England and Wales and the first British married woman to have a passport in her maiden name.172 In her correspondence with the registrar, Coveney highlighted that this was precedent which already existed in the college, citing the example of her colleague Mary Williams. She also noted that if the use of her name in the prospectus would cause anyone to be misled about her matrimonial status, she could insert a notice of the marriage in the local press and would not object to the insertion of the following

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addendum after her name of Coveney: ‘(wife of W. N. Medlicott, M.A., Lecturer in History, University College of Swansea)’.173 Although some graduates did continue working after their nuptials, very few combined careers with motherhood before the post-war period. In her sample, Dyhouse notes that around 36 per cent ‘took time off’ for child-rearing, returning to employment later on a full- or part-time basis, while 12 per cent seem to have given up paid employment permanently, either on marrying or after the birth of a first child.174 As Helen McCarthy has shown, in addition to social hostility, working mothers faced logistical challenges: part-time work was incredibly rare and formal childcare provision limited or, in many regions, non-existent.175 Some mothers did re-­ enter the workforce once their children were older. Dental officer Margaret Lloyd Jones worked full time in schools in Merioneth between 1924 and 1933. Following a career break when she married and had children, she returned to work on a part-time basis in 1948.176 Ultimately, however, most workplace cultures were built around a heterosexual model which assumed the typical worker to be a man supported by a wife at home. Whilst close relationships between women did not attract the same level of contemporary concern that relationships between men did before the war, a more critical attitude towards female friendships and sexuality developed in the 1920s which, in turn, subjected unmarried women to greater scrutiny.177 Work by Alison Oram, Katherine Holden and Alison Mackinnon has developed a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which single women occupied a socially recognised position, and obtained personal, as well as professional support, from homosocial communities and networks.178 Long-term relationships and shared households between two women, who were often pioneers in their professional work, were not uncommon from the late nineteenth century.179 Although it is difficult to speculate about their exact nature, some of these partnerships undoubtedly contained the possibility of a sexual or romantic relationship, while others were sustained by companionship and emotional support. Their intimacy can often be glimpsed through the dedication of books, bequests of their estates, personal correspondence and overlapping social lives. Kathleen Freeman was a lecturer in Greek at the UCSWM between 1919 and 1946. From the 1930s, she lived with fellow Cardiff graduate Dr Liliane Clopet, a doctor in the city. Both women were members of a network of women writers during this period, and often dedicated their fiction to one another.180 Similarly, teachers Emily Phipps and Clara Neal shared a home in Swansea for 30 years, with Phipps only accepting the

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post of headmistress of Swansea Higher Grade School in 1895 on the condition that Neal would also receive employment in the authority.181 The two women’s lives were intimately connected at school, at home, in political and suffrage work and in their wider social circles.

4.5   The Interwar Depression and Graduate Unemployment Writing in 1936, Cardiff graduate and academic William Moelwyn Merchant proclaimed that the ‘possession of a degree is no certain passport to a “safe” profession’.182 Although this had never truly been the case for many students, by the late 1920s graduate unemployment had also become a pressing concern for educational authorities. A global economic depression, local authority cuts, falling birth rates and a consequent oversupply of teachers meant that graduates were in lower demand for jobs than they had been several decades prior. While students across Europe and Britain similarly faced an overcrowded labour market, levels of unemployment among the university educated were particularly high in Wales.183 The old gibe that Wales was a nation of teachers and preachers undoubtedly had some substance and it was prospective teachers who formed the bulk of the unemployed. Coupled with the limited diversification of the Welsh economy, hundreds of graduates struggled to obtain teaching posts in Wales between the wars. In 1924, 38 per cent of newly qualified women teachers and 32 per cent of male teachers in Wales were unemployed.184 By 1928, one report estimated that through its training colleges and university education departments Wales was training twice as many teachers as there were posts in the country.185 Whilst the plight of the unemployed male graduate began to gain public attention from the late 1920s, women’s unemployment did not attract the same level of contemporary concern—in part, because of the powerful social assumptions centred around a breadwinner model.186 Some critics even attributed the oversaturated job market to a supposed increase in the number of women students as well as the democratisation of higher education.187 Yet many women graduates had to support themselves or their families and had fewer employment opportunities outside of teaching than their male counterparts.188 During the 1930s unemployment amongst teachers also propelled large numbers of graduates into the elementary schools.189 Although, in theory, university-educated teachers had a competitive advantage over both their college-trained and uncertificated

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counterparts, widespread cuts during the interwar years prompted some LEAs to prioritise cheaper, uncertificated candidates. A scarcity of jobs also forced many graduates to seek employment elsewhere. Working-class students were particularly keen to obtain posts in their local communities after graduation, where they could contribute to the family income and minimise expenses by living at home. One student at Bangor, whose father was an unemployed quarryman, had aspired to become a missionary but family commitments forced her to look for a teaching post closer to home. Writing to Kitty Lewis, she expressed how even her decision to put her family’s material needs above her own vocational ambitions were curtailed: ‘I thought that I would obtain a post round about here, where I could help my parents, whereas if I went away, the expenses would be heavy. But there has been no vacancy here in Caernarvon.’190 If parents had more than one child, graduates were also expected to help fund younger siblings through their education as soon as they were qualified.191 By the early 1930s, unemployment among the university educated was rife. A spike in the Welsh colleges’ male student intake between 1930 and 1934 resulted in a proportionally larger output of graduates in the succeeding years and stiffer competition for a diminishing number of jobs.192 A National Union of Students (NUS) study into graduate unemployment again highlighted that it was particularly marked among those trained for teaching in Wales, noting that of the 138 graduates who left Swansea in 1935 a third were known to be unemployed.193 The situation had not improved by the end of the decade either. Of the 275 graduates leaving university training departments in Wales in June 1938, only 41 per cent had found employment in grant-aided secondary schools by mid-­ November. Students in England fared slightly better, with 59 per cent of university-leavers in employment by the same period.194 Concern about the high levels of unemployment among University of Wales graduates was even raised in Parliament in 1937, although subsequently dismissed as a problem for the university authorities to address.195 By the outbreak of the Second World War, the National Federation of Unemployed Teachers noted that nearly one-third of all the unemployed teachers they had registered to their Emergency Distress Fund were Welsh.196 They detailed the great lengths Welsh parents had gone to ‘to enable their children to train for what they must have believed was a “safe” profession’, and criticised LEAs for awarding grants and providing high-interest loans to trainee teachers when the jobs available were scarce.197

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The dominance of teaching was partly a consequence of limited alternative opportunities, but also compounded by the nature of university funding. As the only way for many to afford going to university, most women were bound into teaching by the Board of Education grants. Students in receipt of these grants were morally—if not legally—tied to a career in teaching. On the eve of the Second World War, an NUS questionnaire sent to students in the training departments at Swansea, Sheffield and the Institute of Education sought to find out how many would choose teaching if they were not obliged by the funding requirements: 40 per cent of respondents replied that they would not purse it if they were not bound by their grant.198 Whilst these returns did not disaggregate between men and women, anecdotal evidence suggests this figure was probably higher for women whose career prospects were even more limited than their male counterparts. These grants, then, proved to be double-edged sword: although they enabled many to go to university who would have otherwise been debarred by financial circumstances, they also confined recipients to an oversaturated field and exacerbated the oversupply of teachers by the interwar years. Unemployment disproportionately affected working-class and lower-­ middle-­class graduates—not least because most graduates from humbler backgrounds were confined to teaching as the only way to gain a university education.199 Students with limited means, who commuted daily from home, were also those least likely to be able to participate fully in collegiate life. A report by the Welsh Guild of Graduates highlighted that over 80 per cent of those unemployed had not been involved in social or athletic activities whilst studying.200 The enormous financial sacrifices made by families in the hope of securing a job for their children placed these graduates in a particularly precarious position. Even those who came from slightly more affluent families were not able to afford the additional training that other professions with perhaps better employment prospects required. The university colleges also become increasingly concerned about their students’ bleak employment prospects. Whilst individual academics and wardens of women’s halls had always sought to help their students obtain posts, the colleges had not assumed a formal role in career guidance up to this point.201 The University of Wales Appointments Board played an important role in helping students to find work after graduation, although the colleges never truly put their weight behind the initiative. Nonetheless, the creation of the board in the earlier twentieth

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century represented a growing admission that universities had a responsibility to help their students.202 The committee approached employing bodies, such as the Welsh Council of Social Service, and notified employers of the suitability of graduates for certain occupations.203 Annie Ffoulkes, who succeeded Silyn Roberts as the secretary of the Appointments Board in 1918, visited the constituent colleges to interview students in search of jobs.204 She lamented the concentration of government funding to the Board of Education, and instead argued that it should be diverted to other government departments or state-aided institutions, so that ‘the same class of children would still obtain grants and scholarships for the purpose of training and would have the advantage of a wider range of careers from which to choose than is possible at present’.205 By the interwar decades each college had a vocations advisory board whose main purpose was to assist and advise students on careers. Notice boards of vacancies in the civil service and other openings were placed in the main corridors and common rooms of the universities.206 In 1934 Swansea appointed a careers advisor to establish a more direct contact between the Appointments Board and students.207 Despite the best efforts of the various agencies and the board, there were ultimately limits to what they could achieve for graduates facing an oversaturated and narrow job market. By the mid-1930s graduates also began to take matters into their own hands, reflecting the growth of a self-help movement among students outlined in the previous chapter. Following a meeting in Swansea in 1936 of 50 graduates and former training college students, a branch of the Unemployed Graduates Association was formed in conjunction with the Welsh Guild of Graduates.208 Helped by Professor Richard Aaron at Aberystwyth, they collected information and reported on unemployment amongst students in Wales. Three ‘missionaries’ were appointed to organise meetings in the Neath, Port Talbot, Ystalyfera and Gorseinon districts and Kenneth Rees, Treasurer of the Guild of Graduates, was elected president.209 The association also gave practical advice to graduates seeking employment, advising them to get 100 copies of testimonials from their professors made because of  the large number of job applications they would have to submit.210 During its two years of existence, the association compiled a register of unemployed graduates, cooperated with local unemployment centres and clubs and helped graduates  obtain posts in local private schools, as Workers’ Educational Association tutors or in industry. It also found voluntary opportunities for some unemployed

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graduates to assist in BBC Listening Groups, with a few eventually obtaining posts in the South Wales Council for Social Service as a result.211 *** Although the rapid expansion of the education system had created some new employment opportunities for women by the turn of the twentieth century, these remained limited and their graduate status offered few prospects beyond teaching for most of the period under study. Openings in social and clerical work, local government and medicine provided alternative routes for some graduates, but the number of women pursuing these paths was modest. Ultimately, it was the network of intermediate schools to which the majority of the first generations of graduates flocked. Yet as the number of university-educated women swelled in the years preceding the First World War, the supply of qualified teachers began to outstrip demand. Many women quickly realised that a degree was not the automatic ticket to secure employment, nor plentiful career opportunities, that they had hoped. The war undoubtedly accelerated women’s movement into some occupational fields. Crucially, it provided women with a highly visible platform from which to demonstrate their professional competency and would give interwar campaigners the additional argument that women had proved their occupational worth. However, it did not fundamentally challenge the underlying gendered ethos of many occupations, and women continued to be confined to certain low-prestige and low-paid sectors of the workforce. A student’s background had a profound effect on their life-­ chances, with a university education never truly being the social leveller it was purported to be. Limited funding provision outside of Board of Education grants meant that most of the professions apart from teaching were closed to working-class students. Moreover, this overwhelming reliance on one sector was to compound the exceptionally high levels of graduate unemployment in Wales between the wars.

Notes 1. Cited in W.  Gareth Evans, ‘The Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act 1889 and the Education of Girls: Gender Stereotyping or Curricular Assimilation?’, Llafur, 5, 2 (1989), p.86. 2. Julia Bush, ‘“Special strengths for their own special duties”: women, higher education and gender conservatism in late Victorian Britain’, History of Education, 34, 4 (2005), pp.387–405.

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3. ‘The Higher Education of Women’, University College Magazine, 1, 3 (1886), p. 36. 4. The Cambrian News, 22 March 1895. 5. M.  C. Curthoys and Janet Howarth, ‘Origins and Destinations: The Social Mobility of Oxford Men and Women’ in M. G. Brock and M. C. Curthoys (eds), The History of the University of Oxford, Vol. VII (Clarendon: Oxford, 2000), pp.571–95; Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (Routledge: London, 1995); Gillian Sutherland, In Search of the New Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work in Britain 1870–1914 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2015). 6. Papers regarding the history of Aberdare Hall, c.1885–1925, DUCAH/32/1–2, Glamorgan Archives (GA). 7. Curthoys and Howarth, ‘Origins and Destinations: The Social Mobility of Oxford Men and Women’, p.594. 8. Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p.24. 9. Curthoys and Howarth, ‘Origins and Destinations: The Social Mobility of Oxford Men and Women’, p.594. 10. Sutherland, In Search of the New Woman, p.23. 11. Leonard Schwarz, ‘Professions, Elites, and Universities in England, 1870–1970’, The Historical Journal, 47, 4 (2004), p.946 12. Gareth Elwyn Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education 1889–1944 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1982), p.8. 13. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘The True “Cymraes”: Images of Women in Women’s Nineteenth Century Welsh Periodicals’, in Angela V.  John (ed.), Our Mother’s Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830–1939 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1991), p.70; Dilys L.  Davies, ‘The Problem of Girls’ Education in Wales’ (Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales, 1887), X/GB289, Bangor University Archives and Special Collections (BUASC). 14. The Welsh Outlook, 12, 14 (1915). 15. Edith A. Evans Obituary, British Medical Journal, 30 June 1973. 16. P.  J. Waller, ‘Democracy and Dialect, Speech and Class’ in P.  J. Waller (ed), Politics and Social Change in Modern Britain. Essays presented to A. F. Thompson (The Harvester Press: Brighton, 1987), p.17. 17. The Glamorgan Gazette, 21 October 1910; The Welsh Coast Pioneer, 14 November 1907. 18. Waller, ‘Democracy and Dialect’, p.16. 19. University College of North Wales, Bangor, Student Register, 1894–1914, BUASC. 20. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Registers, 1893, Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives (CUSCA).

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21. Glamorgan Training College, Staff Records: Appointments (Women), 1914–1939, ECOLLB/11/1-11, GA. 22. Aberdare Hall, Governors Meeting Minutes, 9 December 1913, DUCAH/1/1, GA.  Prior to being appointed head of Glamorgan Training College, Raw worked as an assistant mistress at Gelligaer School, Pontlottyn; mistress in the Government School and Training College, Cairo; assistant mistress at Clapham High School; lecturer at Hereford Training College; and warden of the hostel and mistress of method at Bolton Teachers’ Centre. 23. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Rediscovering Ellen Evans (1891–1953), Principal of Glamorgan Training College, Barry’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion, 19 (2013), pp.100–115. 24. Bangor Normal Training College, Staff Register, XD91/164, Caernarfon Record Office (CRO); University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Monthly Salaries Book for Staff, 1910–1915, UCC/ FN/Sal/2, CUSCA. 25. Ladies’ Hall Committee, Aberdare Hall, November 1884–1893. Cited in Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?, p.100. 26. Cap & Gown (October 1909). 27. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Council Minutes, 12 August 1887, Aberystwyth University Archive (AUA). 28. Beth Jenkins, ‘Mackenzie [née Hughes], (Hettie) Millicent (1863–1942)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2018). 29. The University of Wales Calendar, 1904–1915. 30. Cap & Gown (November 1904); University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Monthly Salaries Book for Staff, 1914–1915. 31. The University of Wales Calendar, 1896–1914. 32. For example, Phoebe Sheavyn, who studied at Aberystwyth between 1887 and 1894, initially taught in a board school in the Midlands and worked as a governess before returning to Aberystwyth to pursue further research. She held fellowships and academic positions at Brynmawr College, Pennsylvania, afterwards returning to Britain as a Tutor and Lecturer at Somerville College. In 1907 she took up a post as Special Lecturer in English and Tutor to the Women Students of the University of Manchester, and Warden of Ashbourne House. 33. University College Magazine (3 June 1897); University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Council Minutes, 1 October 1900, CUSCA: Alice Embleton also held this award in 1900. 34. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Senate Minutes, 31 January 1899; University College Magazine (2 March 1901). 35. Michael Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, 1850–1970 (Routledge: London, 1972), p.145. 36. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.145.

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37. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.145. 38. Marlene Rayner-Canham and Geoff Rayner-Canham, Chemistry was Their Life. Pioneer British Women Chemists, 1880–1949 (Imperial College Press: London, 2008), p.41. 39. Rayner-Canham and Rayner-Canham, Chemistry was Their Life, pp.56–57. 40. Rayner-Canham and Rayner-Canham, Chemistry was Their Life, pp.297–98. 41. University College of North Wales, Bangor, Student Register, Frances Burdett, 1902, BUASC. 42. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.133. 43. University College of North Wales Magazine (June 1925); David Roberts, Bangor University 1884–2009 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2009), p.29. 44. Two Aberystwyth graduates, May Jones and Dorothy Lenn, were appointed as inspectors under the National Health Insurance Act: University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, The Old Students’ Annual Reports 1913; Cardiff graduates Sarah Evans and Katherine Gisdale were also appointed as inspectors under the Welsh National Health Insurance Commissioners. Menai Rowlands (Bangor 1890) taught at Caernarvon County School before becoming a school inspector. 45. The North Wales Chronicle, 24 April 1914. 46. University College of North Wales, Bangor, Student Register, Rosa Mabel Lee, 1901, BUASC. 47. Mary Ann Elston, ‘“Run by Women, (mainly) for Women”: Medical Women’s Hospitals in Britain, 1866–1948’, in L. Conrad and A. Hardy (eds), Women and Modern Medicine (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2001), pp.73–107. 48. For an overview of women’s entry into medicine, see: E. Moberly Bell, Storming the Citadel: The Rise of the Woman Doctor (Constable & Co: London, 1953); Catriona Blake, The Charge of the Parasols: Women’s Entry to the Medical Profession (The Women’s Press: London, 1990); Mary Ann Elston, ‘Women Doctors in the British Health Services: A Sociological Study of their Careers and Opportunities’ (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 1986); Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History, chapters 3 & 7. 49. University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Student Register, 1895–1896, AUA. 50. The Medical Women’s Federation Quarterly Review, April 1940, SA/ MWF/B.2/1–7, Wellcome Collection (WC). 51. After the death of her husband in 1925, she gave up general practice for a few years owning to ill health, but resumed it again in 1932.

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52. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, January 1949, SA/ MWF/B.2/15, WC; The University of Wales Calendar, 1923. 53. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, 1923–1934. 54. Ruth Livesey, ‘The politics of work: feminism, professionalisation and women inspectors of factories and workshops’, Women’s History Review, 13 (2004), p.243. 55. University College of South of South Wales and Monmouthshire Student Register, 1912, CUSCA. 56. Lenn, who graduated from Aberystwyth in 1902, worked for the ‘Honesty’ Girls Club in York, before becoming National Organiser of the WLL.  In 1913 she worked as an Inspector on the National Health Insurance Act. 57. Jane Aaron, ‘Slaughter and Salvation: Welsh Missionary Activity and British Imperialism’ in Charlotte Williams, Neil Evans and Paul O’Leary (eds), A Tolerant Nation? Revisiting Ethnic Diversity in a Devolved Wales (2nd ed. University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2015), p.56. 58. Aled Jones, ‘The Other Internationalism? Missionary Activity and Welsh Nonconformist Perceptions of the World in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’ in Williams, Evans and O’Leary (eds), A Tolerant Nation?, p.70. 59. For an account of the diversity of motives and impact of Welsh missionaries, see: Andrew May, Welsh Missionaries and British Imperialism: the Empire of Clouds in North-east India (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2015). 60. Jones, ‘The Other Internationalism?’, p.80; Elizabeth E.  Prevost, ‘Married to the mission field: gender, Christianity, and professionalization in Britain and Colonial Africa, 1865–1915’, Journal of British Studies, 47, 4 (2008), pp.796–826. 61. University College of North Wales, Bangor, Student Register, Jane Gwladus Hopkins Jones, 1892 [loose clipping], BUASC. 62. University College of North Wales, Bangor, Student Register. A Women’s Bible and Missionary Union was founded in Aberystwyth in 1894, which aimed to band together Christian students interested in such work. See: University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Students’ Handbook, 1903, PUB/UCW/S/3, National Library of Wales (NLW). 63. L.  Eirlys Williams, Bountiful Harvest: The Story of the Baptist Women’s Missionary Auxiliary in Wales, 1906–1956 (Welsh Baptist Women’s Missionary Auxiliary, 1956), pp.63–65. 64. The Welsh Outlook, 1, 4 (1914), p.180. 65. The University College of Wales Magazine (May 1914); The Welsh Outlook, 4, 8 (1917). 66. The Mascot, 23, 1 (December 1913); The Dragon (1913–1914), p.279; Mary Davies, ‘Employment for Women’ (Appointments Board of Wales, 1914), MRF/2456, British Library.

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67. The Welsh Outlook, 4, 8 (1917), p.267. 68. The Welsh Outlook, 4, 8 (1917), p.267. 69. For an overview of the debate, see: Laura Doan, ‘A challenge to “change”? New perspectives on women and the Great War’, Women’s History Review, 15, 2 (2006), pp.337–43; Gail Braybon (ed.), Evidence, History, and the Great War: Historians and the Impact of 1914–18 (Berghahn Books: New York, 2003), p.86. 70. Janet S. K. Watson, Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory, and the First World War (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2004), p. 7; Sara Brady, ‘Public service and private ambitions: nursing at the King Edward VII Hospital, Cardiff during the First World War’, in Anne Borsay (ed.), Medicine in Wales, c.1800–2000: Public Service or Private Commodity? (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2003), pp.108–27; Susan R.  Grayzel, Women’s Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War (The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1999). 71. Reports of Departments as to National Service, University College of North Wales, c.1918, BMSS/39688, BUASC. 72. Reports of Departments as to National Service. 73. British Medical Journal, 15 June 1918. 74. Rayner-Canham and Rayney-Canham, Chemistry was Their Life, p.453. 75. The University of Wales Calendar, 1896–1922. 76. University College South Wales and Monmouthshire Senate Minutes, 12 March 1917. 77. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Women Teachers and Gender Issues in Teaching in Wales, c.1870–1950’, Welsh Journal of Education, 13, 2 (2005), p.71. 78. Emrys Pride Interview, 1964, BBC Recording, 4199, Imperial War Museum. 79. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Council Minutes, 28 September 1916. 80. Anthony Mór-O’Brien, ‘A community in wartime: Aberdare and the First World War’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, 1986), p.221. 81. Aberdare Leader, 5 June 1915. 82. Cambria Daily Leader, 29 October 1915. 83. Amman Valley Chronicle, 5 February 1914; Llanelli Star, 12 February 1916. 84. Western Mail, 2 June 1926. 85. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.316; Angela Woollacott, ‘Maternalism, professionalism and industrial welfare supervisors in World War I Britain’, Women’s History Review, 3, 1 (1994), pp.29–56. 86. Watson, Fighting Different Wars, p. 4.

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87. The Medical Directory, 1910–1938. The Medical Directory for medical practitioners in Wales and Monmouth lists 16 women doctors in 1914; 24  in 1918; 41  in 1922; 88  in 1926; 123  in 1930; 135  in 1934; and 162 in 1938. 88. British Medical Journal, 18 August 1917. 89. Western Mail, 14 July 1917; Brecon County Times, 9 August 1917. 90. Mary ‘Eppynt’ Phillips Papers, ‘Welsh Experience of World War One Project’, People’s Collection Wales, NLW; Beth Jenkins, ‘Women’s professional employment in Wales during the First World War’, Welsh History Review, 28, 4 (2017), p.665. 91. Western Mail, 14 July 1917; British Medical Journal, 7 September 1918. 92. Leah Leneman, In the Service of Life: The Story of Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (Mercat Press: Edinburgh, 1994). 93. Western Mail, 14 July 1917 and 18 October 1917; Brecon County Times, Neath Gazette and General Advertiser, 9 August 1917; North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser for the Principality, 7 June 1918. 94. British Medical Journal, 28 July 1917. 95. Carol Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History (Routledge: London, 2005), p.41. 96. Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History, p.50. 97. Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History, p.50. 98. Pat Thane, ‘Girton graduates: earning and learning,  1920s–1980s’, Women’s History Review, 13, 3 (2004), pp.347-361’. 99. Letter from Mary O’Gorman to Miss Pratt, 29 November 1929, British Federation of University Women, Civil Service Sub-committee, 5BFW/02/27, Women’s Library, LSE (WL). 100. Letter from the University of Wales Appointments Board to Miss Pratt, 30 November 1929, 5BFW/02/27. 101. Mari Takayanagi, ‘Sacred year or broken reed? The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919’, Women’s History Review, 29, 4 (2020), pp.563–582. See also: Anne Logan, ‘In Search of Equal Citizenship: the campaign for women magistrates in England and Wales, 1910–1939’, Women’s History Review, 16, 4 (2007), pp.501–518. 102. Leslie Howsam, ‘Legal paperwork and public policy: Eliza Orme’s professional expertise in late-Victorian Britain’, in Heidi Egginton and Zoë Thomas (eds), Precarious Professional: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain (University of London Press: London, 2021), pp.107–124. For an overview of women’s entry into the legal profession, see: Mary Jane Mossman, The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Legal Professions (Hart Publishing: Portland, 2006); Hilary Sommerlad and Peter Sanderson, Gender, Choice and Commitment: Women Solicitors in England and Wales and the Struggle for

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Equal Status (Routledge: Aldershot, 1998); Judith Bourne, Helena Normanton and the Opening of the Bar to Women (Waterside Press: Eastbourne, 2016). 103. Elise Burke was reportedly the first woman at Aberystwyth to obtain a law degree in 1922, while Gertrude Ilma de Jonge was the first to be called to the Bar. Megan Jenkyn Jones became the first woman student at Aberystwyth to pass the final solicitors’ examination. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1921 and 1932, AUA. 104. Beth Jenkins, ‘Dorothy ‘Dorf’ Noel Bonarjee (1894–1983)’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2020); J.  H. Baker, ‘University College and Legal Education 1826–1976’, 30, Current Legal Problems (1977), p.7. 105. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1927. 106. Reports submitted to the court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1934.  See also: ‘Aberystwyth University honours first female lawyer in the Carribean’. https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/ archive/2016/03/title-181429-en.html. Accessed 5 August 2022. 107. The Welsh Outlook (August 1924), p.221. 108. The Lady’s Who’s Who: Who’s Who for British Women 1938–39 (London, 1939), p.352. 109. The Census for England and Wales, 1931. 110. Elizabeth Darling, ‘Introduction to the lives of women in the architectural profession’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (July, 2019); Elizabeth Darling and Lynne Walker (eds), AA Women in Architecture, 1917–2017 (AA Publications: London, 2017). 111. City of Cardiff High School for Girls Magazine, 1938, DX263/11/31, GA. 112. South Wales Daily News, February 1926 [newspaper clipping], Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book and Newspaper Cuttings, DX158/2/1, GA. 113. The Census for England and Wales, 1931. 114. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.320. 115. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.326. 116. University College of Swansea, Student Registration Cards. 117. Cardiff Business and Professional Women’s Club Records, 1940, D196, GA. 118. Ellen Ross, ‘“Giggling adolescents” to refugees, bullets and wolves: Francesca Wilson finds a profession’, in Heidi Egginton and Zoë Thomas (eds), Precarious Professional: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain (University of London Press: London, 2021), pp.155–180.

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119. Isabel Graham gained a temporary post in the Dockland Settlement in London in the 1920s; Florence Evans (Swansea 1934–1935) took up a post on the household staff of a children’s house in east London in 1935. 120. See Women’s History Review special issue ‘Pearl Jephcott: Reflections, Resurgence and Replications’, 28, 5 (2019). 121. Phoebe Sheavyn, Higher Education for Women in Great Britain (International Federation of University Women: London, 1922) 122. The Census for England and Wales, 1931. 123. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, p.328. 124. Sheavyn, Higher Education for Women in Great Britain, p.21. 125. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Register, 1929, CUSCA. 126. Ethel Evans (Bangor, BA 1926; MA 1931) gained a post in the NLW. Welsh folk singer, Deborah (Dora) Jarrett Rowlands (later Jones) took a years’ course in palaeography before her appointment as secretary to John Herbert Lewis, MP for Flintshire. During the First World War, she worked as a Red Cross Nurse, and afterwards as Election Agent for Herbert Lewis’s campaign as a candidate for the University of Wales seat. She subsequently worked at the NLW and, in 1927, as secretary of the Gregynog Press. Frances Mary Morgan (Swansea, 1922–1925) became a ‘lady assistant’ at the BBC. 127. For example, Aberystwyth graduate Annie Davies became Warden of Youth Clubs of Urdd Gobaith Cymru in Tregaron and Pontrhydfendigaid in 1946, and secretary of Urdd’s monetary appeal in 1947. 128. British Medical Journal, 27 July 1918. 129. British Medical Journal, 6 December 1924. 130. Pamela Michael, Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill in North Wales, 1800–2000 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2003). 131. Michael, Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill, p.139; Glynne R. Jones ‘The King Edward VII Welsh National Memorial Association, 1912–1948’, in John Cule (ed.), Wales and Medicine, (Gomer Press: Llandysul, 1975). 132. British Medical Journal, 13 May 1933 and 1 February 1947. 133. Michael, Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill, pp.139–40. 134. Michael, Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill, p.140. 135. Newspaper clipping, DUCAH/38, GA. 136. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Teacher Supply and the Wales-England Border, 1922–1950: A Gendered Perspective’, in Jane Aaron, Henrice Altink and Chris Weedon (eds), Gendering Border Studies (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2010), p.99. 137. South Wales Daily News, 21 May 1925. 138. A Morfydd Owen scholarship was founded in her memory in 1923.

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139. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Register, 1918, CUSCA. 140. Jane Aaron, Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales. Nation, Gender and Identity (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2007); Katie Gramich, Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales. Land, Gender and Belonging (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2007). 141. Katie Gramich, Kate Roberts (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2011). 142. Michelle Deininger and Claire Flay-Petty, ‘The Cash Box and the Specimen Tin: Women’s Literary Networks’, Planet, 226 (2017), pp.39–45; Claire Flay, Dorothy Edwards (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2011). 143. Letter from the Librarian Olive M. Busby to the Registrar, 20 June 1920, UNI/SU/AS/2/1/96, H34, Richard Burton Archives (RBA). 144. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1918. 145. Letter from J. E. Llwyd to the Registrar, July 1926, RBA. 146. University College of Swansea, Eighth Annual Report of the Council, 2 November 1928, RBA. 147. Student Registration Card, Emily Dix, 1922–1927, RBA. 148. She was awarded a BSc degree from Aberystwyth in 1910, later receiving an MSc and PhD in 1925. See also: Catherine Duigan, ‘Kathleen Edithe Carpenter (1891–1940), ecologist’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2020). 149. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1924 and 1925. 150. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1928 and 1932. 151. University College of Swansea, Council Minutes, 1920–1945, LAC/115/A/2, RBA. 152. Carol Dyhouse, ‘The British Federation of University Women and the Status of Women in Universities, 1907–1939’, Women’s History Review, 4, 4 (1995), p.478. 153. University of Wales Calendar, 1930–1931. 154. Mary Williams’ Application for the Chair of French Language and Literature University College, Swansea, with testimonials, 1921, 2459, Mary Williams Papers, NLW. 155. University College of Swansea, Council Minutes, 27 June 1921. She was appointed to a professorship in 1936. 156. Letter from Mary Williams to the Chief Inspector Central Welsh Board, 5 June 1943, 766, Mary Williams Papers. 157. Letter from Mary Williams to the Chief Inspector Central Welsh Board. 158. Thane, ‘Girton graduates: earning and learning’, p.355. 159. Thane, ‘Girton graduates: earning and learning’; Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History, p.55.

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160. Lindy Moore, Bajanellas and Semilinas: Aberdeen University and the Education of Women 1860–1920 (Aberdeen University Press: Aberdeen, 1991), p.129. 161. On the marriage bar, see: Alison Oram, Women Teachers and Feminist Politics, 1900–1939 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1996); Williams, ‘Women Teachers and Gender Issues in Teaching in Wales’; Helen Glew, Gender, Rhetoric and Regulation: Women’s Work in the Civil Service and the London County Council, 1900–55 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2016). 162. Helen McCarthy, Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood (Bloomsbury Publishing: London, 2020), p.142;  Helen Glew, Gender, Rhetoric and Regulation: Women’s Work in the Civil Service and the London County Council, 1900–55 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2016); British Medical Journal, 29 November 1924. 163. Oram, Women Teachers and Feminist Politics, pp.60–63; See also: Alison Oram, ‘Serving two masters?: The introduction of the marriage bar in teaching in the 1920s’, in The Sexual Dynamics of History (London Feminist History Group: Pluto Press, 1983), pp.134–48. 164. The Merthyr Express, 18 October 1919. 165. Williams, ‘Women Teachers and Gender Issues in Teaching in Wales’, p.78. 166. British Federation of University Women questionnaire on married women holding academic appointments, November 1932, 5BFW/04/21, WL. 167. University College of Swansea, Council Report, 1935–1936. For instance, Dr Esther Bowen resigned her post of assistant lecturer in Botany after her marriage in 1935. 168. H. M. Mackenzie (ed.), John Stuart Mackenzie (London, 1936), p.78. 169. British Federation of University Women questionnaire on married women holding academic appointments. 170. Correspondence between Dr Dorothy Coveney and the Registrar, 17 October 1936, UNI/SU/AS/2/1/210, Q151–2, RBA. 171. Correspondence between Dr Dorothy Coveney and the Registrar, 23 October 1936. 172. Letter from Dorothy Coveney to Dr Edwards, 17 December 1936. 173. Letter from Dorothy Coveney to Dr Edwards, 17 December 1936. 174. Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History, p.57. 175. McCarthy, Double Lives. In particular, see chapter 5. 176. Annual Reports of the School Medical Officer for the County of Merioneth, 1924–1933 and 1948, Z/CC/12/55, Meirionnydd Record Office. 177. Sheila Jeffreys, The Spinster and her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930 (Pandora: London, 1985). 178. Alison Oram, “Repressed and Thwarted or Bearer of the New World? The Spinster in the Inter-war Feminist Discourses”, Women’s History

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Review, 1, 3 (1992), pp.413–34; Katherine Holden, The Shadow of Marriage: Singleness in England 1914–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010); Alison Mackinnon, Love and Freedom: Professional Women and the Reshaping of Personal Life (Cambridge University Press, 1997). 179. Sutherland, In Search of the New Woman, p.81; Mackinnon, Love and Freedom, p.117. 180. M. Eleanor Irwin, ‘An Unconventional Classicist: The Work and Life of Kathleen Freeman’, in Rosie Wyles and Edith Hall (eds), Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p.321; Deininger and Flay-Petty, ‘The Cash Box and the Specimen Tin’. 181. Avril Rolph ‘Definitely not a Doormat: Emily Phipps, Feminist, Teacher and Trade Unionist’, Minerva: The Swansea History Journal, 22 (2014/15), p.11; Hilda Kean, Deeds not Words: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers (Pluto Press: London, 1990), p.117; The Woman Teacher, 15 January 1937. 182. W. Moelwyn Merchant, ‘The Undergraduate and the Crisis’, in Lincoln Ralphs (ed), Young Minds for Old. Fourteen Young University Writers on Modern Problems (London, 1936), p.38. 183. Walter M.  Kotschnig, Unemployment in the Learned Professions: An International Study of Occupational and Educational Planning (Oxford University Press: London, 1937). 184. Deirdre Beddoe, Out of the Shadows: A History of Women in Twentieth-­ Century Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2001), p.84. 185. Williams ‘Teacher Supply and the Wales-England Border’ p.99. 186. David P.  Williams, ‘Ein Graddedigion Diwaith’, Y Llenor, 6, 1 (Hydref 1927). 187. Western Mail, 15 December 1937. 188. Report of the College Committee Concerning Appointments for Students, 1934–1935, UNI/SU/AS/2/1/210, RBA. 189. Schwarz, ‘Professions, Elites, and Universities in England, 1870–1970’, p.951. 190. Letter from Mair Eluned Jones to Kitty Lewis, 10 August 1930, 0210/26, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers, NLW. 191. Letter from Morfudd Morris to Kitty Lewis, 24 March 1930, 0210/26. 192. T. Kenneth Rees, ‘Graduate Employment in Wales’, Evidence submitted by the National Union of Students to the Youth Hearing, January 1939, SIM/4/7/7/8, Brian Simon Papers, Institute of Education (IOE). 193. T. Kenneth Rees, ‘Graduate Employment in Wales’; A similar figure was reported in the Western Mail, 17 November 1934. 194. Evidence submitted by the National Union of Students to the Youth Hearing, January 1939, SIM/4/7/7.

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195. Hansard, University of Wales Graduates, Vol. 326, 19 July 1937. 196. Western Mail, 28 April 1939. 197. Western Mail, 28 April 1939. 198. Evidence submitted by the National Union of Students to the Youth Hearing, January 1939. 199. Report of the College Committee Concerning Appointments for Students, 1934–1935, UNI/SU/AS/2/1/210, RBA. 200. Western Mail, 19 July 1937. 201. University College of North Wales Magazine, 39, 2 (February 1931). 202. The Welsh Outlook (April 1929). 203. Report of the College Committee Concerning Appointments for Students, 1934–1935. 204. Western Mail, 28 January 1930. 205. Annie Ffoulkes, ‘Need Graduates Fail?’, The Welsh Outlook (July 1929). 206. Mr R.  Humphreys Davies, ‘The Vocations Advisory Committee’, Omnibus, 44, 2 (Spring 1936). 207. Report of the College Committee Concerning Appointments for Students, 1935–1936. 208. Western Mail, 16 July 1936. 209. Western Mail, 30 December 1935 and 3 January 1936. 210. Yorkshire Post, 23 January 1939. 211. T. Kenneth Rees, ‘Graduate Employment in Wales’.

CHAPTER 5

In the Community

As part of her research into the health of elderly and retired coal miners in the early 1930s, Dr Enid Williams undertook medical inspections of a hundred former colliers across the south Wales coalfield.1 Born to a schoolmaster and his wife in the mining village of Aberdare, where she conducted most of her research, Williams had entered the Welsh National School of Medicine (WNSM) in 1922 on a university scholarship. After qualifying, she held a research scholarship in tuberculosis and subsequently obtained an assistant lectureship at her former medical school.2 As well as contributing to an emerging research field of occupational health between the wars, Williams’s study has provided subsequent historians with an insight into the profound and debilitating impact that miners’ work had on their health and mortality.3 But her work also raises questions about gendered cross-class professional relationships, and the connection between universities and their wider region. From their inception, civic universities had a symbiotic relationship with the communities in which they were situated. Often founded and funded by local people, they became civic projects and symbols of municipal achievement.4 In turn, by the interwar decades, most of their students were drawn from the surrounding region, and research and teaching agendas largely reflected local socioeconomic challenges and priorities. This shifting composition of the student body helped to shape the precise nature of student voluntarism and universities’ relationship with their local communities, as historians such as Georgina Brewis and Keith Vernon © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_5

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have highlighted.5 In Wales, there was a dual layer to this relationship: the individual colleges reflected regional differences across Wales and the specific socioeconomic context of their communities, whilst the federal structure of the University of Wales provided an anchor for members of the constituent colleges to be linked to an emerging national culture. Women graduates often first encountered social service during their time at university through  their involvement in a range of voluntary associations and philanthropic groups, with such experiences inspiring and preparing them for careers in education or social work. After college, the very nature of graduates’ employment meant they also played a central role in the public life of their towns, social reform movements and the broader civic landscape. Moreover, their university education gave some the platform, networks and resources to assume positions of responsibility in their communities in both paid and unpaid capacities. Indeed, historians have long shown that the local framework offers a fruitful lens through which to view women’s politics across this period.6 From the mid-nineteenth century, philanthropic and reformist roles constituted an avenue for middle-class women to carve a role for themselves in the public life of their towns and cities.7 Often excluded from or marginalised in broader institutions of power, work in their local regions provided them with a respectable channel to exercise political agency in ways which accorded with gendered notions of service. Particularly before they won the right to vote, women were able to gain experience of political participation in municipal politics as poor law guardians, on school boards and, after 1907, as borough and county councillors. Crucially, for graduates who did not pursue remunerated work or were forced to relinquish their formal employment on marriage, such voluntary roles within their community also offered them an outlet for self-expression and to use their expertise. This chapter examines graduate women’s relationship with the communities in which they studied, worked and lived. The first half explores universities’ changing relationship with their wider regions in Wales, while the remainder of the chapter focuses on the positions graduates assumed in their local towns and cities. The final section examines three women who used their graduate status and connections to the university colleges in a variety of non-remunerative ways.

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5.1   Universities, Local Communities and the Social Service Movement From their inception, the university colleges needed to forge close relationships with local institutions to provide students with vocational work experience and opportunities to practise their newly acquired skills.8 Students in day training departments honed their teaching in neighbouring schools, while medical students in Cardiff undertook their clinical training in  local hospitals—with the nearby docks and colliery districts affording them practical experience in tricky surgical cases.9 Scientific and technical departments developed specialisms relevant to the local environment and industries, English and History departments collected and studied local and national histories and literature, and the increasing development of social science as a discipline focused its gaze on neighbouring communities. In Cardiff, the main university building was purposely situated at the heart of the town’s commercial district with the courtyard designed to encourage students to mingle with the local professional class.10 More informal channels of cooperation existed between individual academics and local institutions, too, through their service on a variety of associations, committees and governing bodies. By the 1890s, connections between universities and their wider communities also became more formally established through university extension lectures, adult education initiatives and the social settlement movement. During the late nineteenth century, there was growing concern among university staff and students of the social problems created by urban poverty. This new emphasis on social questions and obligation manifested into the social settlement movement, which sought to ameliorate the social and educational life of local working-class communities. First established in East London in the 1880s, settlements soon sprung up in poor districts across other British university towns and cities.11 Staff and students ‘settled’ in working-class areas in an attempt to bridge class divides between universities and their local communities. Early efforts to develop a settlement scheme in Wales were first mooted in Aberystwyth, where a University of Wales Working Men’s Institute was founded in the town during the final years of nineteenth century. The institute aimed to provide an unsectarian and non-political social club for working men in the town and foster closer relationships between local men and members of the college.12 Aberystwyth student and later warden of the women’s hall, Caroline Tremain, and an English lecturer in the college, Lilian Winstanley,

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were both involved in the management of the institute.13 But, as the name suggests, its social activities and membership were primarily aimed at men. Other social service initiatives were undertaken by women in Aberystwyth on a smaller scale.14 The Alexandra Hall Social Reform Club in conjunction with the Women’s Christian Union ran weekly classes at the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), ‘playing with, drilling, and amusing some of those girls who would otherwise have had no playground, but the street’.15 On a more academic level, the club organised weekly study circles to encourage students to think about social problems of the day.16 Students also held fundraisers, collected unwanted clothes and shoes and volunteered at settlements in London’s East End during the summer vacation. There were similar developments in other civic universities of the period, with women at Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol engaging in a range of community work with women and children prior to the establishment of the more formal university settlement schemes.17 Women were motivated by a diverse range of political, religious and social factors. In Aberystwyth, for example, the overlapping involvement of the Fabian Society, Christian Union and the League for the Study of Social Reform in these initiatives reflects the varied altruistic, political and moralising aims of those involved.18 Underpinning this work was a wider ethos of civic duty and the notion that graduates had a special contribution to make in service to society. Moreover, as Brewis has argued, women’s involvement in social service activities often far exceeded their numerical proportion of the student body.19 As a long-accepted respectable sphere of work for women to be engaged with, this is perhaps unsurprising; indeed, the enduring association between middle-class ideals and gendered notions of service would persist for many more decades. Particularly during these early years, Welsh university colleges were largely concerned with social problems affecting Britain’s major industrial cities rather than issues closer to home. By the turn of the century there was, nonetheless, ‘a waking consciousness of the needs of the industrial classes in Wales’ and, at a conference in 1900 attended by past and present University of Wales students, steps were taken to form a university settlement within Wales.20 Whilst there had also been earlier attempts to establish settlements in both Bangor and Aberystwyth, and for the Welsh poor in East London, Cardiff was deemed the most suitable spot for a larger and more permanent settlement.21 This was founded in 1901 on the East Moors in the town’s working-class district of Splott. Unlike other settlements of the period, it was not a residential institution, but instead ran

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educational and social clubs, classes and concerts.22 The settlement scheme was predominantly staffed by students, staff and recent graduates. Led by Reginald Burrows, a professor of Greek, it soon became a focal point for socially conscious staff and students associated with the college. This included John Stuart Mackenzie, professor of philosophy, and his wife, Millicent Mackenzie, the first woman to be appointed to a professorial chair in Wales. Most of the activities were demarcated by gender, with separate clubs catering for boys, girls, men and women. When a summer camp was held for the settlement boys in Ogmore-by-Sea in 1910, women students initially worked behind the scenes helping with the organisation and sending parcels of cake.23 The following summer, the project was extended to include women students, with Millicent Mackenzie sitting on the organising committee, along with education students Gladys Jones, Dorothy Cooke, Grace Ware and medical student Grace Gulston.24 Settlement workers were not paid for their time because the founders felt that this would compromise the personal connections and genuine friendships developed at the house.25 But the voluntary nature of this work was also undoubtedly based on the premise that the students and graduates were materially better off than the local inhabitants and would have sufficient means to support themselves. This was not an unfair assumption. Two students involved in the settlement were sisters Lilian and Mabel Howell, whose family owned a successful department store of the same name in Cardiff. Lilian Howell ran the women’s club and was secretary of the scheme, while other women students helped at the settlement’s girls’ club.26 University authorities also saw the potential of the settlements as training grounds for their students, equipping women for new careers which were opening to them in social, educational and health welfare work. Career advice was disseminated through student papers on this, and informal talks given by visitors to the women’s halls.27 Indeed, as other historians have noted, women’s participation in social service activities provided them with important organisational, leadership and administrative skills which would aid them in their post-university lives.28 Despite founders’ aim being to break down social boundaries, the settlement was fundamentally underpinned by a moralising agenda and the belief that a superior educated middle-class ‘life of culture and refinement’ should be spread to those less privileged.29 Local members of the settlement were clearly aware of these implicit codes of class too. Writing in the settlement’s magazine about the girls’ club, one local girl wrote how ‘each

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member of the club must keep themselves as respectable as possible’, and that ‘some ladies give up their time to teach us’.30 That ‘ladies’ was frequently used to describe the female settlement workers reveals how class hierarchies still underscored relationships within the settlement house. Nonetheless, the scheme did have some success in bridging class divides, although this was largely dependent on the commitment and personality of individuals. As Lucinda Matthews-Jones has demonstrated, by the First World War, the settlement in Cardiff was to some extent effective in developing cross-class friendships which flourished beyond the institutional walls of the settlement.31 The university settlement movement went hand-in-hand with the university extension system—‘a drive for a wider spread of university culture across rural districts and among the working classes of the Principality’.32 From the turn of the twentieth century, a burgeoning adult education movement grew in Wales encompassing informal public talks and lectures, university extra-mural departments and the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA).33 University extension lectures were of a more popular and ad hoc nature, intended primarily for public interest and entertainment, whereas WEA tutorial classes were more systematic and, in theory, led to university access.34 The latter, in particular, was deeply entwined with the labour movement during the first half of the twentieth century.35 Richard Lewis argues that whilst some working-class activists welcomed the cooperation of upper- and middle-class academics, others were more suspicious of the motivations and intentions of their involvement. The university colleges took up extra-mural tutorial classes with varying degrees of enthusiasm.36 Nonetheless, individual academics such as Millicent Mackenzie and later Barbara Foxley and Olive Wheeler in Cardiff, and Mary Williams in Swansea, engaged with extra-mural work by delivering public lectures and classes as well as serving on adult education committees.37 Aside from a few key figures, there were limited opportunities for women to participate in the organisation and classes of the WEA and the culture of the adult education movement remained predominantly male for most of the period under study. The only woman on the provisional committee of the South Wales District WEA in 1906 was the educationalist Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, who played a central role in the association’s development in south Wales until her death in 1925.38 This gender imbalance was also reflected in the composition of learners. In 1911–1912, only 3 out of over 200 students in the south attending tutorial classes were

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women.39 In the years leading up to the First World War, the WEA district committee attempted to address this by establishing a women’s section: classes on literature and ‘home problems’ were run by women tutors, as were activities in collaboration with the Women’s Guild in Cardiff and the Cardiff Women’s Adult School. This improved the representation of women to some degree, but the initiative collapsed on the outbreak of the war and provision for women would remain severely neglected until the second half of the twentieth century.  According to  Alun Burge, some working-class women did  find  informal opportunities for learning through  the chapel, Co-operative Women’s Guild and women’s labour movement. Significantly, the Labour Party’s first Women’s Organiser for Wales, Elizabeth Andrews, referred to the party’s Women’s Sections and Advisory Councils  during the interwar years  as the ‘Working Women’s University’.40 A series of women students who were involved in social service initiatives in the first decade of the twentieth century carried this work through into their subsequent careers and lives. One former Aberystwyth student, Magdalen Morgan, delivered a course of lectures to unemployed men and their families in Cefn Coed during the interwar depression alongside her full-time employment as a Welsh lecturer at the Swansea Training College.41 The adult education movement also provided an alternative career for a small number of graduates interested in this work. There were a few openings for women on the administrative side of the organisation, with a contemporary of Morgan’s at Aberystwyth, Alice Wall, becoming an WEA organising secretary following a period teaching at Welshpool County School.42 Another graduate of that generation was Bangor and Cardiff alumna Maud Lightfoot, who took up a teaching appointment in India before working as a university extension lecturer in Liverpool and WEA tutor in Manchester.43 WEA tutors and lecturers were drawn from a diverse pool—predominantly ministers and teachers, but almost all graduates.44 Their experiences and connections nurtured as students were undoubtedly formative in their continued involvement in the movement. By the late 1920s, socially conscious university students, staff and graduates had shifted their attention from impoverished inner-city districts to the depressed industrial regions across Britain. As one of the worst affected areas of the depression, the south Wales coalfield became a prime target for social workers and investigators.45 Students from all four Welsh colleges undertook a range of voluntary activities and initiated schemes to alleviate some of the hardships endured by these communities most

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severely affected by unemployment, particularly as state services were cut. This ranged from local relief efforts such as collecting toys, clothing and fundraising, to involvement with educational settlements, workcamps and residential camps for the unemployed and their families.46 These activities manifested in the development of a student social service movement which was distinct from, but had continuities with, the earlier university settlement movements. Unlike the latter, however, many of these schemes sprung up organically in industrial communities and were largely directed by local people affected by widespread unemployment. Historians have also pointed to changes in the relationship between students and society in Britain during the interwar decades. In her study of student voluntarism, Brewis argues that demographic shifts in the student body, alongside the broader context of the depression and rise of fascism, contributed to the growth of  a student social consciousness.47 This was particularly visible in Wales, where the increasingly local demographic and widening social profile of the student body similarly influenced the precise relationship between universities and their wider regions, as well as the nature of women’s work. Both Cardiff and Swansea were located at the gateways to the south Wales valleys, where the universities drew a significant proportion of their student body. Since most of these students commuted from their homes to college, loyalties and identities were closely entwined with their local community and families.48 Many students also came from homes where members of the family were unemployed and therefore had first-hand experience of the visceral effects of the depression.49 William Moelwyn Merchant, president of the Cardiff Students’ Union in the 1930s, suggested that the vivid proximity of unemployment to the everyday life of the student in Wales meant that their engagement with the issue was more practical than academic.50 Rather than an ideological or moralistic motive which was often glimpsed at the turn of the century, a more applied response to the needs of the communities was developed through a social service movement among the student community in Wales. Neither, of course, were students and graduates personally divorced from the effects of the depression themselves as levels of graduate unemployment burgeoned by the early 1930s. Highlighting the ‘prime paradox of a University which has thrived on depression’, Merchant noted that the economic climate had facilitated an increase in students attending university, thus shifting the centre of unemployment from before to after graduation—although,

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as we have seen, this was not the case for women students, whose numbers declined at the peak of the depression.51 Student involvement in the social service movement—particularly through the Welsh Student Self-Help Council—was a way to ease hardship among the volunteers too. The organisation’s ideals were ‘service of self through service of the community’ and considered mutually beneficial to both students and the local communities. The motivations of volunteers continued to be driven by a broad range of political, religious or social factors. A key difference was the social profile of students involved, with many not as divorced from the reality of economic hardship as they perhaps had been several decades prior. Whilst it is often assumed that well-meaning middle-class women were parachuted into working-class communities, some did hail from the communities in which they worked. For instance, Cardiff graduate and the daughter of an unemployed miner from Aberfan, Megan Ruth Jones, volunteered with the Cardiff University Social Service Group during her time as a student.52 After graduating in the mid-1930s, she became a full-time Keep Fit instructor with the South Wales Council of Social Service—running physical exercise classes for girls and women across the depressed coalfield.53 Indeed, many students who were involved in voluntary social initiatives during their college years developed a strong orientation towards social and public service in their subsequent graduate lives. At the height of the depression, a series of ‘settlements’—camps with and for the unemployed—were established in the worst hit and most populous valleys by local communities and social service agencies. The first such initiative was made in Brynmawr during the summer of 1931. The Welsh Student Self-Help Council cooperated with a range of groups including the Brynmawr Community Council, the Student Christian Movement, the International Voluntary Service and other youth movements. Kitty Lewis, secretary of the Student Self-Help Council, oversaw all the local arrangements. The Welsh students were inspired by the ideals of the International Student Service and felt that such voluntary labour, undertaken by unemployed men in distressed areas, together with students and others of all classes and nations, ‘could go far towards creating a new outlook’.54 This, they believed, was ‘one in which the old antagonisms between classes and the old idea of labour as a commodity to be bought and sold, might give way to wider conceptions of cooperation, and of work as primarily creative and for the service of the community’.55

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The camp attracted student volunteers from across Wales, Britain, Switzerland, Norway, Germany and France.56 Inspired by similar schemes in Switzerland, the volunteers worked alongside the local community to transform dilapidated houses and a rubbish top into a swimming bath, paddling pool and gardens. The aim of the initiative was not only to help distressed areas but to promote internationalism and foster inter-class relationships.57 Work within the camp was demarcated along gender lines: men primarily undertook the manual work, while women volunteers (known as ‘sisters’), together with women of the district, were responsible for the cooking, cleaning, laundry, mending, minding children and looking after the male volunteers.58 Women comprised a quarter of the volunteers and stayed in separate quarters, although they were occasionally able to carve out leadership roles for themselves in the camp’s activities.59 After Brynmawr, on the recommendation of Bangor’s Self-Help Committee, students were invited to cooperate in a similar scheme in north Wales at Rhosllanerchrugog.60 University students and graduates in Wales were also involved in running holiday camps for unemployed men and their wives from the south Wales coalfield and Cardiff docks. The holiday scheme began in 1930 by the Cardiff University Social Service Group, who organised a fortnight’s camp on the Gower coast for around 60 unemployed men and boys from Dowlais.61 Students held fêtes and dramatic productions to raise money for the initiative.62 Initially supported by these fundraising efforts and personal connections, in 1934 they received a grant from the National Council of Social Service to procure equipment for a large camp at Llangennith, while a subsequent government grant enabled them to acquire Ham Manor, near Llantwit Major, as a holiday home for women.63 They also ran a holiday camp for girls from the mining valleys at site which, it was reported, offered ‘training in the use of leisure, an opportunity of doing physical training and playing games, and of providing some place for them to meet each other under healthy conditions, instead of on the street corner’.64 Margaret George, former student of Cardiff High School for Girls and the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (UCSWM), became an organiser for the South Wales Coalfields’ Federation of Girls’ Clubs in 1927, and subsequently warden of the federation’s holiday camp in 1932.65 By 1935, a panel of 200 students drawn from Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth and other educational institutions voluntarily carried out the social and recreational summer programmes to over 1000 men and

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women.66 To give unemployed miners’ wives a brief period of respite, students from the South Wales Domestic Training College for Women also helped to run nursery school camps.67 Students in other universities across Britain organised summer camps in Wales too. Welsh-born Leta Jones, who was studying at Liverpool, was involved in coordinating a holiday camp for women in Wales in 1934, obtaining donations from local and national businesses.68 The camps were run along democratic lines with everyone undertaking their share of camp duties. Significantly, Georgina Brewis has noted that the Welsh holiday camps were the only student camps to receive active support from trade unions, suggesting that they perhaps enjoyed a greater level of success because students and unemployed campers were drawn from more similar backgrounds.69 The Welsh Council of Social Service was founded in 1933 to coordinate the work of existing agencies and major providers of settlements, centres and unemployed clubs.70 Following funding from the Special Areas Act, the South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service created several paid posts to help coordinate social work targeted at women across coalfield towns and villages most acutely affected by unemployment. This included organisers of women’s clubs, physical education for women, homecraft and craft instructresses. These roles were deemed suitable for educated women and created opportunities for a handful of graduates. One of the club organisers, Olwen Davies-Lloyd, had graduated from Bangor in 1933 with a degree in Civic Studies and subsequently taught for two years before taking up the position with the South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of  Social Service.71 Originally from Griffithstown, Pontypool, her father was a patternmaker and she had attended her local county school in Abersychan.72 Like many others who took up posts as organisers, during her time at Bangor she played an active role in college life: acting as head of University Hall, secretary to the Economics Society, founder of the university’s Twentieth Century Club and Vice-President of the Students’ Representative Council.73 Such academic courses and collegiate roles undoubtedly influenced and helped develop the organisational and leadership skills which would prepare women like Davies-Lloyd for subsequent roles in social work. The Special Areas Act in 1934, which targeted help to the areas worst hit by the depression, enabled the expansion of social service work amongst women in these regions. Up to this point, miners’ wives had largely fallen through the cracks of government funding because they were not formally registered as unemployed.74 The Act gave added impetus to the women’s

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club movement which developed across Britain during the 1930s, in tandem with men’s clubs, by providing grants for them to obtain suitable premises. Meetings were held in chapel schoolrooms, institutes, disused shops and men’s club buildings. The women’s clubs often sprung up organically and were autonomous in their working, but frequently supported by the university and staffed, where desired, by students.75 The club at Senghenydd, for instance, originated as a sewing group founded by local mothers while they waited to see the doctor or nurse at the local antenatal clinic.76 These clubs ran educational, recreational and physical classes to alleviate some the stress and anxiety women in these communities endured as they struggled to feed and clothe their families on reduced household budgets. Activities included sewing, upholstery, rugmaking and embroidery as well as home nursing, first aid, dietetics, nutrition and Keep Fit. Lectures were also given by the WEA and YWCA.77 The movement proved hugely popular, and by the outbreak of the Second World War there were 275 women’s clubs active in the region.78 During the interwar years, then, students, academics and graduates continued to be involved in social work, but through a more practical response to the mass unemployment in their neighbouring industrial communities. Women played a leading role in this work throughout the 1930s: from coordinating local fundraising and material aid, to organising holiday and work camps for unemployed men and women. In turn, volunteering equipped them with new skills and experiences which often led to subsequent careers in social service. Strong friendships and even marriages resulted from the camps—for instance, Kitty Lewis married Swansea academic Idwal Jones in 1933 after meeting him at a Welsh School of Social Service conference and subsequently again at a workcamp.79 Whilst the labour movement was suspicious of the social service initiatives as an attempt to break organised labour power, the clubs and settlements did provide some relief and support for impoverished communities.80 Moreover, as Brewis has shown, not only did Welsh students derive inspiration from similar initiatives across Europe, but their work prompted similar schemes and events elsewhere too.81 There was not, of course, one monolithic reason for women’s involvement in social service initiatives. Earlier graduates, like Kitty Lewis, came from more affluent backgrounds and their work was underpinned by a socially conscious religious outlook and Liberal values of public service. Lewis, who had also been active in the student social service movement during her college years at Aberystwyth, spent three years as a missionary

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in India with the Presbyterian Church of Wales after graduating in the early 1920s.82 She was also involved in the Welsh School of Social Service, which was more academic in its orientation and held conferences and annual ‘schools’ on various themes related to the study of social problems in Wales.83 Underpinned by a Christian ethos, it was founded in 1911 by Daniel Lleufer Thomas as an inter-denominational and non-political body to coordinate the work of the churches as agencies of social amelioration. Like other schemes, by the interwar years the Welsh School of Social Service increasingly turned its attention to the social effects of unemployment and the stricken coalfield communities.84 Membership was strongly linked to prominent Welsh educational and cultural circles, with several women graduates, including Mary Ellis and Kitty Lewis, serving on the committee in the 1930s, while academics Gwenan Jones and Olive Wheeler participated in the study circles.85 But as the demographic of the student body began to broaden by the interwar period, social problems were brought closer to home. Increasingly students, like Megan Jones and Olwen Davies-Lloyd, had grown up in these communities and witnessed first-hand the effects of mass unemployment. Moreover, their experiences during college could be formative in their post-university careers and social lives. Spurred on by their involvement in the student social service movement, several graduates obtained paid posts in social work afterwards. Similarly facing bleak career prospects, graduates were able to find greater solidarity with other unemployed workers.86 Whilst recognising the value of the voluntary social service movement in providing practical relief to these communities, they also understood its limitations in addressing  wider structural and economic problems.87

5.2   Professional Positions, Voluntary Work and Academic Research From the final quarter of the nineteenth century, the foundation of the university colleges in Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff brought with them a new intellectual and professional middle class who made their mark on their respective towns. Ursula Masson argued that this academic class was firmly linked to the Liberal national project, producing civic and political leadership within their surrounding district.88 Women associated with the university—academics, graduates and the successive wardens of women’s

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halls—were respected figures who often played a prominent role in the public life of their region through their participation in local government, philanthropic organisations and reform movements. Their professional standing and expertise gave them an authoritative voice on a wide range of issues and meant that many graduates were firmly embedded in their local communities. In turn, their educational status gave them a platform and credibility to assume relatively prestigious roles in ways that were at odds with their marginalised status in broader political and professional cultures. The nature of their paid work as teachers, medical officers and social workers often meant that university-educated women assumed positions of authority in the communities in which they lived: academics delivered public lectures, doctors ran St John Ambulance nursing courses and teachers sat on a range of local committees. In their locality, where they had established reputations and connections, women were able to assume leadership roles in their professional areas of expertise. Arguably their professional profile also imbued them with the confidence to become involved in other aspects of public life too. Women doctors were particularly active in their localities, undertaking voluntary work as an extension of their professional concerns and expertise. Cardiff’s women doctors regularly delivered public lectures: Drs Erie Evans and Elizabeth Elder gave talks for women attendees on topics ranging from women during the Middle Ages, medical advice for the care of infants and teeth as well as the negative effects of alcohol.89 Others, such as Dr Mary Hannan, were honorary advisers to the Salvation Army.90 These activities represented an acceptable extension of their professional roles. Women teachers occupied a more ambiguous social status, especially those who were products of the communities they now served. Nonetheless, their workplace, social standing and education provided them with the platform and confidence through which to become local political leaders. For instance, as Ursula Masson highlighted, it was often women teachers who were a significant group in the Women’s Liberal Associations and later the Independent Labour Party (ILP).91 In February 1906, when the Aberdare Debating Society pondered the question: ‘should the parliamentary franchise be extended to women?’, the main proposer for its extension was Jenny Phillips, a teacher at Aberdare Girls’ Intermediate School. Two years later, Phillips, along with her sister, who also took part in the debate, was among the 20 women who founded the women’s branch of the ILP in Aberdare, with Phillips elected as chairman. A University of Wales graduate, Phillips had entered her local university college in Cardiff as a queen’s

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scholar in 1898 before returning to her hometown Aberdare to teach.92 Already embedded in the community in which she worked, her education undoubtedly gave added impetus to her ability to assume local political leadership positions. But for these university-educated teachers who had returned to their local community to teach, they often faced competing loyalties of class, family and gender. While they were not affluent relative to other professionals, teachers were better off than most working-class inhabitants in their community. Recalling childhood Sundays spent in Bethesda Chapel in the Rhondda, Gareth Alban Davies, noted the presence of schoolteachers in fur coats—a ubiquitous symbol of women’s affluence.93 Women graduates were often an unusual presence in these communities. During the First World War, Kate Roberts taught at a county school in Ystalyfera where she formed a close friendship with two other graduate teachers, Betty Eynon Davies and Margaret Price. The three co-wrote, produced and acted in a series of Welsh language short plays which were performed by Cymdeithas y Ddraig Goch (the Red Dragon Society) during the war.94 According to Nia Williams, the women were well known locally as ‘y tair B.A.’ (the three BAs), illustrating the anomalous status of women graduates at that time.95 As one of the largest occupational groups of women, teachers played an important role in the day-to-day life of their communities. Some historians argue that the narrow geological contours of the industrial valleys heightened the importance of community and that during times of severe economic hardship the professional class worked together with the working class to alleviate some of the worst effects. Sue Bruley, for instance, has highlighted the support teachers provided to families in Welsh coalfield communities affected by the 1926 general strike and miners’ lockout—on distress committees and with school feeding, which was conducted on a seven-day basis and throughout the school holidays.96 By 1936, one Methodist Minister described the Rhondda Valley as ‘narrower than a one-class community, it is almost a one-trade community: even the teachers are in the main sons and daughters of Rhondda miners’.97 Hilda Jenning’s social survey of Brynmawr in 1930 highlighted that 40 out of the 44 teachers in elementary schools were local and often came from miners’ homes. She also noted the important influence that teachers had in the wider community, writing: ‘many of the teachers have strong individual ideals and by force of character and integrity exert a great personal influence both on the children and on the quality of community life’.98

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Academics linked to the university colleges also played a central role in the social service movement. For many educated women, engagement in social work overlapped with, and was considered an extension of, their professional work. Professor Olive Wheeler exemplifies the extensive web of social, political and philanthropic causes with which many women of her generation were involved. Graduating from Aberystwyth in the first decade of the twentieth century, Wheeler became the third woman to hold the chair in education at the UCSWM in 1925. In continuation with her research into the importance of early childhood in psychological development, she promoted the nursery school movement and chaired the Cardiff and District Nursery School Association.99 She was also an executive member of the South Wales Coalfields’ Federation of Girls’ Clubs, and a regional adviser to the South Wales Women’s Voluntary Service. Undoubtedly informed by her Labour politics, Wheeler was actively involved in the South Wales District WEA, as well as serving on the Welsh Advisory Committee for Youth Unemployment. Throughout her academic life, she regularly delivered public lectures and addressed local associations across south Wales. This non-exhaustive list of associations, boards and bodies she served on highlights how women of her generation embodied the principles of social service through both their remunerated and voluntary work. Moreover, as the following chapter shows, she was deeply embedded in feminist networks and would use her respected public position as a springboard to stand as a Labour candidate for the University of Wales seat in the 1922 general election. Neither was Wheeler an anomaly. In most towns and cities, women who held professional positions were generally expected to be public-­ spirited and play a role in the municipal life of their communities.100 Women doctors, academics and teachers often held prestigious positions in their towns and cities and contributed to their local civic cultures. They were invited to sit on multiple committees, served as presidents of local women’s political associations and some, like Wheeler, stood as county councillors or parliamentary candidates. At a time when only a small proportion of the population were able to obtain degrees, their education provided them with an exclusive platform from which to assume authoritative roles in other aspects of their lives. Reaching adolescence in the early twentieth century, they were also a generation who had been instilled with values of civic duty and gendered notions of service. In turn, women’s professional concerns and academic research agendas were informed by social and economic issues directly affecting the areas in

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which they worked. In his study of English provincial universities, Keith Vernon has challenged the argument that there was a move away from a civic ethos and local concerns towards national, academic priorities across the first half of the twentieth century.101 In Wales, too, scientific and medical research was largely geared towards the needs of local regions—often reflecting the centrality of the mining industry. Dr Mary Hewart Jones was among a cohort of Welsh women doctors who dedicated their professional careers to the battle against tuberculosis during the interwar years, working for the Welsh National Memorial Association. After various house appointments she became an assistant chest physician at Cefn Mably Hospital and worked at chest clinics in Cardiff and Caerphilly.102 Indeed, the onset of the economic depression and mass unemployment from the mid-1920s had disastrous effects on the health and material standards of communities dependent on heavy industry.103 Wales was a notorious maternal mortality blackspot during this period, especially in areas with high unemployment.104 In 1934, when the maternal mortality rate of England and Wales stood at 4.41 deaths per 1000 live births, a rate of 11.99 was recorded in the Rhondda.105 These exceptionally high figures also shaped the medical research of a number of women doctors in Wales— an area which was largely considered within the acceptable professional parameters of women’s work. In 1930 Dr Dilys Menai Jones, of the Welsh Board of Health, investigated the nutrition and health of mothers and children in the southern industrial districts.106 Seven years later, Dr Nancy Howell and Dr A. Trevor Jones published a report on maternal mortality in the country, pointing towards lower standards of obstetric facilities and limited availability of hospital accommodation.107 However not all relationships between universities and local communities were mutually beneficial, with some doing more harm than good. Even during the interwar decades, researchers could reproduce structural inequalities and give a veneer of respectability to prejudicial views. Throughout the 1920s, a researcher in the Geography and Anthropology department at Aberystwyth, Rachel Fleming, worked alongside Professor Herbert Fleure on a series of anthropological studies of ‘mixed-race’ children in the docklands areas of Cardiff, Liverpool and East London.108 These studies were sponsored by The Eugenics Society and published in their journal.109 Supported by a significant grant from the Medical Research Council, Fleming’s work contributed to the formation of the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children.110 When Fleming first addressed the association in 1927 she told them

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unequivocally that the miscegenation between white women and black seamen was creating mentally and physically disadvantaged children, ‘born with a definitely bad heredity’.111 Crucially, the formation of the association led to the commissioning of Muriel Fletcher’s notorious report, which contributed to the long-term marginalisation of Liverpool’s black communities.112 Financially supported by shipping and local companies with vested interests, the report—rather than confronting racism—was eager to discourage racial intermarriage.113 By the time Fleming came to produce her final report in 1939, which entailed detailed measurements of over 200 children, the anthropometric methodology had been finally discredited.114

5.3  Marriage, Motherhood and Work in the Community Even for those women who did not pursue paid careers, a degree gave them an important cultural validation of authority. As Chap. 4 explored, very few graduates were able to combine marriage, motherhood and paid employment throughout this period. Women who had been forced to tender their resignations on marriage or did not undertake remunerated work for other reasons were still often engaged in a range of political, social and cultural causes in their communities. Many of these women made careers in voluntary work such as in the magistracy and a host of organisations which, Pat Thane has noted, could not have functioned so effectively without their labour.115 The motivations for undertaking such work were varied: some were driven by their political and personal beliefs, while others were spurred on by a sense of self-fulfilment and found work in their communities provided them with an alternative way to use their skills and academic expertise. Most were driven by an ethic of service, which was fostered by both gendered ideals and their educational experiences. It is, however, more difficult to systematically trace the activities of those who married or did not undertake paid careers. Adopting a case-study approach, this section examines three graduates who played a central role in the interwar women’s peace movement in north Wales to explore how some women juggled the competing demands of marriage and motherhood, alongside assuming leadership roles in the political and associational life of their community.

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After graduating from the University College of North Wales (UCNW) in the early 1890s, Charlotte Price White [née Bell] taught for a short period in London before returning to Bangor in 1902, when she married a contemporary student of hers, Ffoulkes Price White.116 Alongside raising two children, she had an illustrious public life in north Wales: she was a key figure in the region’s suffrage scene, secretary of Bangor’s Women’s Liberal Association and played a leading role in the interwar peace movement.117 Like many middle-class households, hers included domestic servants which undoubtedly aided her ability to adopt leadership roles in the women’s movement whilst her children were still young. She did, however, turn down the nomination to serve on the national executive of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, because she lacked the time and finances to attend with two small children in tow. During the First World War, Charlotte Price White became secretary of a north Wales committee that raised money for a Welsh hospital bed in the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, and later organised the education of a refugee Serbian boy at the UCNW.118 Her impressive organising skills were also reflected in her extensive committee work: she was chairwoman of the North Wales YWCA Girls’ Club committee, a seasoned political speaker in support of Liberal candidates, founder member of the first Women’s Institute branch, and on the governing bodies of local schools and numerous sub-­ committees.119 As a local graduate, she was embedded in the city’s academic community, and later served on the University Court. Significantly, once the children were older, Price White assumed a more formal public role when she was elected to Caernarfonshire County Council in 1926 until her death in 1932. Another leader in the north Wales peace movement was Aberystwyth graduate, Mary Silyn Roberts [née Parry]. She married Silyn Roberts, secretary of the University of Wales Appointments Board, in 1905, and the couple had three children. Influenced by socialism, her involvement with the Aberystwyth Fabians during her time as a student was a formative experience in the development of her political beliefs and life’s work. Like Price White, Mary Silyn Roberts also took on positions of responsibility in the war, encouraging women to grow more produce as the organising officer for Wales. Alongside her husband, she lived in south Wales from 1913 to 1922 and subsequently played a key role in founding and running the WEA in north Wales.120 The couple were joint honorary secretaries of the WEA branch in 1925 and, after her husband’s death in 1930, Mary Silyn Roberts became district secretary—the first such post in the WEA to be

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held by a woman.121 As secretary, she helped to steer the movement through the turbulent thirties and war years, doubling the number of classes during her tenure. Her leadership was also a major factor in encouraging more women to join, with significantly more women attending extra-mural classes in north and mid Wales than they did in the south.122 She acted as a lecturer and class tutor and held discussion groups with members of the Co-operative Women’s Guild and National Council for Women on issues such as unemployment and threats to world peace. Classes were run in both Welsh and English and, in her introductions, she argued that these issues were too important to be just left to politicians and men and should reflect the changing role of women in society.123 She also helped to build up the labour movement in north Wales, and during the 1930s sat on the advisory board of the Welsh National Council of the League of Nations.124 Lastly, Mary Gwladys Thoday [née Sykes] had studied at Girton College, Cambridge, in the late nineteenth century. Thoday spent some years in botanical research, lecturing at Royal Holloway College, before taking up a fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she met her husband, David Thoday, also a botanist. The couple married in 1910 and had four sons.125 When her husband took up an academic post at the University of Manchester, Thoday gained an honorary research fellowship at the same institution, continuing her research as well as undertaking some teaching.126 Similarly, when the family moved to Cape Town in 1919, where David Thoday was appointed to a professorship, Thoday joined her husband in the study of the flora of South Africa on extensive botanical excursions.127 Thoday was also active in the women’s suffrage movement, both in Manchester and South Africa.128 The family eventually settled in Bangor in 1923 when David Thoday obtained a post at the university college. Mary Thoday assisted him in much of his work, as well as authoring numerous papers herself and holding an honorary lectureship at the college during the 1920s and 1930s. Although her husband’s academic career undoubtedly took precedence, Thoday managed to carve out a name for herself within the field in her own right. Alongside her research, she also played a central role in the North Wales Women’s Peace Council, as its honorary secretary, and was an executive member of the Women’s International League and active on the International Council of Women.129 During the interwar years she devoted herself to the promotion of international peace. Her obituary noted: ‘[T]hose who know the prodigious amount of secretarial and organizing work, as well as public speaking, which she accomplished during the years 1925–1938, can well

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imagine how much she might have continued to contribute to botanical knowledge in a peaceful world’.130 Despite their differing political beliefs, Sydna Ann Williams has documented how all three women played a leading role in the interwar women’s peace movement and North Wales Women’s Peace Council.131 Drawing on their academic credentials and networks, they were all adept public speakers and in the late 1920s travelled around north Wales in a ‘peace van’ to promote the cause of international peace.132 These women became well-known figures in their own right, but were also wives of men who held influential positions in the community.133 As other historians have noted, their association with the local university college gave the various causes they worked for added prestige and an air of respectability.134 It also gave them the platform and established networks to orchestrate their work, and they were able to hold committee meetings for the social and political causes with which they were involved at the university.135 Although they did not have full-time paid roles while their children were young, they still assumed leadership positions in a range of political causes and, in Thoday’s case, continued their academic research in an honorary capacity. However, several conditions usually had to be in place for married women to be able to fully engage with paid or unpaid work in the community. All three women had supportive husbands and marriages of companionship, informal network of care and sufficient financial means. Varying points in a woman’s life cycle undoubtedly affected their engagement with social and political movements, with marriage and motherhood often slowing—at least temporarily—both women’s waged and unwaged work outside the home because of social convention, scarcity of time or patchy childcare provision. Whilst these three women were in many ways exceptional figures, the extensive organisations they were engaged with and the energy with which they undertook their work demonstrates how married women still found ways to carve out fulfilling roles for themselves in their community and made significant contributions to a variety of local, national and international causes. * * * Motivated by a range of political, philanthropic and religious agendas, university women played an active role in a plethora of social service initiatives within their communities and regions. Their graduate status or occupational position gave women the resources, connections and respectable

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standing in their local society to assume positions of authority which could be at odds with their broader political or professional status. Moreover, their experiences at university had also inculcated them with the importance of civic duty and, for some, their involvement in a burgeoning student social service movement inspired them to pursue this work throughout their graduate lives—either in a remunerated or voluntary capacity. By the interwar period, the local demographic of the student body in Wales, coupled with a bitter economic depression, increasingly influenced the type of social and voluntary work with which students and graduates were involved. The expansion and professionalisation of social service schemes by the late 1920s created a small number of paid opportunities for women interested in this work. For others, it provided an outlet for them to use their education, knowledge and skills in an unpaid capacity. As we shall see in the following chapter, these positions enabled them to develop respectable public identities in their communities which, in turn, would give the variety of social and feminist causes they were engaged with added credibility.

Notes 1. Enid M. Williams, The Health of Old and Retired Coal Miners in South Wales (University of Wales Press Board: Cardiff, 1933). 2. Welsh National School of Medicine Annual Report, 1932, UWCM/ ER/1/1/1, Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives (CUSCA). The Medical Research Council awarded her a Dorothy Temple Cross research fellowship for studying problems of tuberculosis at centres abroad during the academic year 1937–1938. 3. Ben Curtis and Steven Thompson, ‘“This is the country of premature old men”: Ageing and Aged Miners in the South Wales Coalfield, c.1880–1947’, Cultural and Social History, pp. 587–606. 4. William Whyte, ‘Building the Nation in the Town: Architecture and Identity in Britain’, in William Whyte and Oliver Zimmer (eds), Nationalism and the Reshaping of Urban Communities in Europe, 1848–1914 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2011), p. 213. 5. Georgina Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering: Britain and Beyond, 1880–1980 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2014); Michael Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry, 1850–1970 (Routledge: London, 1972); Keith Vernon, Universities and the State in England, 1850–1939 (Routledge: London, 2004).

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6. Patricia Hollis, Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government, 1865–1914 (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1987); June Hannam, ‘To Make the World a Better Place: Socialist Women and Women’s Suffrage in Bristol, 1910–1920’, in Myriam Boussahba-Bravard (ed.), Suffrage Outside Suffragism: Women’s Vote in Britain, 1880–1914 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2007), p. 157–179; Krista Cowman, Mrs Brown is a Man and a Brother. Women in Merseyside’s Political Organisations, 1890–1920 (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 2004); June Hannam and Karen Hunt, ‘Towards an Archaeology of Interwar Women’s Politics: The Local and the Everyday’, in Julie V. Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945 (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2013), pp. 124–141. 7. Frank K.  Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1980); Kathryn Gleadle, Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender and Political Culture in Britain, 1815–1867 (Oxford University Press for the British Academy: Oxford, 2009); Megan Smitley, The Feminine Public Sphere: Middle-class Women and Civic Life in Scotland, c. 1870–1914 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2009). 8. Keith Vernon, ‘Civic Universities and Community Engagement in Interwar England’, in Peter Cunningham, Susan Oosthuizen and Richard Taylor (eds), Beyond the Lecture Hall: Universities and Community Engagement from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (University of Cambridge: Cambridge, 2009), pp.  31–48. See also: Keith Vernon, ‘Engagement, estrangement or divorce? The new universities and their communities in the 1960s’, Contemporary British History, 31, 3 (2017), pp. 501–523. 9. University College of North Wales Magazine, 6, 1 (December 1896); The Hon. E. F. Bruce, ‘Women Students in Wales, II. Cardiff', Young Wales, 1, 11 (November, 1895), p. 259. 10. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Magazine, 1, 2 (1885). 11. Katharine Bentley Beauman, Women and the Settlement Movement (I. B. Tauris: London, 1996). 12. The University College of Wales Magazine (January 1898)  and (December 1899). 13. The University College of Wales Magazine (February 1903). Lilian Winstanley was appointed assistant lecturer in English literature at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1898 after graduating from Manchester: Mabel Tylecote, The Education of Women at Manchester University 1883 to 1933 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1941), p. 46.

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14. The Dragon (1905–1906), pp. 4–5. 15. The Dragon (1909–1910); Aberystwyth Students’ Handbook, p.  66, 1913, Pub/UCW/S/3, National Library of Wales (NLW). 16. The Dragon (1905–1906), pp. 4–5. 17. Carol  Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex?  Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (Routledge: London, 1995), pp. 221–223. 18. The Dragon (1909–1910), p. 20. 19. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 31. 20. The University College of Wales Magazine (May 1900) and (June 1900); Magazine of the University College of North Wales, 5, 1 (December 1900). 21. The University College of Wales Magazine (February 1902); B. M. Bull, University Settlement in Cardiff (The School of Art: Cardiff, 1965). 22. Lucinda Matthews-Jones, ‘“I still remain one of the old Settlement boys”: Cross-class Friendship in the First World War Letters of Cardiff University Settlement Lads’ Club’, Cultural and Social History, 13, 2 (2016), pp. 195–211. 23. Cap & Gown, 3, 1 (December 1910). 24. Cap & Gown, 5, 2 (March 1911). 25. Matthews-Jones, ‘I still remain one of the old Settlement boys’, p. 200. 26. Cardiff University Settlement Magazine, 1, 1 (June 1906). 27. Cap & Gown, 9, 1 (December 1911); The Dragon (1906–1907), p. 124; University College of North Wales Magazine, 11, 2 (March 1902). 28. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 32. 29. The University College of Wales Magazine, 23, 8 (May 1900). 30. Cardiff University Settlement Magazine, 1, 1 (June 1906), p. 2. 31. Matthews-Jones, ‘I still remain one of the old Settlement boys’. 32. The University College of Wales Magazine, 23, 8 (May 1900). 33. Joe England (ed), Changing Lives: Workers’ Education in Wales 1907–2007 (Llafur, Welsh People’s History Society: Swansea, 2007). 34. Vernon, ‘Civic universities and community engagement’. 35. Richard Lewis, Leaders and Teachers: Adult Education and the Challenge of Labour in South Wales, 1906–1940 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1993). 36. Lewis, Leaders and Teachers, p. 43. 37. The Welsh Outlook (July 1925). 38. Richard Lewis, ‘“The Guidance of the Wise”: The WEA in Wales, 1906–1918’, in England (ed), Changing Lives: Workers’ Education in Wales 1907–2007, p. 12. 39. Lewis, Leaders and Teachers, p. 42. 40. Lewis, Leaders and Teachers, p. 42; Alun Burge, ‘Swimming against the tide: gender, learning and advancement in South Wales, 1900–1939’, Llafur, 8, 1 (2002), pp.13-32; Elizabeth Andrews, A Woman’s Work is

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Never Done, Ed. Ursula Masson (1957, Republished by Honno: Dinas Powys, 2006), p.7. 41. Lewis, Leaders and Teachers, p. 194. 42. Alexandra Hall Registration Cards, Aberystwyth University Archive (AUA). 43. Cap & Gown, 1, 3 (February 1904) and (November, 1904). 44. Lewis, Leaders and Teachers, p. 204. 45. Stephanie Ward, Unemployment and the State: The Means Test and Protest in 1930s South Wales and North-east England (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2013). 46. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 89. 47. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, pp. 79, 90. 48. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 77. 49. W. Moelwyn Merchant, ‘The Undergraduate and the Crisis’, in Lincoln Ralphs (ed), Young Minds for Old. Fourteen Young University Writers on Modern Problems (London, 1936), p. 36. 50. Merchant, ‘The Undergraduate and the Crisis’, p. 38. 51. Merchant, ‘The Undergraduate and the Crisis’, p. 36. 52. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Register, 1931–1932, CUSCA. 53. The South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service, First Annual Report 1934–1935, 1239 310/1, CUSCA. 54. Miscellaneous papers concerning the work of the International Service Camp at Brynmawr, 1931–1932, 01210/28, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers, NLW. 55. Miscellaneous papers concerning the work of the International Service Camp at Brynmawr, 1931–1932. 56. The Welsh Outlook (August 1931). 57. The Welsh Outlook (September 1932). 58. Printed material relating to the International Voluntary Service, 01210/22, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers; Miscellaneous papers concerning the work of the International Service Camp at Brynmawr, 1931–1932. 59. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 102. 60. Miscellaneous press cuttings relating to voluntary and social work, 1926–1933, 01210/30, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers. 61. The Times, 25 November 1935. 62. Western Mail, 14 June 1938. 63. The Times, 25 November 1935. 64. Magazine of the City of Cardiff High School for Girls, 1933, DX263/11/11, Glamorgan Archives (GA). 65. Magazine of the City of Cardiff High School for Girls, 1933. 66. The Times, 25 November 1935.

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67. The South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service, Third Annual Report, 1936–1937. 68. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 104; Leta Jones, Coward’s Custard (Minerva Press: London, 1998). 69. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 105. 70. The South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service, First Annual Report 1934–1935. 71. She graduated from Bangor in 1932 with a BA in Civic Studies and a Teaching Certificate in 1933. 72. University College of North Wales, Student Registers, 1929, BUSCA. 73. Omnibus: Magazine of UCNW, Bangor (June 1931). 74. The South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service, First Annual Report, 1934–1935, p. 38. 75. Merchant, ‘The Undergraduate and the Crisis’, pp. 45–46; John Field, ‘Service learning in Britain between the wars: university students and unemployed camps’, History of Education, 41, 2 (2012), pp. 195-292. 76. Ada L.  Wright, ‘Clubs and Centres for Women’ in Wales and the New Leisure (Welsh School of Social Service, 1934), p. 54. 77. Wright, ‘Clubs and Centres for Women’, p. 54. 78. The South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service, Sixth Annual Report, 1939–1940. 79. Western Mail, 20 March 1933; Welsh School of Social Service, Printed Material, 1930–1932, 01210/27, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers; Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 102. 80. Lewis, Leaders and Teachers, p. 203. 81. Brewis, A History of Student Volunteering, p. 96. 82. Letter from Kitty Lewis to her parents from India, 1924, 0210/31, Kitty Idwal Jones Papers; North Wales Weekly News, 14 September 1922. 83. Welsh School of Social Service, Printed Material, 1930–1932; Welsh School of Social Service: Memoranda for a Conference on Education in Wales, 1881–1931 (Carmarthen, 1931). 84. Wales and the New Leisure (Welsh School of Social Service, 1934); North Wales Weekly News, 17 August 1922. 85. Wales and the New Leisure; The Welsh Outlook (November 1925) and (December 1931). 86. Western Mail, 20 May 1938. 87. ‘Letter from an Unemployed Student’, Omnibus, 42, 3 (Summer, 1934). 88. Ursula Masson, ‘For Women, for Wales and for Liberalism’: Women in Liberal Politics in Wales, 1880–1914 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2010), p. 128. 89. Cardiff Free Libraries and Museum Reports, 1908–1913.

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90. Contemporary Portraits: Men and Women of South Wales and Monmouthshire (Western Mail: Cardiff, 1897). 91. Ursula Masson (ed.), Women’s Rights and ‘Womanly Duties’: The Aberdare Women’s Liberal Association (South Wales Record Society: Cardiff, 2005), p. 57. 92. University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Student Registers, 1896, CUSCA. 93. Gareth Alban Davies, ‘The Fur Coat’, Planet, 102 (1993). 94. Katie Gramich, ‘Kate Roberts (1891–1985), author’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2015). 95. Cited in Katie Gramich, Kate Roberts (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2011), p. 8. 96. Sue Bruley, ‘The Politics of Food: Gender, Family, Community and Collective Feeding in South Wales in the General Strike and Miners’ Lockout of 1926’, Twentieth Century British History, 18, 1 (2007), pp. 71–72. See also The Woman Teacher, 17 September 1926. 97. Reginald J. Barker, Christ in the Valley of Unemployment (1936), p. 14; Cited in Ward, Unemployment and the State in Britain, p. 10. 98. Hilda Jennings, Brynmawr. A Study of a Distressed Area (London, 1934), p. 127. 99. Beth Jenkins, ‘Dame Olive Annie Wheeler (1886–1963), psychologist and educationist’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2021). 100. Louisa Martindale, The Woman Doctor and her Future (Mills and Boon: London, 1922), p. 84. 101. Vernon, ‘Civic Universities and Community Engagement’. 102. British Medical Journal, 30 September 1989. 103. Steven Thompson, Unemployment, Poverty and Health in Interwar South Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2006). 104. Medical Officer, 29 May 1937; Irvine Loudon, ‘On Maternal and Infant Mortality 1900–1960’, Social History of Medicine, 4 (1991), pp. 29–73; Steven Thompson, ‘Unemployment, Poverty and Women’s Health in Inter-­war South Wales’, in Pamela Michael and Charles Webster (eds), Health and Society in Twentieth-Century Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2006), pp.  98–122; Mari A.  Williams, ‘The Growing Toll of Motherhood’: Maternal Mortality in Wales, 1918–1939’, in Michael and Webster (eds), Health and Society in Twentieth-Century Wales, p. 124. 105. Mari A. Williams, A Forgotten Army: Female Munitions Workers of South Wales, 1939–1945 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2002), p. 26. 106. The Times, 29 December 1930. 107. Medical Officer, 29 May 1937, p. 215. 108. Gavin Schaffer, Racial Science and British Society, 1930–62 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2008), p. 16.

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109. Lucy Bland and Lesley Hall, ‘Eugenics in Britain: The View from the Metropole’, in Philippa Levine and Alison Bashford (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010), p.  219; Miss R.  M. Fleming, ‘Anthropological Studies of Children’, Eugenics Review, XVIII (1927); Miss R. M. Fleming ‘Heredity in Racial Mixtures’, Eugenics Review (1930); Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1927 and 1930. 110. Paul B. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1986), p. 112. 111. Schaffer, Racial Science and British Society, p. 22. 112. Mark Christian, ‘The Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 21, 2/3 (2008), pp. 213–241. 113. Reports submitted to the Court of Governors, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1928. 114. Bland and Hall, ‘Eugenics in Britain: The View from the Metropole’, p. 220. 115. Pat Thane, ‘Girton graduates: earning and learning, 1920s–1980s’, Women’s History Review, 13, 3 (2004), p. 353. 116. University College of North Wales Student Register, 1889–1898, BUSCA. 117. National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, West Lancashire, West Cheshire and North Wales Federation, Second Annual Report, 1912, 2LSW/E/09/63, Women’s Library, London. 118. I am grateful to Neil Evans for discussions on Charlotte Price White. See also Neil Evans, ‘Charlotte Price White [née Bell] (1873–1932), Dictionary of Welsh Biography (forthcoming). 119. Evans, ‘Charlotte Price White [née Bell]’. 120. Ron Brooks, ‘Adult Education in North Wales 1908–1945’, in Joe England (ed), Changing Lives: Workers’ Education in Wales 1907–2007 (Llafur, Welsh People’s History Society: Swansea, 2007), p. 54. 121. I am grateful to Annie Williams for sharing her research on Mary Silyn Roberts. 122. The Welsh Outlook (July 1928). 123. Brooks, ‘Adult Education in North Wales’, p. 59. 124. Andrews, A Woman’s Work Is Never Done, p. 30. 125. ‘Mary Gladys Thoday Obituary’, Nature, 152, 9 October 1943. 126. Manchester Courier, 28 October 1913. 127. ‘Mary Gladys Thoday Obituary.’ 128. Cheshire Observer, 9 October 1943. Thoday served as Hon. Secretary of the Manchester District Federation of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1914–1918.

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129. The Lady’s Who’s Who: Who’s Who for British Women 1938–39 (London, 1939), p.  406; The Welsh Outlook, 17, 7 (July 1930); Papers of Mrs Gwladys Thoday, 37223, BUSCA. 130. ‘Mary Gladys Thoday Obituary’. 131. Sydna Ann Williams, ‘“Law, Not War—Hedd Nid Cledd”: Women and the Peace Movement in North Wales, 1926–1945’, Welsh History Review, 18, 1 (1995), pp. 63-91. 132. The Welsh Outlook, 14, 11 (November 1927). 133. Williams, ‘“Law, not War—Hedd Nid Cledd”’, p. 64. 134. Williams, ‘“Law, Not War—Hedd Nid Cledd”’, p.  77; Kay Cook and Neil Evans, ‘“The Petty Antics of the Bell-Ringing Boisterous Band”? The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales, 1890–1918’, in Angela V.  John (ed), Our Mothers’ Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830–1939 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1991), p. 170. 135. Cook and Evans, ‘The Petty Antics of the Bell-Ringing Boisterous Band’; Ryland Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales 1866–1928 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2009), p. 272.

CHAPTER 6

Networks

At their inaugural meeting, the governors of Aberdare Hall expressed their hope that the institution would become a ‘natural rendezvous for all women engaged in Education in Wales’.1 Founded and funded by early feminist networks, women’s university halls not only enabled generations of women to benefit from a higher education, but also provided a hub in which such networks could flourish. Over three decades later in 1933, the signatures scrawled in Aberdare Hall’s visitor book are clear testimony that the early governors’ aspirations would be realised. A selection of the visitors that year included headmistresses and teachers of local girls’ schools, principals of nearby women’s teacher training colleges, women doctors and academic staff, National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) representatives, wardens of other Welsh women’s university halls, local women journalists, former residents and Ministry of Labour representatives.2 This non-exhaustive list of individuals and associations reveals the extensive social networks of educated women which were woven around such institutions. From the mid-1880s through to the post-war period, the establishment of girls’ intermediate schools and women’s university residential halls provided an important institutional focus for a women’s educational and feminist culture in Wales. This chapter traces the web of networks which were spun around them, and explores how they were forged, sustained and deployed for a variety of causes. Historians have detailed how women adopted the professionalising strategy of ‘institution building’ in the final decades of the nineteenth © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_6

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century: developing a network of women’s organisations and institutions to support their entry into newly opened occupations and wider society.3 As we have seen, separatism was encouraged by mainstream educational cultures and reflected in the general spatial layout and institutional practices of the universities, while separate intermediate schooling for girls and boys cemented this tradition from a young age. Prior to the foundation of the women’s university halls and schools, there were few institutional spaces available to women in Wales. Initially founded as an expedient response to their exclusion or marginalisation in broader educational structures and professional society, these spaces nurtured a distinct women’s culture—fostering friendships, common experiences and shared aims. Carol Dyhouse argues that networks of relationships and activities concentrated in, but reaching beyond, women’s halls constituted an important part of a ‘feminine subculture’ on the margins of university life; moreover, this subculture, she argues, was strongly imbued with feminism.4 Indeed, women’s education and feminism were deeply intertwined during the final decades of the nineteenth century. A burgeoning women’s movement had acted as the stimulus for widening educational opportunities. In turn, as more women took advantage of these opportunities, their educational platforms provided them with further proof of their worthiness of the vote and admission to wider occupational fields. The new institutional spaces also helped sustain inter-generational women’s networks across the education system and at different spatial scales. Significantly, at certain times and places, these networks could be transformed into a powerful political force.5 The locale has been a particularly fruitful framework of analysis for historians in revealing overlapping associational memberships, personal friendship networks and more formal methods of cooperation between varying sectional interests.6 For graduate women, the personal and professional networks they forged throughout their education and working lives were used to orchestrate coordinated campaigns on suffrage, workplace equality, targeted representation of women on political and civic institutions, and advance social and political agendas in their communities more broadly.7 These networks operated at several levels—local, national (Welsh and British) and international—and could be mobilised, or prioritised, for a range of different movements at different times. * * *

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As Chap. 2 illustrated, the early campaign for girls’ education in Wales during the last quarter of the nineteenth century united a network of prominent professional women who advocated for opportunities for girls to be included in the national programme of educational reform. The group of women behind the Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales (APEGW) had Welsh connections but had met through a variety of English educational establishments, namely the prestigious North London Collegiate School and Cambridge Training College.8 Inspired by and anchored in broader British and international feminist networks, these women sought to ensure subsequent generations of Welsh women were able to benefit from an education they had had to seek elsewhere. The association’s meetings were held at the constituent university colleges and papers were read at the National Eisteddfod which, in turn, situated this feminist campaign within a Welsh framework and tied it to a burgeoning nationalist movement.9 These early networks pre-dated, but gained impetus from, the expansion of women’s education in Wales and their accompanying institutions. Records and subscription lists for the first women’s halls in Cardiff, Aberystwyth and Bangor are revealing of the extensive connections which underpinned the women’s education movement. The first generation of women to gain positions of seniority in the Welsh education system—as headmistresses of the prominent girls’ schools, in the training colleges or in the universities—were closely linked to leaders of the girls’ education movement across Wales and Britain. Ethel Hurlbatt, the first warden of Aberdare Hall, had studied at Somerville College, Oxford, and subsequently took up the post of principal of Bedford College, London, in 1898, when her sister succeeded her as warden  in Cardiff. During her tenure at Aberdare Hall, she was honorary secretary of the APEGW, governor of Howell’s School, Llandaff, and a staunch promoter of advancing women’s education in Wales.10 The early years of the halls were very much a process of trial and error, and the successive wardens canvassed and sought advice from their counterparts in sister colleges. Representing Bangor at an Aberdare Hall governors’ meeting, Lady Margaret Verney noted that ‘they were watching one another’s colleges to see how the experiment of the mixing of the education of men and women succeeded’.11 In turn, the University of Wales increasingly provided the institutional focus for women students at the constituent colleges to envisage themselves as part of a broader community of Welsh educated women.

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This was fostered through the publication of regular letters from sister halls in the college magazine and competitions between the colleges’ women’s debating and sports societies. That a significant number of the headmistresses and teachers in the new intermediate schools were drawn from the first generation of Welsh graduates served to strengthen ties between the secondary schools and university colleges by the turn of the century. Many of these women maintained informal and formal contact with their alma mater, sitting on committees, serving on boards and councils and holding leadership positions in a range of women’s organisations. Among the earliest cohorts of women to enter the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (UCSWM) in 1886, Mabel Vivian taught as a classics mistress in Norwich before being appointed as the first headmistress of the girls’ intermediate school in Newport in 1896.12 Throughout her 35-year headship, she was a governor of Aberdare Hall, served on the Court of Governors and Council of her former university college, and was chair of the Newport branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).13 Similarly, Aberystwyth graduate Annie Dobell became headmistress of the Pontypool County Girls’ School the following year in 1897. She held office as President of the Old Students’ Association, served on the Council of her former college, was honorary secretary of the APEGW, sat on the Central Welsh Board and the Welsh County Schools Association, and was actively involved in the Free Church League for Women’s Suffrage. Until ill health compelled her to resign, Dobell was also a member of the UCSWM Council.14 Since this first generation of women graduates staffed the new county schools across Wales, they played a pivotal role in fostering further educational and employment opportunities for subsequent generations. They also created strong links between the schools in which they taught and their former university colleges, which often lasted for several generations. May Brown (née Harris), who studied at Aberystwyth in the 1920s, recalled the influence her teacher had in her choice of college: ‘coming from Porth County School where my headmistress was constantly proclaiming “There’s no place like Aber”, where could I go but to the “College by the Sea” to join the large contingent of Rhondda students’.15 In the university colleges, too, students were taught by an earlier generation of graduates, with several of the successive lecturers in the University of Wales having previously attended one of the constituent colleges.16 This served to strengthen connections across the Welsh educational infrastructure.

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Significantly, this early cohort of university-educated teachers played an important role in nurturing their pupils’ aspirations and often embedded their feminist beliefs within the school’s ethos.17 Mary Collin, Headmistress of Cardiff High School for Girls, was also a governor of Aberdare Hall, a member of the UCSWM Council, and had close links with women graduates across the city.18 Drawing on these connections, she regularly invited local women academics and doctors to give lectures to her pupils, presenting them with visible role models of professional women.19 The school also produced pamphlets outlining possible careers for girls and annually reported on the achievements of past pupils in its magazine.20 Collin believed that training must be provided for girls to enter professional and business employment, placing emphasis on the sciences in the curriculum and encouraging her pupils to participate in extra-curricular activities. The debating society met every term and held an annual debate with the neighbouring boys’ school, with topics debated including equal pay and women’s enfranchisement.21 Such activities provided girls with important training for leadership roles and equipped them with the skills necessary for participating in public life. Moreover, this first generation of graduate headmistresses often adhered closely to class-based codes respectability in their attempts to advance girls’ education. A graduate of Bedford College, London, and having previously taught at prestigious schools in Notting Hill and Nottingham, Mary Collin tried to model the school on girls’ public schools in England.22 She changed the name from ‘intermediate school’, employed graduates on the staff and adopted relatively high fees. Such efforts to create a socially exclusive establishment, as Sara Delamont has shown, served to reproduce structural inequalities and academic elites—an outcome which was at odds with the original ethos of the Welsh education movement.23 Strategies of exclusivity were also adopted by women through their formation of associations to which only graduates were admitted. Membership of bodies such as the British Federation of University Women (BFUW) connected them to a broader network of educated women across Britain and internationally, whilst regional branches formalised networks between local women graduates. Originating in Manchester in 1907, the BFUW aimed to strengthen women’s position in academic life. The federation was initially concerned with the powerlessness of women in academic communities but became broadly committed to supporting women graduates in the labour market and in wider public life. Its founding objectives were to encourage independent research by women, facilitate

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networks and cooperation between women at different universities and ‘stimulate the interest of women in municipal and public life’.24 Dyhouse argues that the balance between these two concerns, on the one hand, networks of women within universities, and on the other, the wider networks of women in public life, shifted through time.25 The BFUW sought to provide practical support for women in academia and was concerned with the difficulties younger women faced securing grants and fellowships which would allow them to embark on scholarly research. In 1910 the federation established an annual fellowship to help women undertake further study, with women who had demonstrated potential through published work eligible for a competitive award of £150. Mary Williams, an Aberystwyth graduate and later the first woman professor at the University College of Swansea, was one of five recipients of the fellowship in 1914.26 The BFUW also compiled a list of other fellowships open to women, with Annie Dobell researching the positions available in Wales.27 Cardiff was one of the first regional branches formed in 1909, alongside others in Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield.28 A branch was also created in Bangor the following year to represent the interests of university women in north Wales, but it was dissolved soon after because of the difficulties its members encountered holding meetings in such a large and sparsely populated locality.29 It was not until after the First World War that Aberystwyth and Bangor would have separate organisations. The Cardiff and District BFUW branch therefore initially acted as the main representative of Welsh interests in the wider organisation and maintained close correspondence with female graduates from their sister colleges. The branch’s membership included notable graduates in the city: Mabel Howell, Mary Collin, Annie Dobell, Erie Evans and academics at the university Millicent Mackenzie and Barbara Foxley. The prominent role of headmistresses in the organisation was evident when it was decided that the branch’s annual meeting should not coincide with the annual conference of the Association of Headmistresses, of which Collin was a member of the executive.30 Most of the branch’s initiatives were linked to advancing women’s economic position and expanding the opportunities available to them. It informed the central BFUW of any posts in the area to which women might apply and reported on the position of women in the University of Wales and the newly emerging Welsh civil service.31 Spatial proximity was important for nurturing this network of women graduates, with members using their respective workplaces to host the branch’s bi-monthly meetings. This included Cardiff High School for Girls, the Intermediate School for Girls

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in Cardiff, Aberdare Hall and the city’s Ladies’ Club—all of which were located near and around the civic centre and university college, and in the more affluent suburb of Roath.32

6.1   Educational Networks and the Women’s Movement The expansion of women’s education and accompanying employment opportunities provided women with new places to congregate, socialise and politically organise. Not only was feminism reflected in the schools and university halls’ cultures, but such institutions offered platforms from which coordinated campaigns could flourish. These sites were often physically used as political bases for local women’s movements: hosting suffrage meetings and social functions and providing accommodation for visiting activists and speakers. The concentration of educated women in university towns and cities across Wales made it easier for them to forge networks and coordinate feminist campaigns. Often situated in close proximity, the sites these women frequented—cafés, offices of women’s organisations, as well as educational and professional spaces—created a culture of sociability in which personal and professional networks overlapped and were reinforced. Moreover, the institutional prestige with which they were associated enabled women teachers, wardens and academics to develop respectable public identities within their communities which, in turn, gave their cause added credibility. By the turn of the twentieth century, the expanding number of university-­educated women played a central role in their respective communities, creating their own associations and carving a place for themselves at the heart of a burgeoning civic culture. For instance, they used their networks to lobby for their representation on Cardiff’s new civic institutions and to claim a unique public role for women in the soon-to-be city. A prominent strategy was to work for targeted, individual public and professional appointments to ensure that women’s interests would be represented in local civic bodies. Ethel Hurlbatt was a key figure in sending a petition to the Home Secretary in 1896 to lobby for the appointment of a woman medical officer for female prisoners at Cardiff Gaol, following the retirement of the incumbent male medical officer.33 Support for the employment of a woman doctor was part of a broader movement for women’s representation in public institutions, but the opening at the jail

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provided an opportunity for a specific request to be made.34 Advocates also expressed a desire to have a woman doctor in connection with the post  office, hospitals, workhouses  and asylums for the purpose of their female staff or patients. Although the petition was ultimately unsuccessful, the case was emblematic of how Cardiff’s new academic class sought to carve a unique place for women in the structural reform and civic identity of the town. In the years preceding the First World War, their campaigns to get a woman elected to the Welsh  Council of Graduates, the Free Libraries Committee and the Council of the Welsh Museum did, however, meet with a more favourable reception.35 As the suffrage campaign gained pace at the turn of the twentieth century, women connected with the university colleges often dominated the local suffrage leadership in their respective towns and cities. The society which prospered most in Wales was the constitutionalist NUWSS which boasted 50 branches across the nation by August 1914.36 The Welsh NUWSS branches, like its wider union, were keen to distance themselves from militant tactics and present a public image of their membership as comprising respectable, educated women.37 Gillian Sutherland has highlighted the pervasiveness of respectability for most women graduates at the turn of the twentieth century, whereby their ‘professional advancement, survival even … depended upon impeccably lady-like and conventional behaviour’.38 In many respects, this was a double-edged sword. Whilst their educational platforms gave them access to institutions of power and enabled them to assume positions of responsibility in their communities, the codes of respectability with which they had to conform undoubtedly tempered their broader feminist demands. For many graduates, their professional positions shaped their specific method of agitation.39 On 13 June 1908, Cardiff and Llandudno were among the provincial societies represented at the NUWSS mass demonstration in London. Highlighting the academic credentials of its membership, gowned women graduates were a visible part of the suffrage spectacle included in the Cardiff contingent.40 Women’s academic achievements were a powerful tool for suffragists to demonstrate women’s intellectual equality with men and worthiness of enfranchisement. Of course, not all aligned with the constitutional movement and, as research on women’s suffrage has highlighted, at local level it was not uncommon for women to hold multiple memberships of various societies.41 In Wales, this was also tied to a broader Liberal nonconformist national agenda. According to Ursula Masson, Liberal women were the majority group in the NUWSS in

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Wales and the concept of duty—of engaged and effective citizenship driven by moral and religious precepts—characterised Welsh women’s liberalism at the turn of the twentieth century.42 For some, their feminism, liberalism and professional identity all sat concurrently under a wider concept of duty, which stressed the role of the educated woman as a reformist agent in society. The NUWSS developed a network of support particularly in the university towns and cities in Wales. Wardens and academics often assumed key roles in their local societies and were well connected to the national suffrage leadership. In south Wales, the constitutional movement was largely centred on the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society which became, albeit briefly, the largest branch outside London in 1912.43 The branch was formed in June 1908 with an initial membership of 70, and its founding executive committee was dominated by local graduates, teachers and academics, including Millicent Mackenzie as vice-president, Erie Evans as treasurer, and Ethel Hurlbatt and Mary Collin on the executive committee.44 Other prominent members included staff and past students of Cardiff High School for Girls and Mackenzie’s colleague, Barbara Foxley. In many respects, these women already had the platforms, resources and networks from which to orchestrate a local campaign. In 1913, Foxley put her academic training to use by holding speakers’ classes to enhance members’ oratory skills after neighbouring branches reported a shortage of members confident to assume a public-speaking role. Along with local medical doctor Erie Evans and Ethel Barke (who would later become a lecturer in education at Cardiff), Foxley also represented the branch as a speaker at various trade union meetings in the district.45 In north Wales, the Bangor NUWSS branch assumed leadership in the region. A key figure was Charlotte Price White, previously discussed in Chap. 5, who was a graduate of the city’s university college and former teacher. She was founding secretary of the branch, served on the regional executive and was nominated for the national executive. Although she was not a native of Wales, she understood the importance of translating literature into Welsh and, from 1910, the branch assumed a translation role for the society and helped to disseminate literature.46 Similarly, the first president of the Aberystwyth NUWSS branch in 1911 was the warden of Alexandra Hall, Eliza Fewings, who was inspired by her experience as a woman voter in Australia, where she had previously taught for 13 years.47

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Women connected with the university colleges played a key role in promoting the cause among women students, with many suffrage organisers using the women’s halls as a centre from which to coordinate the campaign in that locality. Fewings arranged for visiting speakers to address women students at Aberystwyth and held suffrage drawing room meetings at Alexandra Hall.48 Similarly, in Cardiff, leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was invited to address the students at Aberdare Hall at the height of the campaign.49 The feminist ethos nurtured by the wardens and women academics was undoubtedly a contributory factor in ensuring that many former students became engaged in the suffrage movement in the years preceding the war. It is unsurprising that several of the first cohorts of graduates became leading figures in the campaign, with some relinquishing their professional posts to become full-time suffrage organisers. Both Magdalen Morgan and Rachel Barrett, who had studied at Aberystwyth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, became organisers for the NUWSS and the Women’s Social Political Union, respectively.50 In Cardiff, local graduate Mabel Howell became secretary of the South Wales and Monmouthshire Federation of the NUWSS, serving on its committee alongside women academics at her former college. Whilst the suffrage movement was, of course, never solely a middle-class phenomenon, these women had the pre-existing connections, access to institutional spaces and financial resources which made it easier for them to assume leadership positions. Additionally, the broader networks of which these women were part often meant that they comprised an important link with visiting suffrage speakers from London and the south-west of England, acting as conduits between the national leadership and the local women’s movement. For example, it was Millicent Mackenzie who spoke with Millicent Fawcett on a platform in Cardiff the month prior to the establishment of the Cardiff and District branch of the NUWSS, meeting with an albeit hostile reception.51 Cardiff High School for Girls provided a core of support for suffrage activity in the town following its opening in January 1895. The headmistress Mary Collin took a leading role in suffrage activity, both within the NUWSS and, as Ursula Masson has shown, through the local Women’s Liberal Association branch.52 In her house attached to the school, Collin hosted suffrage organiser Helen Fraser on her numerous visits to Cardiff.53 Fraser had been despatched by the NUWSS to Wales in 1908 to stimulate activity in the country and develop local branches. Remembering her time in Wales, she identified local headmistresses as

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instrumental to the development of the constitutional movement.54 She recalled how she got to know all the headmistresses and nearly all of them suffragists. They were swooped into the suffrage movement so that Wales had a very representative group of women … there was a woman in Penarth who was very nice, she was a head. And a woman in Newport, she was an awfully nice headmistress too. You see, I got to know all the headmistresses. And Miss Davies from Carmarthen was a delightful headmistress, as Welsh as you like, but delightful.55

Headmistresses and their colleagues comprised a significant bloc of support for Wales’s NUWSS branches. Mabel Vivian was chairwoman of the Newport branch and would become president of the Cardiff and District BFUW the following year, while Beatrice Holme (headmistress of Carmarthen Girls’ School) was chairwoman of her town’s branch too. Further tracing her work across Wales, Fraser described how she travelled by train from ‘town to town. Carmarthen, Pontypool and right up to Aberystwyth.’ She highlighted ‘good groups among the university people. And young girls, they’re interested, the students you see.’56 The expansion of women’s higher education, then, was intimately connected to this growing feminist movement and the demand for the vote. Their exclusion from educational and professional projects, in part, provided the impetus for the organised women’s movement in the late nineteenth century. Consequently, workplace equality was embedded into the aims of the movement from its inception. Similarly, political activism or participation in the suffrage movement introduced women to public speaking, committee work, propaganda and local politics which also would reveal the value of representation and organisation for their own occupational concerns. In the decades preceding the war, women had developed a plethora of overlapping associations and networks which had laid the foundations for a range of coordinated campaigns. During wartime, these networks would provide an important framework for some educated women to continue their feminist campaigns, coordinate voluntary work or channel their expertise towards the war effort. Women’s attitudes and response to the war were not monolithic: some suspended their suffrage campaigning, whilst others continued their agitation. During the conflict, they were nonetheless able to mobilise these pre-existing networks for a variety of causes. In many ways, as Nicoletta

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Gullace summarises, ‘prewar rhetoric, tactics and concerns were carried over and refashioned by suffragists during the war’.57 One such example was the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH), founded by Dr Elsie Inglis.58 Drawing on pre-war networks, the SWH initially received a large part of their funding from the NUWSS and formed satellite committees in Wales, Glasgow, London and Liverpool. A key figure in the SWH was one of the first women to study at Cardiff Medical School, Dr Mary ‘Eppynt’ Phillips. She served abroad with the SWH until illness forced Phillips to return to Wales temporarily in 1915 where, having recovered, she undertook a lecture tour to raise funds for the hospitals.59 She gave talks about the work being done by the SWH in Llandaff, Abergavenny, Monmouth, Builth Wells and her hometown, Merthyr Cynog.60 Although she had lived in Liverpool for most of her working life, Phillips appealed to her Welsh heritage. She explained that the name ‘Scottish Women’s Hospital’ was misleading because although the scheme was originated by Scottish women doctors, its staff was drawn from all parts of the United Kingdom, while in another talk she referred to the Wales-London Hospital at Valjevo as ‘the best hospital in Serbia’.61 Pre-war educational, feminist and national networks were central to the SWH’s fundraising campaign.62 Howell’s School, the Welsh university colleges, Bangor Women’s Patriotic Guild and the Women’s Food Production League all hosted talks on the work of the SWH and raised funds for the Wales-London Hospital Unit.63 The personal networks and friendships women had forged before the war enabled them to present coordinated contributions to the war effort. Headmistresses were respected public figures in their communities and could use their influence and skills for voluntary work. For example, Mary Collin hosted one of Mary Phillips’s lectures at Cardiff High School for Girls under the auspices of the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society, of which Collin was the chairwoman.64 When the war broke out, the suffrage branch suspended its political activities and put 60 experienced workers at the disposal of the Lord Mayor to help existing organisations or to inaugurate new work for unemployed women. A former student of hers recalled that ‘Miss Collin, almost at once, was made a member of nearly every committee dealing with the War in the City. Her organizing power and practical sympathy were invaluable.’65 She was active in recruitment for the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, in which two of her teachers and her two domestic servants enlisted.66 Likewise, on the outbreak of the war, the Cardiff BFUW branch helped support Belgian refugees arriving in the city including artists, musicians and professors.67 Women’s pre-war

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networks—forged in the university colleges, suffrage movement and women’s associations—provided the framework for such organised contributions to the war effort. In turn, the confidence, networks and experiences women gained during the war also played a formative role in their development of targeted campaigns for workplace equality during the interwar decades.

6.2  Interwar Associational Cultures By the 1920s an intricate web of women’s associations criss-crossed Britain and beyond. In Wales, women’s educational and occupational networks continued to underpin this vibrant feminist scene in their respective towns and cities. A burgeoning body of research has challenged narratives of stagnation in the interwar feminist movement, following women’s partial enfranchisement in 1918.68 Instead, historians have shown how the 1920s and 1930s witnessed various kinds of women’s organisations which were committed to improving the status of women in society, but which had different ideas about what feminism signified and adopted different methods to achieve this.69 A range of non-party political women’s organisations sprung up in the interwar period which were keen to ensure women used their vote wisely and participated in public life. According to Caitríona Beaumont, the concept of ‘active citizenship’ became a central factor in women’s interwar feminism as many women’s associations sought to equip members with the skills and knowledge to fulfil their responsibilities as democratic citizens.70 A new wave of women’s occupational organisations comprised a key element of this dynamic interwar associational culture, with local branches embedded into their respective towns’ feminist networks and cooperating with a range of other women’s associations across multiple causes.71 As partially enfranchised citizens, some graduates were able to take advantage of new opportunities for political engagement. Most importantly, they had the platforms and networks from which to launch their election campaigns. The general election of December 1918 was the first in which women could vote and be voted for. Among 17 women who stood throughout Britain, Millicent Mackenzie was the only woman candidate in Wales. She contested the newly created University of Wales seat as a Labour candidate against the experienced Liberal, Sir Herbert Lewis. Despite her defeat with 19.2 per cent of the vote, she later recalled how she stood ‘to emphasise the importance of the part that should be played

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by women in national affairs’.72 For the next general election three years later, a group of women University of Wales graduates wrote to The Welsh Outlook to propose that women should organise to ensure the selection of a female candidate for the university seat again.73 Framing their suggestion within a liberal rhetoric, they outlined that it was appropriate for the University of Wales to put forward a woman candidate as ‘the most progressive of the younger Universities’.74 This culminated in the nomination of Olive Wheeler who represented one of the 33 women to stand in 1922, and who had also followed in Mackenzie’s footsteps by becoming Cardiff’s third woman professor of education.75 Like Mackenzie, she had stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate, but fared slightly better with 24.5 per cent of the vote.76 These women were well connected and respected local figures, who had the financial backing and institutional platforms to launch their candidacies. However, as we will see, it would be another 23 years until this seat was contested again by a woman, with Aberystwyth academic and graduate Gwenan Jones standing unsuccessfully as a Plaid Cymru candidate in 1945. Familiar faces and places were reflected in the interwar women’s feminist culture. The pre-war generation, who had dominated the suffrage leadership in university towns and cities, were now in their mid to later-­ age and brought into the fold their junior colleagues from their respective institutions. From 1913, autonomous Women Citizens’ Associations (WCAs) were formed throughout Britain. WCAs were a non-party initiative which aimed to bring together existing women’s organisations to use their new political voice in concerns affecting them.77 According to Ryland Wallace, the Newport Women’s Suffrage Society took the lead in Wales in drawing other local organisations into a WCA in May 1918.78 While supporting the formation of a WCA in the city, the Bangor Women’s Suffrage Society continued to work to obtain votes for women on the same terms as they were granted to men.79 In Cardiff, the NUWSS branch reconstituted itself as a WCA in 1921. The character and composition of the local associations varied across Britain, as did their objectives.80 WCAs were continually watchful of political and employment opportunities for women during the interwar decades. They also fought a wide range of campaigns on several fronts including, but not limited to, full enfranchisement, property holding rights, guardianship of children and proportional representation in public elections.81 In Newport, Mabel Vivian, headmistress and key figure in the town’s NUWSS branch, became the first chairwoman of the newly formed

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WCA. The association brought together women’s organisations in the town, including the Jewish Ladies’ Benevolent Society, the Railway Women’s Guild and the Shop Assistants’ Union.82 Members regularly sat in the gallery of the council chamber’s monthly meetings ‘in order to keep in touch with the work of the town’ and maintained a careful eye on legislation particularly affecting women and children.83 The association had close connections with its Cardiff counterpart. The Cardiff and District WCA’s initial 400 strong membership included the familiar names of Mary Collin, Barbara Foxley, Millicent Mackenzie, Olive Wheeler and Mabel Howell. Collin and Foxley were on the branch’s executive council from its inception and were regular speakers at meetings, with Foxley providing public-speaking classes for local members as she had done during the suffrage campaign.84 Younger women academics recently appointed to the city’s university college, including English lecturer, Catherine Maclean, and education lecturer, Ethel Barke, also joined these more established members—the latter becoming president of the association in the 1930s.85 This professional composition of the branch’s membership was undoubtedly reflected in its ethos and priorities. Unlike other regional WCAs which had a purely municipal focus, the Cardiff and District WCA campaigned to allow women to enter the diplomatic and consular service on the same terms as men, fought for equal pay and conditions for women employed in the civil service and local government, as well as for the removal of marriage bars.86 The branch’s objectives also included admission to the franchise on the same terms as men, campaigns for maternity and child welfare, clean milk supply and birth control, amongst other causes.87 Local pioneer women, such as Cardiff barrister May Gordon Williams, addressed the association about employment opportunities in their respective fields.88 Like their predecessors had done a decade prior, the Cardiff and District WCA worked for targeted representation of women on a range of political and public bodies across the interwar decades, including the appointment of women police in the city.89 Mary Ellis, Inspector of Schools in Wales, was among the deputation of WCA women who visited the Western Mail offices in 1923 to advocate for the representation of women in public life in the paper’s coverage.90 With a membership of around 550 for most of the 1920s, the Cardiff and District WCA constituted an effective pressure group. The Cardiff and District BFUW branch also continued to operate throughout the interwar years, adapting its demands to reflect women’s changing economic and political opportunities. They met regularly at

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Aberdare Hall, with Olive Wheeler assuming presidency of the branch in 1934.91 There was a continued concern with women’s employment prospects and the branch organised lectures for its members and girls in the region on women in the civil service, law, medicine and architecture. They also held debates on the employment of married women, with three women from different professions covering medical, legal and social viewpoints.92 The branch was well connected to local women journalists who covered their events and helped them maintain a visible presence in the region. They also assumed a civic role in the local community, organising fundraisers for local unemployment centres and other philanthropic causes.93 Membership of such organisations provided a way for women to retain a connection to an academic culture after graduation. For women who married or did not pursue paid employment, their graduate status remained an important source of pride and component of their identity. The Bangor and North Wales BFUW branch membership cards show that many women who were not in waged work listed ‘household duties’ and their various voluntary and cultural interests under their occupations, revealing the personal value they attached to their non-remunerated work.94 Whilst these women were a self-selecting membership—in that their graduate status was undoubtedly already an important element of their sense of self—the title of ‘BA’ instilled a degree of confidence and was an integral part of most graduates’ identities throughout their lives, especially at a time when only a small proportion of the population went to university. Another key feature of the interwar decades were the international alliances academic women forged. Welsh women graduates conceived of themselves within a national framework, but also part of a broader movement of educated women across Britain and abroad. In 1919, the International Federation of University Women was founded in London. Underpinned by a web of personal friendships among women academics across national and disciplinary boundaries, it aimed to promote international exchange between women students, teachers and researchers, and support women’s advancement in academia.95 The Welsh BFUW branches also raised funds for international fellowships and residence at Crosby Hall for German academic women who lost their posts for political reasons in the 1930s.96 International visitors stayed in the women’s halls across the Welsh colleges, with guests hailing from Lithuania, China and the USA. They also conducted comparative research on women’s position in the professions internationally. For example, in 1933 Myfanwy Wood, who held an academic post in a Chinese university, addressed Cardiff’s BFUW on the subject of ‘university women in China’.97

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At local level it was easier in many ways for disparate women’s organisations to work together on a variety of shared concerns and campaigns. As Cheryl Law has noted, formal and informal connections between associations were evidenced by joint demonstrations, public meetings, conferences, and deputations, and common lists of subscribers and speakers.98 These networks were further nurtured by shared meeting venues and overlapping memberships. The opportunism of having shared spaces sustained these connections through face-to-face contact. For instance, Aberdare Hall hosted meetings of the city’s WCA and BFUW branches, and the Welsh branch of the Association of Headmistresses.99 In 1920, the BFUW and WCA cooperated to agitate for the appointment of a woman to the newly created Board of Health for Wales.100 Similarly, in November 1926 the WCA held a joint public meeting at Cardiff High School for Girls with the local NUWT branch to campaign for ‘an equal franchise measure granting votes to women at the same age and on the same terms as men’. Mary Collin presided and the meeting was addressed by Ethel Froud, General Secretary of the NUWT.101 Informal social networks and friendships underpinned the women’s movement and close connections of organisations at local level ensured that they were able to mobilise into a coordinated force on a range of issues and work for targeted appointments of women on public bodies. For instance, when Barbara Foxley stood as the Liberal candidate in the local Cathays ward by-election of June 1924, she had the support of various non-party women’s organisations, including the local WCA branch of which she was an active member.102 Despite the partisan nature of the appointment, the Cardiff NUWT branch also supported her campaign through canvassing, clerical work, and attending and speaking at meetings.103 Many of this generation of women had experienced the height of the suffrage campaign during their formative years and consequently had a strong belief that women should take advantage of the new, albeit still limited, political opportunities that arose to them in the 1920s. In her election address, Foxley invoked the concept of duty when she noted that ‘half the inhabitants of Cardiff are women; many of these are now voters and have the duty of helping to choose the City Council’.104 Outlining the need for women’s representation on the city council, she highlighted that the council ‘employs large numbers of women teachers, clerks, cleaners’, and, appealing to the civic sentiments of voters, argued that the election of a woman would be a mark of the city’s worthiness to be the capital of Wales.105 Foxley also overtly drew attention to her professional reputation

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and position on academic, social and public bodies across Cardiff and south Wales to highlight her credentials.106 There was great enthusiasm, especially among women’s associations in the area, when Foxley was elected by a majority of 786 votes, becoming the second woman to enter Cardiff City Council.107 In Swansea, the opening of the university college gave added impetus to a dense web of women’s networks which had already been built up by the teaching profession and local teacher training college. Driven in part by the renowned Emily Phipps, the Swansea NUWT branch had a close relationship with lecturers at the Swansea Training College and academics at the newly formed college. This included training college lecturer, Edith Hewlett, and university academic, Professor Mary Williams, both of whom supplied articles to The Woman Teacher outlining the educational work in their respective institutions.108 The NUWT always had a strong presence in the region, with Swansea being the only place outside London which supplied three national presidents during the period under study: Emily Phipps, Clara Neal and Catherine Fisher.109 In 1929, the Cardiff and Swansea NUWT branches succeeded in getting Clara Neal elected as a teacher representative on the Court of Governors of the UCSWM.110 Neither did these groups relinquish their campaign for the franchise on the same terms as men. Women under 30 and those over 30  in rented accommodation (predominantly working-class women and single professional women) still could not vote. In response to an NUWT questionnaire which sought to highlight local injustices, Neal reported in 1927 that seven lecturers who were over 30 at the Swansea Training College did not meet the property qualification; neither did the headmistress of Swansea High School nor the senior woman doctor at the school clinic, all of whom lived in ‘furnished lodgings’.111

6.3  Occupational Networks Indeed, living arrangements were a particular concern for the increasing number of largely single women who entered the professional workforce in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Parental fears for daughters living away from home and societal expectations of respectability made it difficult for self-supporting women to find suitable accommodation. Women’s organisations compiled lists of women in different cities who were willing to offer hospitality to fellow members or women who travelled around the country on account of their work.112 When a

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pathological conference was held in Cardiff in 1927, for instance, the central committee of the BFUW contacted the local branch to see if its members were able to accommodate a woman doctor attending.113 Such practical issues, as well as their continued marginalisation in wider professional society, prompted a range of occupational groups of women to create their own organisations from the late nineteenth century. Initially excluded from or marginalised within existing mixed-sex societies, women found it necessary, or expedient, to build up their own support mechanisms. These organisations offered alternative spaces to develop and institutionalise female networks. They provided legal, financial and personal support to members who were often professionally isolated, faced difficulties travelling alone and financial burdens that their male counterparts did not. The process of demobilisation, with its effects on the labour market, meant that the need for formal institutional structures to protect women’s professional interests became particularly pressing in the years immediately succeeding the First World War. Branches of the major women’s professional organisations existed in Wales during the interwar decades, and formalised occupational networks at local level. These associations bolstered shared professional identities and enabled women to situate themselves in a community of women working in the same occupation, facilitated by newsletters, branch meetings and annual conferences. The specific activities and vibrancy of branches were dependent on local cultures, the regional composition of the workforce and key personalities. Ultimately, for branches to flourish there needed to be grassroot support and a numerical concentration of women with shared interests. Clusters of professional women were often centred around university towns and urban centres, but those who worked in rural regions were often more isolated from social and occupational networks. As more women entered the workforce, they established branches in the localities in which they lived. However, attempts to create national networks of women workers in Wales could be hindered by practical geographical considerations. Organising meetings and accommodating members in more remote regions was a continual issue for many of the associations formed along national lines throughout this period.114 Welsh associations were often divided along northern and southern constituents, with the south having close links with Bristol and the north with Liverpool. The geographical dispersion of women doctors in Wales, for instance, inhibited their ability to form substantial local medical women’s networks until the interwar period. Moreover, until the establishment of the Welsh

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National School of Medicine (WNSM) in 1921, students had undertaken the final part of their clinical training outside of Wales. Most of the first generation of women medical students at the University of Wales completed their clinical training at the London School of Medicine for Women, which firmly situated them within a broader British network of early women doctors. The Medical Women’s Federation (MWF), which developed from the Association of Registered Medical Women, was founded in 1917 ‘to safeguard and promote the professional interests of medical women’.115 The MWF lobbied on a wide range of issues affecting women doctors including pay inequality, marriage bars and inadequate pensions, but it also helped forge a distinct professional identity for medical women and provided practical and financial support to members.116 A Western and South Wales branch of the MWF was formed in 1923 in Bristol. Dr Erie Evans was the first vice-president of the branch, which had an initial membership of 24.117 However, no meetings were held in south Wales during its existence and it was difficult for Welsh members to attend meetings which were usually held in Gloucester or Bristol.118 A South Wales and Monmouthshire branch was eventually created in February 1934 under the presidency of Dr Gladys Aitken, medical officer of health for Llantrisant and Llantwit Fardre.119 The branch attempted to attract the membership of younger medical women in the 1930s by inviting final year medical students at the WNSM to their meetings.120 A North Wales MWF branch was also formed during the same year under the presidency of Dr Edith Shaw, who hosted the majority of meetings at her home. The minutes record difficulties arranging meetings in the area covered by the association, with some members living 90 miles from its centre. During the winter months these were often cancelled.121 Prior to the formation of this branch, women doctors practising in north Wales (including Drs Lilian Blake and Katharine Drinkwater) were members of the Liverpool association. Indeed, professional women in north Wales often had more contact with their north-west English medical counterparts, than they did their south Walian sisters. Although by the 1920s there were clusters of women doctors in northern urban centres of Bangor, Colwyn Bay and Wrexham, they remained isolated figures in most towns of mid and north Wales. A Welsh branch of the Association of Women Science Teachers (AWST) existed from 1921 until the association merged with the School Masters Association in 1962.122 The association was formed in 1912 to provide opportunities for science teachers to discuss methods of teaching, exam syllabuses, laboratory management and equipment. The branch worked

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closely with the university colleges and provided an important link between girls’ intermediate education, higher education and paid employment.123 The inaugural meeting of the Welsh branch was held at the newly opened University College of Swansea in 1921 where the principal, Professor Sibley, highlighted the importance of nurturing a strong relationship between schools and colleges.124 The branch kept abreast of scientific research by organising an annual series of lectures which were delivered by researchers from the constituent colleges of the University of Wales. Its meetings usually alternated between Swansea and Cardiff, with the founding committee comprising science teachers from Swansea, Cardiff, Pontypridd and Newport. Yet, like other nationwide organisations, the branch struggled to maintain a cohesive network across Wales, and in 1936 they tried to accommodate the scattered membership from the schools of north Wales by meeting in Llandrindod Wells and Shrewsbury.125 Women teachers were also engaged in public debates concerning the content of the curriculum and sought to expand the employment opportunities available to their pupils. The Welsh AWST branch was continually watchful for professional openings available for girls who undertook science degrees. It was particularly concerned with requirements of entry for medical courses, corresponding with the WNSM regarding the best means for girls to gain admission.126 Although this was not a new concern for women teachers or educational authorities, as Chap. 2 highlighted, the branch advocated a wider introduction of physics, the replacement of botany with biology and highlighted the need for better laboratory facilities and more science staff. The AWST challenged the contemporary gendered curricula and highlighted the poor science provision and employment opportunities available to girls, arguing that ‘physics and mechanics should be essential for all, and physics and mathematics should not be made a “bogey” for girls’.127 Many of these associations had shared feminist aims and, particularly at local level, could cooperate to challenge discriminatory practices and advance women’s economic position in their respective fields. The implementation of marriage bars by local authorities became a particularly contentious issue throughout the interwar decades, as authorities sought to find ways to turnover staff amidst funding cuts and an oversupply of teachers. However, not all women unanimously opposed it.128 Headmistresses would sometimes not intervene in the decisions of education committees regarding the employment of their married staff through fears of

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compromising their own relationship with the committee.129 Particularly at local level where women had established reputations and were dependent on the cooperation of educational authorities, their demands could be somewhat curtailed. In 1921, a deputation representing the local branches of the WCA, BFUW and Association of Assistant Mistresses attended a Cardiff Education Committee meeting to discuss the implementation of the marriage bar in the authority.130 Barbara Foxley, representing the BFUW, sought to tread a diplomatic line when she argued that the committee should retain its power to employ married women teachers if they thought suitable. Foxley added that they had no desire to see the schools flooded with married women teachers: ‘that would be disastrous to the schools and disastrous to the homes, but they felt that the committee should keep open the door to employ married women in exceptional cases’.131 A committee resolution was carried by nine votes to one that in ordinary circumstances women teachers would tender their resignation on marriage, but exceptions would be made when it was in the interests of the cause of education. Following this decision, a married woman teacher in Glamorgan, with three children and an unemployed husband, won a case against the education committee to continue her employment.132 Although some women’s ability to engage in feminist campaigns could be tempered by a need to protect their professional reputations, others used their positions of seniority to support their female colleagues against discrimination. In 1931 the BFUW sent a questionnaire to its academic members to gauge how many married women held university appointments. As Chap. 4 discussed, in academia women’s dismissal on marriage was not uniformly applied throughout this period, but operated on a more informal and ad hoc basis, particularly for junior members of academic staff. Responding to the BFUW’s query on behalf of the Welsh university colleges, assistant lecturer in Botany at Cardiff, Freda McLean, outlined that ‘some of the people here are very obscurantist regarding married women’s work and we prefer to let sleeping dogs lie as much as possible’.133 The issue, however, was clearly contentious with the college authorities. When a lecturer in the training department, Nora Hartley, married in the late 1920s several members of the college council wanted to dismiss her, but her senior colleague, Olive Wheeler, along with other women council members, successfully agitated for her to remain in her post.134 Equal pay and women’s employment in positions of seniority were also prominent issues which united various women’s occupational associations

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throughout the interwar years. When five members of the Cardiff Schoolmasters’ Association sent a letter to the South Wales Daily News outlining their opposition to equal pay, Alice Howell, a teacher at Aberdare Girls’ County School, replied with the argument that men and women were required to undertake the same examinations, held the same professional responsibilities and incurred the same expenses.135 Similarly, at an NUWT South Wales Federation conference in 1936, Cardiff academic Ethel Barke highlighted the underrepresentation of women in senior positions across the education sector. She stated that ‘in the highest regions of education there are very few women, there were not women directors or assistant directors of education. There had been a few women assistant directors of education but they had disappeared. This meant that women had no hand in shaping the educational policy of the country.’136 Headships of mixed schools were also a concern for feminist teachers during the interwar years as the number of senior dual schools increased in the 1920s. During the 1923 University of Wales by-election, Welsh women graduates canvassed all the candidates on their views on equal pay and headships of dual secondary schools.137 In 1924, out of the 1561 mixed infants’ departments in Wales, 1167 of the headships were held by men.138 Women fared even worse higher up the educational ladder: in 1928, the NUWT reported that of the 19 mixed senior schools in Wales, all were under headmasters. The following year, the number of mixed senior schools increased to 25, but all remained under the leadership of men.139

6.4  National Networks Although women’s organisations were successful in cooperating at a local level, it proved more difficult to organise on a nationwide scale. Attempts were made after the war to unite women’s associations along Welsh lines. In March 1922 a coordinating body, the Union of Welsh Women, was established to encourage cooperation between a wide range of women’s societies in Wales.140 Initiated by a Cardiff journalist, Sybil Mossford, the union was also supported by well-known political figures including Winifred Coombe Tennant, who argued ‘we need to close up our ranks and, taking as our motto “Not Self but Service”, bend our united energies to the task of creating a Wales more in accord with the ideals of Christian citizenship’.141 Whilst the union was non-party political, it was underscored by a Christian ethos and had continuities with pre-war gendered notions of duty and service. The first meeting was held at the Young Men’s

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Christian Association in Cardiff with more than 60 representatives of women’s organisations. Speakers included Mary Ellis who, in conjunction with Aberystwyth graduate and school inspector Menai Rowlands, had done significant ground-work in canvassing associations. On behalf of the women’s section of the Welsh School of Social Service in 1919, the women had surveyed women’s organisations which were in existence across Wales: whilst they found overlapping women’s societies in some places, in other areas they found none.142 Stressing its inclusive and non-partisan nature, the founders outlined that the ‘Union must be made national in the fullest sense, representing every class, creed, and party in the Principality’.143 An impressive array of organisations and individuals were present at the inaugural meeting. This included Flora Drummond (Women’s Guild of Empire), Alice Bale (president of the NUWT), Professor Barbara Foxley, Rose Davies, J.P., the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, housing and welfare groups, Annie Ffoulkes (University of Wales Registry), Ministry of Labour for Wales, women’s party political associations, the Cymmrodorion Society, students’ representative councils, Twentieth Century Clubs and WCAs.144 Despite its ambitious aims, the union appeared to be short-­ lived, failed to remain non-partisan and was dominated by some organisations like the WCAs.145 Indeed, an inability to coordinate efforts among Welsh women’s networks and band them together into a truly national movement would be a continual theme throughout the twentieth century. By contrast, it was easier to forge national alliances on single-issue campaigns or in support of cultural or linguistic causes. After the war, the renewal of a nationalist movement further bolstered the promotion of a distinct Welsh education. Education was understood to be a crucial factor in the preservation of the Welsh language, with teachers framed as playing an essential role in upholding a national culture.146 A Union of Welsh Teachers, Undeb Athrawon Cymreig, was formed in 1926 by those who considered the National Union of Teachers to be insufficiently proactive in relation to the Welsh language in schools. The union became an important pressure group in promoting the importance of Welsh medium teaching and a Welsh rural way of life.147 The success of these initiatives was dependent on the energy and enthusiasm of several women who were connected to the University of Wales and Welsh educational institutions. Through their professional positions as teachers, inspectors, academics and training college lecturers, women sought to promote the Welsh language and culture by embedding it firmly into the curricula and education system.

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Throughout the interwar period, a few noteworthy individuals who were deeply embedded in Welsh cultural circles used their personal and professional networks to promote a nationalist cause. Siân Rhiannon Williams has highlighted the important influence that the Glamorgan Training College in Barry and its principal, Ellen Evans, had on promoting the teaching of Welsh in schools.148 A miner’s daughter from the Rhondda, Evans studied for a degree in Welsh at Aberystwyth and wrote her MA thesis on the teaching of the language, which provided the material for her first book, published in 1924.149 She was appointed lecturer in Welsh language and literature at the training college in 1915, becoming principal in 1923. Evans was involved in a range of cultural, educational and religious movements across Wales including nursery schools, adult education, international peace and youth initiatives. She also sat on multiple boards and committees, such as the University Court of Wales, University  of Wales Appointments Board, Central Welsh Board, Coleg Harlech Governors, National Eisteddfod committees, the BFUW and the Welsh National Folk-song Society.150 According to the Western Mail, Ellen Evans ‘turned the Training College into a Welsh oasis in the cosmopolitan town of Barry’.151 Along with her colleague Cassie Davies she inculcated generations of teachers with a mission to improve and extend the teaching of Welsh.152 Cathrin (Cassie) Jane Davies, also an Aberystwyth graduate, taught in Carmarthen before taking up a post at Glamorgan Training College in 1923, eventually serving as inspector of schools in south Wales from 1938. An ardent Welsh nationalist, she promoted Welsh history and language in education in both her professional and personal life too.153 In 1929 she wrote a report for Undeb Athrawon Cymreig outlining her vision for a Welsh educational system and criticising what she saw as the anglicisation of education.154 One of the most forceful condemnations of the Welsh education system, however, came from another University of Wales graduate, Gwladys Perrie Williams.155 Williams had studied for her BA and MA French degrees at Bangor during the early twentieth century, before enrolling for her doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris. During the war she was South Wales Organiser of the Women’s Land Army, before lecturing in Old French at East College London.156 In 1918 she published a stinging critique of what she saw as the failure of the Welsh schools and university colleges to nurture a distinctly national educational system.157 Drawing on her own experience as a Welsh student, and subsequently her time spent as a research student in Paris, she highlighted the deficiencies in provision

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made for Welsh history, literature and language.158 In what can perhaps be seen as a prophetic statement, Williams wrote: ‘[D]oubtless in another twenty years when the language has fallen into disuse, we shall see Welsh made compulsory in the schools and witness a feverish attempt to revive it’.159 Despite the bold intentions of educationists, ultimately, she argued, a truly Welsh education system had not been realised.160 For Gwladys Perrie Williams, her feminist beliefs sat concurrently alongside her nationalism. Following women’s partial enfranchisement, some nationalists saw this as an opportunity for women to make a major contribution to a Welsh national agenda. Summarising this sentiment in 1919, Williams wrote in The Welsh Outlook: Let them use their newly acquired political power to weld together a United Wales, to obtain for her that recognition of national entity, without which her full development is impossible. … It is the hour of her great opportunity. What will she do? Will she put Wales first, or will she subordinate it to the considerations of one of the political parties which have our men in their grip? On her answer depends the political future of Wales.161

Other educationists who used their professional positions to promote a nationalist cause were Professor Olive Wheeler and Dr Gwenan Jones. Both women had also graduated from the University of Wales in the early twentieth century and, in turn, sought to advance a distinct Welsh education in their subsequent careers. They were contemporaries at Aberystwyth where, as Chap. 3 highlighted, the university colleges became focal point for a growing sense of national identity, and both played an active role in the Old Students’ Association throughout their adult lives.162 Like Williams, they were critical of what they perceived to be the failure of Welsh education to live up to the early ideals of its founders.163 Gwenan Jones was one of the best-known educationalists to be associated with Undeb Athrawon Cymreig and the Welsh youth movement, Urdd Gobaith Cymru. Graduating with a degree in Welsh in 1909, she returned to her alma mater as a lecturer in education from 1920 after a period spent teaching.164 As the first woman candidate to represent Plaid Cymru at the end of the Second World War, her candidature was supported by extensive Welsh cultural and educational networks across the university colleges and schools. She also contested the University of Wales seat, the first woman to do so since Wheeler had stood over two decades prior. In an address to the electorate, she outlined:

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the privilege of University graduates carries a grave measure of responsibility in social and national affairs—nowhere more than in Wales, where the werin itself raised the Colleges for the education of its sons and daughters. … It is the first duty of a nation’s schools and University to respect and nurture the nation’s history and literature and art.165

Although unsuccessful in her bid, winning around a quarter of votes, Jones’s message underscores the close connection between education and national identity. Whilst these women were pessimistic about the extent to which the Welsh education system had fostered a distinctly national culture, in many respects, it was this educational infrastructure which had enabled the nationalist circles in which they were embedded to flourish. All five women were extensively connected to Welsh cultural and educational networks which had been forged during their time at the University of Wales and sustained throughout their working lives in Welsh educational institutions. Moreover, their educational, feminist and nationalist networks intersected and were prioritised at different times and places. * * * The development of a new intermediate and higher education system throughout Wales had, then, created the scaffolding onto which women’s overlapping local and national networks could attach. Women’s nineteenth-­century educational networks laid the foundation for their coordinated involvement in the suffrage movement, subsequent workplace equality campaigns and a variety of other causes. While the initial founders had framed separate women’s halls and institutions within contemporary ideas of respectability, these, in turn, had nurtured distinct women’s cultures and enabled vibrant feminist networks to grow. There were continuities in the aims, personnel and strategies of these networks across generations. But changes in women’s political, social and economic position also meant they adapted their aims and methods to meet new challenges. During the 1920s and 1930s, graduate women participated in an array of women’s organisations in their localities, where it was in some respects easier to cooperate on a range of disparate issues and work for targeted appointments of women on public and political bodies. Members were anchored in a local women’s culture, whilst simultaneously connected to a larger network of educated women throughout

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Britain and occasionally internationally. The existence of multiple organisations demonstrates the varied and vibrant nature of women’s feminist culture in Wales during the first half of the twentieth century. Women forged and sustained personal and professional networks at multiple stages in their lives: through educational institutions, political activism and occupational circles. Significantly, these networks could be mobilised or prioritised in tandem with the ebbs and flows of the women’s movement in its various guises.

Notes 1. Aberdare Hall Governors Annual Meeting Minutes, 10 February 1897, DUCAH/1/1, Glamorgan Archives (GA). 2. Aberdare Hall Visitors Book, 1933, DUCAH/2, GA. 3. Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Virago Press: London, 1985); Mary Ann Elston, ‘“Run by Women, (mainly) for Women”: Medical Women’s Hospitals in Britain, 1866–1948’, in L. Conrad & A. Hardy (eds), Women and Modern Medicine (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2001), pp.73–107; Estelle Freedman, ‘Separatism as Strategy: Female Institution Building and American Feminism, 1870–1930’, Feminist Studies, 5, 3 (1979), pp.512–29. 4. Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (Routledge: London, 1995), p.223. 5. Caitríona Beaumont, Mary Clancy and Louise Ryan, ‘Networks as “laboratories of experience”: exploring the life cycle of the suffrage movement and its aftermath in Ireland 1870–1937’, Women’s History Review, 29, 6 (2020), pp.1054–74. 6. June Hannam, ‘To Make the World a Better Place: Socialist Women and Women’s Suffrage in Bristol, 1910–1920’, in Myriam Boussahba-Bravard (ed.), Suffrage Outside Suffragism: Women’s Vote in Britain, 1880–1914 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2007), pp.157–79; Krista Cowman, Mrs Brown is a Man and a Brother. Women in Merseyside’s Political Organisations, 1890–1920 (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 2004); Karen Hunt and June Hannam, ‘Towards an Archaeology of Interwar Women’s Politics: The Local and the Everyday’, in Julie V. Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945 (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2013), pp.124–41; Alexandra Hughes-Johnson and Lyndsey Jenkins (eds), The Politics of Women’s Suffrage: Local, National and International Dimensions (University of London Press: London, 2021).

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7. Ellen Jordan, The Women’s Movement and Women’s Employment in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Routledge: London, 1999); Alison Oram, Women Teachers and Feminist Politics 1900–1939 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1996); Diana Copelman, London’s Women Teachers: Gender, Class and Feminism, 1870–1930 (Routledge: Abingdon, 1996); Hilda Kean, Deeds not Words: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers (Pluto Press: London, 1990); Alison Oram, ‘Women Teachers and the Suffrage Campaign: Arguments for Professional Equality’, in June Purvis and Sandra Stanley Holton (eds), Votes for Women (Routledge: Abingdon, 2000), pp.203–25; Hilda Kean and Alison Oram, ‘“Men Must Be Educated and Women Must Do It”: The National Federation (later Union) of Women Teachers and Contemporary Feminism, 1910–30’, Gender and Education, 2, 2 (1990), pp.147–68. 8. Dilys Jones was a pupil at the North London Collegiate School under Frances Buss, and after spending a year at Newnham Hall, Cambridge, returned to her former school as an assistant mistress. Elizabeth P. Hughes taught at Cheltenham Ladies’ College 1877–1881 with Dorothea Beale, before becoming the first Principal of Cambridge Training College. 9. The University College of Wales Magazine, 9, 5 (May 1887). 10. Contemporary Portraits and Biographies: Men and Women of South Wales and Monmouthshire: Cardiff Section (Western Mail: Cardiff, 1896). 11. South Wales Daily News, 28 February 1888. 12. University College Magazine (December 1895), p.27 13. ‘College Recollections—Extracts from a talk by Miss M. A. Vivian, M.A. at the Jubilee Reunion’, 14 January 1933, DUCAH/17/4/1-4, GA. 14. The Dragon (1911–1912); Sara Delamont, Knowledgeable Women: Structuralism and the Reproduction of Elites (Routledge: London, 1989), p.156. 15. S.  G. Rees, Our Golden Years: Aber in the Twenties (1973), PUB/ OSA/0/2, National Library of Wales (NLW). 16. For example, Anna Rowlands was educated at Dr Williams’ School in Dolgellau and won a scholarship to the University College of North Wales, Bangor. She was subsequently appointed Mistress of Method and Assistant Lecturer in Education at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. 17. High School for Girls Swansea: Diamond Jubilee 1888–1948 (Swansea, 1948), p.34. 18. Aberdare Hall Governors Annual Meeting Minutes, 12 December 1917. 19. City of Cardiff High School for Girls, 1895–1924 (Western Mail: Cardiff, 1924), p.28, p.66. 20. City of Cardiff High School for Girls Magazine, 1937–1938, DX263/11/11, GA.

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21. City of Cardiff High School for Girls Magazine, 1937–1938, p.34. 22. W.  Gareth Evans, Education and Female Emancipation: The Welsh Experience, 1847–1914 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), p.166, p.170. 23. Delamont, Knowledgeable Women: Structuralism and the Reproduction of Elites. 24. British Federation of University Women, Cardiff and District Association, Minutes of Committee Meetings, 1910–1924, D325/2, GA; Poster of the BFUW listing the objectives of the Federation, BMSS/38964, Bangor University Archives and Special Collections (BUASC). 25. Carol Dyhouse, ‘The British Federation of University Women and the Status of Women in Universities, 1907–1939’, Women’s History Review, 4, 4 (1995), p.469. See also Alison Golby, ‘A Socio-Historical Study of the British Federation of University Women, 1930–57’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Portsmouth, 1999). 26. Newspaper cuttings documenting Mary Williams’s activities and achievements, 2523-24, Mary Williams Papers, NLW; Dyhouse, ‘The British Federation of University Women’, p.474. 27. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Minutes of Committee Meetings. 28. British Federation of University Women Annual General Committee Minutes, 1909–1921, 5BFW/01/01, Women’s Library, LSE (WL). 29. BFUW Annual General Committee Minutes, 8 July 1911. 30. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Minutes of Committee Meetings, 8 May 1913. 31. BFUW, Cardiff and District Minutes of Committee Meetings, 13 May 1912. 32. BFUW, Cardiff and District Minutes of Committee Meetings, 1910–1924. 33. South Wales Echo, 24 January 1896. 34. Evening Express, 30 January 1896. 35. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Minutes of Committee Meetings, 1910–1911; Borough of Cardiff Council Reports, 1913. 36. Ryland Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales 1866–1928 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2009), p.157. 37. Evening Express, 3 July 1908. 38. Gillian Sutherland, In Search of the New Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work in Britain 1870–1914 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2015), p.87. 39. For example, see: J. F. Geddes, ‘The Doctors’ Dilemma: Medical Women and the British Suffrage Movement’, Women’s History Review, 18, 2 (2009), pp.203–18. 40. ‘Cardiff contingent on the Embankment with the Cardiff banner’ (Photograph of the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society), 13

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June 1908, SUF001, Cardiff Central Library; Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales, p.137. 41. For example, see: Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales, p.116. 42. Ursula Masson, ‘For women, for Wales and for liberalism’: Women in Liberal Politics in Wales, 1880–1914 (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2010), p.15. 43. National Union of Women’s Suffrage, Cardiff and District Society, Annual Reports, 1912–1913, Cardiff Central Library. 44. Evening Express, 3 July 1908. 45. National Union of Women’s Suffrage, Cardiff and District Society, Annual Reports, 1912–1913. 46. Kay Cook and Neil Evans, ‘“The Petty Antics of the Bell-Ringing Boisterous Band”? The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales, 1890–1918’, in Angela V.  John (ed), Our Mothers’ Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830–1939 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1991), p.170. 47. The Dragon (1908–1909), p.2; Common Cause, 23 November 1911; Aberystwyth Students’ Handbook, 1913, Pub/UCW/S/3, NLW. Prior to her time in Brisbane, Australia (1895–1908), she had taught at Dr Williams’ School in Dolgellau. 48. Common Cause, 23 November 1911. 49. Cap & Gown (May 1907) and (May 1908), p.136; Common Cause, 27 October, 1910. 50. Magdalen Morgan (Aberystwyth, 1903) was a Welsh-speaking suffrage organiser for the NUWSS, taught at the County School in Ruthin, before becoming a lecturer at Swansea Training College. 51. Evening Express, 12 May 1908. 52. Masson, ‘For women, for Wales and for liberalism’, pp.137–38. 53. Beth Jenkins, ‘Suffrage Organizers, Grassroots Activism and the Campaign in Wales’, in Alexandra Hughes-Johnson and Lyndsey Jenkins (eds), The Politics of Women’s Suffrage: Local, National and International Dimensions (University of London Press: London, 2021), p.97. 54. Helen Moyes [née Fraser] Interview with Brian Harrison, 18 September 1975, Tape 16, 8SUF/B/055, WL. 55. Helen Moyes [née Fraser] Interview. 56. Helen Moyes [née Fraser] Interview. 57. Nicoletta Gullace, ‘The Blood of Our Sons’: Men, Women and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship during the Great War (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2002), p.5. 58. British Medical Journal, 18 August 1917. 59. Records of the Scottish Women’s Hospital, Administration, 2SWH/1, WL.

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60. Western Mail, 14 July 1917; Abergavenny Chronicle, 2 November 1917; Brecon and Radnor Express, 19 July 1917. 61. Abergavenny Chronicle, 2 November 1917; Brecon and Radnor Express, 16 March 1916; Brecon County Times, 9 August 1917. 62. Brecon County Times, 3 May 1917. 63. Scottish Women’s Hospitals, 10/22, WL; North Wales Chronicle, 19 October and 27 October 1918; North Wales Chronicle, 27 October 1918; Brecon County Times, 19 April 1917. 64. Brecon and Radnor Express, 16 March 1916. 65. City of Cardiff High School for Girls, p. 49. 66. Western Mail, 17 July 1924. 67. BFUW Annual General Committee Minutes, 8 October 1914. 68. Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power: The Women’s Movement, 1919–1928 (I B Tauris: London, 1997); Julie V.  Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2013); Esther Breitenbach and Pat Thane (eds), Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the Twentieth Century: What Difference did the Vote Make? (Continuum: London, 2010). 69. Marie Sandell, The Rise of Women’s Transnational Activism: Identity and Sisterhood between the Wars (I.B. Tauris: London, 2015), p.7. 70. Caitríona Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens: Domesticity and the Women’s Movement in England, 1928–64 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2013); Caitríona Beaumont, ‘Citizens not Feminists: the boundary negotiated between citizenship and feminism by mainstream women’s organisations in England, 1928–39’, Women’s History Review, 9, 2 (2000), pp. 411–429. 71. Helen Glew, ‘[A] stronger position as women alone’: women’s associations in the British civil service and feminism, 1900–1959’, Women’s History Review, 30, 4 (2021); Kaarin Michaelsen, ‘“Union is strength”: the medical women’s federation and the politics of professionalism, 1917–1930’, in Krista Cowman and Louise A. Jackson (eds), Women and Work Culture: Britain c.1850–1950 (Routledge: Aldershot, 2005), pp.161–76; Philippa Haughton, ‘Fashioning Professional Identity in the British Advertising Industry: The Women’s Advertising Club of London, 1923–1939’, in Leah Armstrong and Felice McDowell (eds), Fashioning Professionals: Identity and Representation at Work in the Creative Industries (Bloomsbury Academic: London, 2018), pp.95–114; Linda Perriton, ‘Forgotten Feminists: The Federation of British Professional and Business Women, 1933–1969’, Women’s History Review, 16, 1 (2007), pp.79–97; Helen McCarthy, ‘Service clubs, citizenship and

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equality: gender relations and middle-class associations in Britain between the wars’, Historical Research, 81, 213 (2008), pp.531–52. 72. H. M. Mackenzie (ed.), John Stuart Mackenzie (London, 1936), p.116; See also: Beth Jenkins, ‘Mackenzie [née Hughes], (Hettie) Millicent (1863–1942)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2018). 73. Deirdre Beddoe, Out of the Shadows: A History of Women in Twentieth-­ Century Wales (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2000), p.58. 74. The Welsh Outlook (March 1922) and (December 1922). 75. The Times, 20 November 1922. Only two women were elected: Lady Astor (Plymouth, Sutton) and Mrs Wintringham (Louth). 76. The Times, 17 November and 20 November 1922. 77. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book and Enclosed Papers, DX158/1/2-17, GA. 78. Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales, p.257. 79. Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales, p.257. 80. Joanne Smith, ‘From Suffrage to Citizenship: The Cardiff and District Women Citizens’ Association in Comparative Perspective 1921–1939’, Llafur, 11, 4 (2015), pp.26–41. 81. Sue Innes, ‘Constructing Women’s Citizenship in the Interwar Period: the Edinburgh Women Citizens’ Association’, Women’s History Review, 13, 4 (2004), pp.621–47. 82. The Welsh Outlook (August 1921). 83. The Welsh Outlook (August 1921). 84. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book and Newspaper Cuttings, 1919–1942, DX158/2/1. 85. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book; The University of Wales Calendar. 86. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book, 1919–1942. 87. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book, 1919–1942. 88. Western Mail, 23 October 1936. 89. Correspondence from chief constable Lionel Lindsay—invitation to public meeting on women police officers, 1931, DCON/82/302, GA. 90. Western Mail, 11 April 1923. 91. Western Mail, 11 June 1934. 92. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Minutes of Committee Meetings, 1924–1933, D325/3, GA. 93. Western Mail, 9 November 1933. 94. Bangor and North Wales Association of University Women Membership Cards, BMSS/38965, BUASC. 95. Christine von Oertzen, Science, Gender, and Internationalism: Women’s Academic Networks, 1917–1955 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2014), p.2.

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96. Western Mail, 11 June 1934. 97. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Minutes of Committee Meetings, 1933. 98. Law, Suffrage and Power: The Women’s Movement, p.6. 99. Aberdare Hall Council Minutes, DUCAH/7/4-60. 100. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Minutes of Committee Meetings, 19 May 1920. 101. The Woman Teacher, 3 December 1926; Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Sixth Annual Report. 102. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book, 1924; Cap & Gown, 22, 2 (1925). 103. The Woman Teacher, 4 July 1924. 104. Cardiff and District Women’s Citizen Association Minute Book, 1924. 105. Cardiff and District Women’s Citizen Association Minute Book, 1924. 106. Cardiff and District Women’s Citizen Association Minute Book, 1924. 107. The Woman Teacher, 4 July 1924. Rhoda Parker was the first woman elected. 108. The Woman Teacher, 21 October 1921 and 18 January 1929. 109. Emily Phipps, History of the N.U.W.T (London, 1928), p.55. 110. Letter from Mrs Gibson to Miss Froud, 1 March 1929, UWT/D/45/59, Institute of Education (IOE); The Woman Teacher, 10 January 1930. 111. Letter Clara Neal to Ethel Froud, 6 March 1927, NUWT Archive Box 522, IOE. 112. List of Hostels for Women in Professions and in Industry (Compiled by the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland, 1923). 113. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Committee Meeting Minutes, 1927. 114. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, July 1923 and April 1934, SA/MWF/B.2/1-7, Wellcome Collection (WC). 115. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, 1917. 116. Michaelsen, ‘“Union is Strength”’; The Medical Women’s Federation Publications: Professional Questions, 1924–1988, SA/MWF/B.4/2, WC. 117. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, 1923–1934. 118. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, 1923–1934. 119. The Lady’s Who’s Who: Who’s Who for British Women 1938–39 (London, 1939). 120. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, July 1931; The Medical Women’s Federation Quarterly Review, April 1942. 121. The Medical Women’s Federation Newsletter, 1934. 122. The Association of Science Teachers, Welsh Branch Minute Book, 1921–1947, MNA/TUG/12/1-2, Richard Burton Archives (RBA). 123. The Association of Women Science Teachers, Welsh Branch, Agendas and Circular, MNA/TUG/12/5, RBA. 124. AWST, Welsh Branch, Minute Book, 1921.

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125. AWST, Welsh Branch, Minute Book, 1936. 126. AWST, Welsh Branch, Loose Correspondence, MNA/TUG/12/9, RBA. 127. AWST, Welsh Branch, Loose Correspondence. 128. The Woman Teacher, 12 January 1923. 129. BFUW, Cardiff and District, Committee Meeting Minutes, 1934. 130. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book, 1921. 131. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book, 1921. 132. Cardiff Women Citizens’ Association Minute Book, 1921. 133. Letter from Freda McLean, 8 January 1932, in response to BFUW questionnaire on married women holding university appointments, 5BFW/04/21, WL. 134. Letter from Freda McLean, 8 January 1932. 135. Reply cited in The Woman Teacher, 21 November 1919. 136. The Woman Teacher, 24 July 1936. 137. The Woman Teacher, 26 October 1923. 138. The Woman Teacher, 4 July 1924. 139. The Woman Teacher, 16 May 1930. 140. Beddoe, Out of the Shadows, p.100. 141. Western Mail, 24 February 1922. 142. Western Mail, 21 March 1922. 143. Western Mail, 21 February 1922. 144. The Welsh Outlook (April 1922). 145. Pall Mall Gazette, 3 August 1922. 146. Olive Wheeler, ‘The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889’, Address at the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1939), p.127. 147. Memorandum on Welsh: In the course of study of children between the ages of seven and eleven in rural schools (Union of Welsh Teachers, 1929). 148. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Rediscovering Ellen Evans (1891–1953), Principal of Glamorgan Training College, Barry’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion, 19 (2013), pp.100–115. 149. Siân Rhiannon Williams, ‘Welsh for all: experiments in bilingual teaching in Glamorganshire in the inter-war years’, Unpublished paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan (September 2005); Evan David Jones, ‘Ellen Evans (1891–1953), principal of the Glamorgan Training College, Barry’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2001). 150. Williams, ‘Rediscovering Ellen Evans’, p.101. 151. Western Mail, 11 February 1928. 152. Williams, ‘Welsh for all: experiments in bilingual teaching in Glamorganshire’.

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153. Cassie Davies, Hwb i’r Galon (Gwasg John Penry: Abertawe, 1973); Llion Wigley, ‘Cassie Jane Davies (1898–1988), educator and Welsh nationalist’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2018). 154. Cassie Davies and J. Rees Jones, Memorandum on Welsh (Welsh Teachers Union: Wrexham, 1929). 155. Gwladys Perrie Williams, Welsh Education in Sunlight and Shadow (Constable and Company: London, 1918), p.99. 156. She married a former Bangor classmate, Rhys Hopkin Morris, in 1918 whom she supported by working as head of the day continuation school at Debenham’s while he read for the Bar in London. 157. Williams, Welsh Education in Sunlight and Shadow. 158. Williams, Welsh Education in Sunlight and Shadow, p.59. 159. Williams, Welsh Education in Sunlight and Shadow, p.70. 160. Williams, Welsh Education in Sunlight and Shadow, p.13. 161. Gwladys Perrie Williams, ‘Woman’s Opportunity’, The Welsh Outlook, 6, 2 (March, 1919). 162. The Welsh Outlook, 10, 4 (April 1923). 163. Gareth Elwyn Jones, Controls and Conflicts in Welsh Secondary Education 1889–1944 (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1982), p.156. 164. Nerys Ann Jones, ‘Dr Gwenan: yr arloeswraig wlatgarol’, Barn, 693 (Hydref, 2020), pp.39–40; Nerys Ann Jones, ‘Gwenan Jones (1889–1971), educationalist and author’, Dictionary of Welsh Biography (2015). 165. Parliamentary election addresses and leaflets, Dr Gwenan Jones, 1945, NLW.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

In 1882 physician and social campaigner Dr Frances Hoggan called for the improved provision of intermediate and higher education for girls in Wales: Patriots, republicans, friends of the people, and all who deeply care for the welfare of the Principality, all admit that it is only by making the foundations of education strong and deep, so strong and deep that it will reach not one sex only but both, that the full measure of national prosperity and growth can be attained.1

Situating her claim within a nationalist rhetoric, Hoggan explicitly linked the economic and cultural progress of Wales to the educational progress of women. In doing so, she sought to carve a unique role for women in a wider national programme of educational reform—an education which Hoggan herself had been denied several decades prior, having to obtain her schooling and medical training in England and across Europe.2 When Hoggan made her plea, there was no provision for girls’ intermediate education in Wales besides a handful of private and endowed schools, while the only Welsh university college open at the time was yet to admit a woman onto their regular degree course. Almost 60 years later, on the eve of the Second World War, a developed system of secondary schooling existed throughout the country and successive generations of women had

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2_7

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graduated from the University of Wales; in turn, using their educational platform to contribute to a wide range of political, social and cultural causes. Their story, however, was not necessarily one of neat, teleological progress. After the final decade of the nineteenth century, the composition of the student body did not change significantly throughout the period, neither did the career paths available to women. Small advances were made only through adherence to certain gendered prescriptions, while the social make-up of the professions outside teaching would not drastically alter for many more decades to come. Like elsewhere across Britain, by the mid-­1920s women’s share of the student population diminished and widening social access to university stagnated as a bitter economic depression gripped the nation. By the end of the 1930s the proportion of women in higher education in Wales had declined to just over a quarter of the student body, from its peak of over 40 per cent almost four decades earlier, excluding the war years. Similarly, many interwar graduates found it more difficult to obtain secure employment than their counterparts had at the turn of the twentieth century, with a university education not necessarily leading to the positive experience of upward mobility many families had hoped and saved for. Nonetheless, a depiction of the University of Wales as a ‘university of the people’ developed across successive generations and remained remarkably persistent. During the second half of the nineteenth century, education attained a political and cultural significance in Wales and the emergence of a Welsh educational infrastructure was underscored by a burgeoning sense of national identity. Tied to a Liberal nationalist agenda, the admission of women to the Welsh university colleges was upheld by educationalists as a symbol of national progress, in contrast to what they perceived to be the socially exclusive practices of elite institutions. Yet, these claims were not always reflective of the reality of women’s position, nor commensurate with support for their paid employment. Nationalists also drew on a gendered national ideal in Wales which highlighted the special contribution educated women could make to future generations and the national cause. Contemporaries and some subsequent historians, too, have attributed the comparatively high proportion of women at the University of Wales in the early twentieth century to a ‘progressive attitude’ and within a longer historical narrative of Celtic liberty. However, there are more practical explanations for these figures. The effects of the 1889 Welsh Intermediate Education Act were clearly visible by the turn of the century.

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This acted as both a supply and stimulus: the new network of secondary schools provided a steady pipeline of students eligible for admission to the university colleges, whilst also creating the demand for suitably qualified teachers. Coupled with the more limited options of university colleges women could choose from compared with their male peers, a significant number of women from England and elsewhere studied at the Welsh colleges during these early decades. It must also be remembered that women graduates constituted a tiny proportion of the female population for their age range, and even of secondary school leavers. Despite the enduring rhetoric of a socially inclusive university and noble efforts of some educationists, the composition of the student body was never truly reflective of the society it purported to represent. The first generations of university women were overwhelmingly drawn from the burgeoning commercial and professional middle class of managers, ministers, doctors and teachers. It was only with the new system of county schools in Wales from the 1890s that there was even a glimmer of hope for a student of more humble origins to attend their local university college. Subsequently, most students in Wales, excluding the very early cohorts, came from the  state intermediate and elementary schools. Following the expansion of state education in Wales and the foundation of civic universities elsewhere in the late nineteenth century, a greater proportion of students were increasingly drawn from the local region. Although it is often assumed that working-class access to higher education was a post-war phenomenon, a small but not insignificant number of miners’, tinplate workers’ and quarrymen’s daughters studied at the Welsh colleges, especially from the decade preceding the First World War. But even for those who reached the final step on the educational ladder, a degree was not necessarily a ticket to secure, remunerated employment. Ultimately, the type of career a woman entered, where she trained, and her ability to advance professionally were still shaped by her socioeconomic background and the opportunities available to her at the time. Outside of teaching, most graduate occupations were largely closed to students from modest backgrounds—not least because of the long and costly training involved and limited funding provision. Although we find some examples of working-class girls who reached the upper echelons of the professions like medicine, these were very much the exception and often one of the lucky few who had managed to obtain one of the fiercely competitive state scholarships or small number of grants from initiatives like the Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme. Much further work needs to be

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done to examine working-class women’s labour within the college walls too; certainly, the charwomen, domestic servants, cooks and cleaners who kept the university colleges running numerically far exceeded women academic staff throughout this period.3 For most working-class women who were able to enter university, their career paths were largely already set in stone by the Board of Education grants. This funding was a double-edged sword. The grants undoubtedly broadened the social base of the student body and made university possible for many who would not otherwise have been able to go, but, at the same time, they pigeonholed recipients into an over-saturated field which offered no guarantee of a secure post on graduation. These women often returned to the communities from which they hailed to work in local elementary or secondary schools and contribute more substantially to the family purse by living at home. Social class, then, determined not only women’s access to higher education, but their educational experiences and subsequent career trajectories. By contrast, most women who did not adhere the prescribed path of teaching and instead entered medicine, law or other more exclusive occupations were often following in their fathers’ footsteps, had established connections within the field and a family affluent enough and willing to support them through their training. The Great Depression, which was felt acutely in Welsh industrial regions, had a profound effect on access to higher education and subsequent employment opportunities between the wars, particularly for women. Despite the enormous efforts and sacrifices parents made to provide their children with an education, many families could no longer afford to send them to secondary school, even when they obtained free places, because of the need for them to contribute to the family income. Moreover, parents who had scrimped and saved for years to send their sons or daughters to university were forced to draw on these savings during periods of hardship, strikes or unemployment. Despite the comparatively low fees at the Welsh colleges, many students still struggled to meet the basic costs even when they were in receipt of funding. Those who did manage to scrape together enough funds to enter college could be in a precarious position owing to the slightest change in circumstances and gaps in between funding payments. Worried about placing any further financial burden on their parents, students initiated a range of self-help schemes from the late 1920s. But upon graduation many quickly faced the harsh reality of an oversubscribed teaching market and found that their degree was not necessarily the pathway to financial security they had envisaged.

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Indeed, by the 1930s, graduate unemployment in Wales was among the highest in Europe and most students had to look across the border for their first post. During the interwar decades there were, nonetheless, some numerically modest, but socially important, advances for women. In the years succeeding the conflict, new opportunities opened to women in the legal profession, civil service, social work and industry. But women’s entry into these was limited, and their representation in positions of seniority was poor. Institutional obstacles were only part of the story and once they had gained a post, or set up independent practice, women still encountered discrimination. They were likely to be clustered in certain fields, their chances of promotion were limited and their pay was often lower than their male colleagues. While growing numbers of women benefited from advances in educational and employment opportunities between 1880 and the outbreak of the Second World War, neither represented a significant break with traditional gender roles and women remained confined to almost  as narrow range of occupations as they had done half a century prior. The post-war period brought new challenges and opportunities. It was only after the Second World War that education truly became more accessible to students of more limited means, with the expansion of secondary schooling after 1944 and university provision from the 1960s.4 From the 1950s, the colleges also began to attract a significant number of students from outside of Wales again and became increasingly international in their outlook. However, Carol Dyhouse cautions that the 1950s and early 1960s were a period of stagnation for women’s higher education— although the arrival of the ‘new universities’ in the 1960s did treat men and women more equally than some of their more established counterparts.5 In the world of work, the marriage bar was finally abolished in 1944 in teaching and in 1946 in the civil service, but not before generations of married women had had to choose between marriage and a career they had trained for.6 Although more graduates were able to combine motherhood and careers from the 1960s, they still faced the ‘double burden’ of paid and unpaid work; responsible for performing the emotional and domestic work for their families, alongside remunerated work outside the home.7 The amalgamation of former single-sex schools into coeducational institutions after 1944 caused many women to lose their headships. After many years of tireless struggle, not least by Welsh branches of

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feminist associations, equal pay for teachers was eventually won in 1961, but even then, was only introduced incrementally. Indeed, powerful gender norms—alongside official marriage bars in some occupations—meant that marriage and paid work were mutually exclusive for most women throughout the period of this study. Those few who did manage to combine the two had often achieved positions of seniority, were considered past childbearing age or had sympathetic employers willing to grant a concession. University-educated women who chose not to pursue or were forced to relinquish their employment often found alternative ways to use their expertise. Whatever their trajectory after graduation, for most women their ‘BA’ continued to hold immense significance throughout their lives. These women found other avenues for self-expression and assumed positions of responsibility in their communities: serving on multiple committees, elected to boards of guardians, active in local women’s movements, or involved in a range of philanthropic and social causes. In many respects, their graduate status and educational networks gave them the validation and platforms to play an authoritative role in the social, political and cultural life of their towns and cities. The notion that graduates had a special contribution to make to society, coupled with gendered conceptions of service and duty, meant that many women became involved in a range of philanthropic and social service initiatives during their time at college. This was often a formative period for women where they encountered people and ideas that would shape their post-university lives, be that in a paid or voluntary capacity. Universities were understood to have a civic function, with relationships between town and gown perhaps more nuanced than hitherto portrayed. Divisions became more blurred particularly by the 1920s as the constituent Welsh colleges drew most of their student intake from the surrounding regions—students who were personally and politically invested in the fate of their communities. Subtle changes in the social, gender and geographical composition of the student body across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helped shape the cultures of the university colleges and their relationships with their wider regions. At the same time, the establishment of university colleges bolstered the civic cultures in the towns and cities they were situated in and created a Welsh intelligentsia who sought to promote a distinct national culture. Moreover, the federal structure of the University of Wales further fostered the development of a burgeoning national consciousness which would continue to influence the

7 CONCLUSION 

219

activities with which women were involved in their professional lives. Women used the tools of their occupations to advance this cause with, for instance, several academics, teachers or lecturers in teacher training colleges becoming the earliest promoters of the Welsh language and culture in schools. In turn, such women could be upheld as a source of national pride. In 1928, the Western Mail ran a new feature showcasing ‘Brilliant Welsh Women Graduates’, which included detailed profiles of prominent Welsh nationalists such as the writers Dorothy Edwards and Kate Roberts, and educationist Ellen Evans.8 For graduate women, the personal and professional networks they forged throughout their education and work lives could be mobilised for a variety of causes in their communities, in promotion of national agendas and in tandem with the ebbs and flows of the women’s movement. The women’s residential halls attached to the colleges provided an institutional focus for the development of a network of educated women in Wales. This academic class centred around the university colleges in Cardiff, Bangor, Aberystwyth and Swansea helped foster a strong women’s feminist associational culture in these towns and cities. Segregation was initially a pragmatic strategy, reflecting college authorities’ desire to safeguard their institutional reputations and women’s navigation of societal expectations of appropriate feminine behaviour. But this also served to nurture a unique women’s culture and provided a space in which women could organise and assume leadership positions. Whilst women were, in theory, equally admitted to all college positions and courses throughout the interwar decades, they remained largely absent from positions of seniority and marginalised within wider collegiate life. It is perhaps telling that even in 1975 the Beckian Society in Swansea strongly opposed college plans to turn the women’s residential hall, Beck Hall, into a mixed one.9 The wider social, political and cultural  post-war context was, of course, different. In many ways, it reflected the priorities of the Women’s Liberation Movement as well as the changing composition of student body, including the need for suitable residential provision for Muslim women. Yet, several of the arguments put forward by opponents of the plans echoed those of their earlier feminist predecessors: crucially, that women were still marginalised in mainstream college structures, and that the need for separate women’s institutions would not disappear until there was full equality between men and women in the university. Graduate women were not a homogeneous group; rather they had different identities, politics and priorities based on their own upbringing and

220 

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experiences. There were, however, some common patterns which shaped their opportunities and life trajectories. By the early twentieth century, the majority attended their local university college and undertook a teacher training certificate. Although a small minority pursued higher education in pursuit of culture, most women were motivated by the aim of obtaining greater financial security and widening their economic opportunities. The overwhelming majority of graduates spent at least a portion of their working lives teaching; a significant number of these did not marry, while those who did were usually forced to tender their resignations on marriage. These were also generations of women who devoted their lives to public service in both their personal and professional lives: some were motivated by altruistic, religious or political beliefs, whilst others became actively engaged with the nationalist movement and saw education as a vehicle to promote a distinct Welsh culture and language. Although the experiences of Welsh graduates mirrored many of the patterns of women’s higher education and work elsewhere in Britain, the unique development of the educational system and the economic structure of the country did foster some important differences too. Indeed, women’s access to higher education and employment opportunities intersected with broader societal changes across Britain and Wales. The chronological parameters of this book encompassed sweeping global economic, political and cultural events, underscored by the First World War and the Great Depression. But they also subtly intersected with widening regional inequalities across Britain and adjacent chronologies in Wales of the declining fortunes of heavy industry, the ebbs and flows of cultural nationalism, and the national ascendancy of Liberalism and its gradual replacement with Labour. The nature of Welsh economic development offered few opportunities for graduate work. Fuelled also by the programme of educational reform, teaching became the main employment route for educated women in Wales. While this was similarly the case for their counterparts elsewhere in Britain, the notably high concentration of both women and men employed in the teaching profession in Wales was exacerbated by these factors and, in turn, contributed to the exceptionally high levels of graduate unemployment by the turn of the 1930s. Gender, class and nationhood shaped women’s identities and experiences in different, and intertwined, ways. Significantly, in times of prosperity or when it bolstered a nationalist agenda, women’s higher education and economic position could be advanced; conversely, in times of economic downturn or when confidence in nationalism waned, women’s

7 CONCLUSION 

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position was always the most insecure. When comparisons are made with other universities during this period, Wales did have a relatively high number of women students, particularly in the early decades of the twentieth century—although the reasons for this were, as we have seen, largely economical rather than due to romanticised claims of a liberal attitude towards gender equality. Similarly, rates of working-class participation in secondary and university education were higher in Wales than England. But the extent to which this translated into opportunities for social mobility is far more ambiguous. Whilst there were greater opportunities for women from a wider social base to gain a university education by the interwar decades than hitherto, this was not necessarily reflected in increased or more secure occupational prospects. Ultimately, the notion of a socially inclusive university was, then, as much myth as it was reality.

Notes 1. Frances Hoggan, Education for Girls in Wales (London, 1882), p. 31. 2. For further information on Frances Hoggan, see Angela V. John, Rocking the Boat: Welsh Women who Championed Equality 1840–1990 (Parthian: Cardigan, 2018), Chapter 1. 3. For an exploration of the experience of domestic servants at an Oxbridge college, see Laura Schwartz, A Serious Endeavour: Gender, Education and Community at St Hugh’s 1886–2011 (Profile Books: London, 2011). 4. Carol Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History (Routledge: London, 2005), p. 205. 5. Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History, p. 206. 6. Women’s admission to the diplomatic profession in Britain was not achieved until 1946 and the Foreign Office did not abolish the marriage bar until 1973. 7. Helen McCarthy, ‘Career, Family and Emotional Work: Graduate Mothers in 1960s Britain’, Past & Present, 246, 15 (2020), pp. 295–317. 8. Western Mail, 3 February; 8 February and 11 February 1928. 9. Letter to Mary Williams from Elizabeth (Bessie) Rhodes, Neuadd Beck, Swansea, 23 May 1975, 773, Mary Williams Papers, National Library of Wales.

 Appendix A: Number of Men and Women Students at the University of Wales

(a)  Number of men and women students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1883–1938 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 0

1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 1907 1909 1911 1913 1915 1917 1919 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937

100

Men

Women

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223

224 

APPENDIX A: NUMBER OF MEN AND WOMEN STUDENTS...

(b)  Number of men and women students at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, 1883–1938 1,000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 0

1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 1907 1909 1911 1913 1915 1917 1919 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937

100

Men

Women

(c)  Number of men and women students at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, 1884–1938 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50

18 8 18 4 8 18 6 88 18 90 18 92 18 9 18 4 96 18 98 19 0 19 0 02 19 04 19 06 19 0 19 8 10 19 12 19 14 19 16 19 18 19 2 19 0 22 19 24 19 26 19 2 19 8 30 19 32 19 3 19 4 36 19 38

0 Men

Women

  APPENDIX A: NUMBER OF MEN AND WOMEN STUDENTS... 

225

(d)  Number of men and women students at the University College of Swansea, 1920–1938 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 Men

Women

Source: University of Wales Calendar, 1883–1938; John Williams, Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics (Cardiff: Welsh Office,1985), p. 238.



Appendix B: Social Class of Women Students from Register Samples

Land Profes Commercial % Agricul Interme owner % sional % tural % diate % (a)  Year of entry: 1883–1893 2 31 22 10 37 27 6 23 29 4 28 25 (b)  Year of entry: 1894–1903 UCWA 1 30 23 UCNW 0 23 23 UCSWM 1 25 26 Total 1 27 24 (c)  Year of entry: 1904–1913 UCWA 1 22 21 UCNW 0 30 15 UCSWM 0 30 20 Total 0 26 19 (d)  Year of entry: 1914–1919 UCNW 0 32 19 UCSWM 2 12 22 Total 1 22 21 (e)  Year of entry: 1920–1929 UCS 1 18 16 UCNW 0 23 20 UCWA UCNW UCSWM Total

Working Deceased % Total class %

3 3 1 2

25 23 21 24

2 0 3 2

14 0 17 14

224 30 154 408

6 4 3 4

24 30 17 22

2 15 17 11

13 6 11 11

173 80 173 426

10 11 6 9

27 26 28 27

6 17 12 10

14 2 4 8

190 94 82 366

17 4 10

11 28 20

17 26 22

4 6 5

47 50 97

2 9

29 25

28 16

9 7

200 161

(continued)

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227

228 

Appendix B: Social Class of Women Students from Register Samples

(continued) Land Profes Commercial % Agricul Interme owner % sional % tural % diate % UCSWM Total

1 22 19 1 21 18 (f)  Year of entry: 1930–1939 UCS 1 23 15 UCNW 2 29 24 UCSWM 0 27 20 Total 1 25 18

Working Deceased % Total class %

3 4

31 28

16 20

9 8

140 501

2 8 3 3

24 32 27 26

25 3 9 17

10 3 14 10

192 63 98 353

Landowner/upper class Landowner; gentleman; quarry owner; colliery owner. Professional Minister; clergyman; doctor; surgeon; dentist; veterinary surgeon; lawyer; solicitor; teacher; schoolmaster; academic; accountant; police officer; civil servant; army officer; justice of peace; school inspector; journalist; mayor; civil servant; architect. Commercial and industrial Captain; shipowner; shipmaster; sailor; pilot; merchant; master mariner; boat builder; managerial; surveyor; stockbroker; shipbroker; commercial traveller; engineer; agent; dealer; traveller; lead assayer; harbourmaster; proprietor of brickworks; manufacturer. Agricultural Farmer; dairyman; fishing; cattle salesman. Intermediate Bookbinder; shopkeeper; grocer; draper; jeweller; ironmonger; tailor; clothier; builder; contractor; painter; auctioneer; printer; photographer; hotel proprietor; publican; victualler; hairdresser; chemist; butcher; postmaster; clerk; confectioner; furnisher; miller; rate collector; baker; watchmaker; postmaster; brewer; tanner; auctioneer; artist; publisher; rate collector; musician; railwayman; huntsman; stationmaster; potter; head keeper; gamekeeper; outfitter; workhouse master; bookmaker; undertaker; librarian; mechanic; optician; assistant; relieving officer; upholsterer; cinema proprietor; shoe maker; coach builder; colliery undermanager; fishmonger; warehouseman; customs officer; lithographer; colliery undermanager; photographer; chef; artisan; dyer; powerhouse attendant; coal inspector; superintendent; works official; electrician; municipal worker.

  Appendix B: Social Class of Women Students from Register Samples 

229

Working class Gardener; joiner; cabinet maker; carpenter; blacksmith; silversmith; coal foreman; plumber; saddler; tradesman; plasterer; mason; quarryman; wheelwright; butler; miner; rollerman; foreman; engineman; tinplate worker; slate worker; moulder; checkweigher; tradesman; colliery overman; carrier; plumber; slate examiner; chemical worker; gas worker; platelayer; dockworker; coal trimmer; tip f­ oreman; tinman; furnaceman; boilerman; laundryman; colliery lampman; colliery sawyer; timberman; waterman; colliery surface worker; coachman; driver; engine driver; works driver; labourer; steelworker; colliery overman; copper smelter; colliery repairman; fitter; union organiser; caretaker; manual instruction; unemployed.

Appendix C: Career Destinations of Women from Student Samples

Teaching Elementary teachers; secondary school teachers; governesses. Academic University lecturers; researchers; training college lecturers. Social work Club organisers, missionaries, welfare managers. Creative work Writers, advertisers, musicians, singers, performers.

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231

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Index1

A Aberdare Hall, 1, 34–36, 50, 51, 56, 69, 72, 73, 77, 78, 83, 84, 86, 87, 177, 179–181, 183, 186, 192, 193 Aberdare, Lady, 29, 77, 108 Aberystwyth, see University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (UCWA) Academic staff (women), 68, 69, 79, 86, 108, 109, 115, 125, 126, 128, 162, 177, 186, 191, 198 Accommodation, see Halls of residence Adult education, 11, 55, 133, 149, 152, 153, 201 Aitken, Gladys, 196 Alexandra Hall, 16, 70, 72, 73, 76, 77, 79, 82, 84, 103, 185, 186 Architecture, 120 Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales

(APEGW), 12, 28, 29, 36, 78, 179, 180 Association of Headmistresses, 182, 193 Association of Women Science Teachers (AWST), 196, 197 B Baber, Margaret, 56 Bangor Normal College, 108 Bangor, see University College of North Wales (UCNW) Barke, Ethel, 185, 191, 199 Barrett, Rachel, 186 Beck Hall, 51, 83, 84, 87, 125, 219 Bedford College, London, 125, 179, 181 Bennett, Victoria Evelyn May, 41 Blake, Lilian, 196

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Jenkins, Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07941-2

251

252 

INDEX

Board of Education, 7, 40, 42, 46–48, 111, 120, 122, 133, 216 Bonarjee, Dorothy, 44, 80, 81, 119 Brewis, Georgina, 11, 88, 147, 150, 154, 157, 158 British Federation of Business and Professional Women, 121 British Federation of University Women (BFUW), 118, 126, 128, 181, 182, 188, 191–193, 195, 198, 201 Bryant, Anne, 56 Bryant, Sophie, 28 Burdett, Frances, 110 Busby, Olive, 125 C Cambridge Training College, 29, 179 Cardiff, see University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (UCSWM) Cardiff High School for Girls, 42, 49, 120, 156, 181, 182, 185, 186, 188, 193 Cardiff Medical School (CMS), 15, 41, 43, 62n81, 69, 116, 188 Cardiff University Social Service Group, 155, 156 Carpenter, Emily Ann, 73, 74, 76 Carpenter, Kathleen (Zimmerman), 126 Central Welsh Board, 122, 126, 180, 201 Chaperonage, 69, 70 Civil service, 104, 118, 119, 122, 133, 191, 217 Class, see Social class Clopet, Liliane, 124, 129 Coalfield communities, see Mining communities Coeducation, 67–71, 79

Collin, Mary, 42, 181, 182, 185, 186, 188, 191, 193 Coombe Tennant, Winifred, 199 Cost of university, 1, 20n2, 35, 43, 48–50, 54, 62n81, 89, 91 Coveney, Dorothy, 128 Cymdeithas Gymraeg y Merched (The Women's Welsh Society), 85 D Davies, Cathrin (Cassie), 85, 201 Davies, Dilys (later Glynne Jones), 28, 29, 34 Davies, Louie, 67 Davies, Mary, 113 Davies-Lloyd, Olwen, 85, 157, 159 Dawson, Maria, 109 Day training departments, see Teacher training De Freitas, Iris, 85, 120 Debating societies, 70, 78, 98n84, 124, 181 Depression (economic), 2, 6, 11, 32, 45, 48, 51, 52, 56, 89, 130, 163, 168, 214 Dix, Emily, 125 Dobell, Annie, 77, 180, 182 Doctors, see Medicine Domestic servants, 55, 76, 97n59, 165, 188, 216 Dr. Williams’ Schools, 29, 33, 111 Drinkwater, Katherine, 111, 196 Dyhouse, Carol, 3, 17, 30, 41, 46, 52, 77, 87, 104, 117, 118, 127, 129, 178, 182, 217 E Edwards, Dorothy, 124, 219 Eisteddfodau, 3, 80, 179, 201 Elder, Elizabeth, 160

 INDEX 

Ellis, Mary, 111, 159, 191, 200 Equal pay, 109, 181, 191, 198, 199, 218 Evans, Ceinwen, 123 Evans, Ellen, 108, 201, 219 Evans, Erie, 62n80, 86, 111, 160, 182, 185, 196 F Family, 2, 3, 17, 39, 44, 47–57, 87, 88, 90, 106, 113, 119, 120, 131, 132, 154, 216, 217 Feminism, 12, 14, 77–79, 178, 183, 185, 189 Fewings, Eliza, 185, 186 Ffoulkes, Annie, 133, 200 First World War, 41–45, 80, 81, 111, 114–117, 161, 165, 187–189, 201 Fleming, Rachel, 163, 164 Foxley, Barbara, 43, 152, 182, 185, 191, 193, 194, 198, 200 Fraser, Helen, 186, 187 Freeman, Kathleen, 124, 129 Funding, 1, 15, 29, 32–36, 39–43, 45–57, 89–91, 109, 113, 117, 119, 124, 125, 131–133, 147, 182, 215, 216 G Gallie, Menna, 124 General Committee for the Promotion of the Medical Training of Women in Wales, 42, 116, 123 George, Margaret, 156 Girton College, Cambridge, 49–50, 106, 118, 166 Glamorgan Training College, 108, 201 Grants, see Funding

253

Griffiths, Rosentyl, 43 Gwynne, Eirwen Meiriona, 85 H Halls of residence, 29, 49, 71, 73, 76–80, 83, 87, 88, 95n35, 151, 177, 179, 186, 219 Hannan, Mary, 160 Headmistresses, 34, 42, 43, 106, 107, 124, 130, 177, 179–182, 186–188, 190, 194, 197, 199 Hewart Jones, Mary, 163 Hewlett, Edith, 194 Hoggan, Frances, 28, 77, 213 Holme, Beatrice, 187 Howell, Lilian, 112, 151 Howell, Mabel, 151, 182, 186, 191 Howell, Nancy, 163 Howell’s schools, 33, 111, 179, 188 Hudson-Williams, Gwladys, 78 Hughes, Elizabeth Phillips, 28, 29, 34, 73, 82, 96n44, 152 Hughes, Frances Emily, 70, 73 Hurlbatt, Ethel, 73, 179, 183, 185 Hurlbatt, Kate, 50 I Independent Labour Party (ILP), 160 International Federation of University Women, 192 International Student Service (ISS), 88, 89, 91, 155 International Voluntary Service, 155 J Jolliffe, Muriel, 89, 92 Jones, Dilys Menai, 163 Jones, Gladys May, 49, 124 Jones, Gwenan, 159, 190, 202, 203

254 

INDEX

Jones, Jane Gwladus Hopkins, 113 Jones, Katharine Viriamu, 29, 59n12 Jones, Leta, 157 Jones, Megan Ruth, 155, 159 Jones, Nellie Eirwen, 55 L Lady principals, see Wardens Lady superintendents, see Wardens Law, 44, 79, 118–120, 216, 217 League of Nations, 88, 166 Lenn, Dorothy, 112, 137n44, 138n56 Lewis, Kitty (later Idwal Jones), 88–91, 131, 155, 158, 159 Librarians, 15, 125 Lightfoot, Maud, 153 Lloyd, Emily Jane, 110 Loans, see Funding Local authority scholarships, see Funding Local Education Authority (LEA), 47, 48, 115, 124, 127, 131 London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW), 41, 62n80, 111, 196 M Mackenzie, Millicent (née Hughes), 40, 79, 109, 128, 151, 152, 182, 185, 186, 189–191 Maclean, Catherine, 191 Marriage, 4, 12, 17, 31, 53, 104, 114, 127–130, 144n167, 148, 158, 164–168, 198, 217, 218, 220 bars, 4, 115, 119, 127, 191, 196–198, 217, 218 Masson, Ursula, 4, 159, 160, 184, 186 McKie, Phyllis Violet, 114 Medical schools, 2, 13, 42, 43, 47, 55, 56, 69, 107, 147

Medical students, 2, 41–44, 69, 83, 84, 86, 116, 149, 196 Medical Women’s Federation (MWF), 111, 196 Medicine, 15, 41–43, 49, 55, 56, 62n80, 79, 86, 106, 107, 111, 114, 116, 117, 122–124, 129, 160, 163, 183, 184, 188, 195, 196, 215, 216 Merchant, William Moelwyn, 130, 154 Miners’ Welfare National Scholarship Scheme, 54–58 Mining communities, 6, 48, 51, 54–58, 159 Missionaries, 11, 15, 104, 112, 113, 131, 158 Mockeridge, Florence, 126 Morgan, Magdalen, 153, 186, 207n50 Motherhood, 12, 127–130, 164–168, 217 Musicians, 49, 118 N National Council of Social Service, 156 National Union of Students (NUS), 46, 48, 88, 131, 132 National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), 165, 180, 184–188, 190 National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT), 177, 193, 194, 199, 200 Neal, Clara, 129, 130, 194 Newport High School for Girls, 42, 180 North London Collegiate School, 179 North Wales Women’s Peace Council, 166, 167

 INDEX 

O Orton, Kennedy Joseph Previté, 110, 114 Owen, Morfydd Llwyn, 142n138, 49, 124 Oxbridge, 32, 47, 49, 50, 72, 79, 92, 95n27, 104 P Parry, Margaret, 89 Phillips, Jenny, 160 Phillips, Mary Elizabeth ‘Eppynt,’ 41, 116, 117, 188 Phipps, Emily, 129, 194 Price, Olwen Emmerson, 120 Price White, Charlotte, 165, 185 R Raw, Hilda, 108, 136n22 Rees, Eunice, 56 Reichel, Principal, 70, 103 Roberts, Alice, 1 Roberts, Kate, 39, 124, 161, 219 Roberts, Mary Silyn, 113, 165 Roberts, Principal, 103 Rowlands, Menai, 137n44, 200 S Scammell, Florence, 50 Scholarships, see Funding Schools, 7, 13, 29, 33–35, 37, 39, 41–43, 46, 47, 52, 53, 57, 89, 106, 107, 115, 119, 124, 127, 130, 131, 149, 159, 161, 177, 179–181, 183, 197, 199–203, 205n8, 212n156, 213, 215–217, 219 See also Teachers

255

Science, 36, 41–44, 49, 109–111, 181, 196, 197 Scotland, 5, 8, 10, 27, 31, 34, 45–47, 54 Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH), 116, 117, 165, 188 Secretarial work, 122 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, 119 Shaw, Edith, 196 Sheavyn, Phoebe, 136n32 Social class, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, 27, 33–37, 39, 44–48, 50–55, 57, 68–70, 73, 74, 76, 87–93, 107, 108, 112, 119, 124, 131–133, 149–152, 155, 159, 161, 200, 215, 216, 227–229 Social service movement, 11, 87–93, 149–159, 162, 168 Social work, 11, 88, 104, 112, 118, 121, 122, 148, 157–159, 162, 217 Somerville College, Oxford, 73, 179 South Wales and Monmouthshire Council of Social Service, 157 South Wales Coalfields’ Federation of Girls’ Clubs, 156, 162 South Wales Domestic Training College for Women, 157 Stephen, Helen, 74, 75 Student culture, 68, 88 Student magazines, 16, 71, 80, 81, 113, 124 Students’ Representative Council, 81, 85, 86, 118, 157, 200 Suffrage movement, 13, 78, 79, 166, 186, 187, 189, 203 Sutherland, Gillian, 106, 184 Sutherland, Mary, 110 Swansea, see University College of Swansea Swansea Training College, 108, 153, 194

256 

INDEX

T Teachers marriage bars, 115, 127 pupil teachers, 40, 107 social status, 160 Teacher training, 30, 40, 57, 109, 149 colleges, 13, 52, 104, 108, 177, 194, 219 day training departments, 30, 40, 57, 109, 149 Thane, Pat, 17, 118, 127, 164 Thoday, Mary Gwladys, 166, 167 Thomas, Daniel Lleufer, 42, 159 Training School of Cookery and Domestic Arts, 36, 116 Tremain, Caroline, 75, 82, 149 U Unemployed Graduates Association, 133 Unemployment (graduate), 2, 6, 103–134, 154, 159, 217, 220 Union of Welsh Teachers (Undeb Athrawon Cymreig), 200–202 Union of Welsh Women, 199 University College Hall for Women, Bangor, 72, 73 University College of North Wales (UCNW), 1, 7, 15, 30, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 49, 52, 53, 58n5, 69–73, 76, 78–81, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92, 96n55, 103, 107, 110, 111, 113, 114, 118, 124, 125, 131, 156, 157, 159, 165, 179, 201, 224 University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (UCSWM), 1, 7, 15, 30, 33–36, 40, 46, 49, 50, 56, 68, 69, 71, 72, 75, 78–84, 88, 104, 107–109, 112, 115,

124, 126, 129, 149, 154, 156, 159, 160, 162, 179, 180, 185, 186, 190, 198, 199, 224 University College of Swansea (UCS), 1, 15, 37, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 83, 85–87, 90, 121, 122, 124–126, 128, 129, 131–133, 154, 156, 158, 182, 194, 197, 219, 225 University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (UCWA), 1, 7, 15, 30, 33–37, 40, 44, 49, 53, 58n5, 63n114, 67, 68, 70–75, 77–83, 85, 88, 89, 95n35, 103, 108–113, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 149, 150, 156, 158, 159, 163, 165, 179, 180, 182, 186, 187, 200–202, 223 University Grants Committee, 31, 47, 87 University of Manchester, 40, 166 University of Wales, 3, 7, 8, 27, 30, 36, 42, 45, 47, 57, 71, 80, 88, 92, 108, 109, 112, 113, 118, 124, 125, 131, 148, 150, 162, 179, 182, 189, 190, 196, 197, 199, 202, 203, 214, 218 University of Wales Appointments Board, 113, 119, 132, 133, 165, 201 University settlements, 11, 150, 152, 154 Urdd Gobaith Cymru, 122, 202 V Verney, Lady Margaret, 36, 179 Vivian, Mabel, 180, 187, 190 Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD), 82, 116

 INDEX 

W Wall, Alice, 153 War, see First World War Wardens, 35, 36, 50, 51, 69–77, 79, 82, 84, 86, 87, 96n55, 108, 116, 125, 132, 159, 177, 179, 183, 185, 186 Welfare supervisors, 116, 121 Welsh Council of Social Service, 133, 134, 155, 157 Welsh Girls’ School, Ashford, 34 Welsh Guild of Graduates, 132, 133 Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889, 7, 37–41, 106, 214 Welsh language, 7, 9, 56, 80, 85, 86, 106, 122–124, 200, 201, 219 Welsh National School of Medicine (WNSM), 15, 41, 43, 55, 86, 111, 123, 147, 196, 197 Welsh Outlook, The, 80, 81, 89, 190, 202 Welsh School of Social Service, 158, 159, 200 Welsh Student Self-Help Council, 49, 50, 52, 89–92, 155 Wheeler, Olive, 75, 126, 152, 159, 162, 190–192, 198, 202 Wilkinson, Mary, 84, 87, 125

257

Williams, Caroline, 36 Williams, Enid, 147 Williams, Gwladys Perrie, 201, 202 Williams, Mary, 86, 126, 128, 152, 182, 194 Williams, Siân Rhiannon, 4, 9, 201 Winstanley, Lilian, 149, 169n13 Women Citizens’ Associations (WCA), 190, 191, 193, 198, 200 Women’s Christian Union, 113, 150 Women’s Labour League, 112 Women’s Liberal Association (WLA), 160, 165, 186 Women’s Social and Political Union, 78 Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), 152, 153, 158, 162, 165 See also Adult education Working class, see Social class World War I, see First World War Writers, 15, 118, 124, 129, 219 Y Y Gymdeithas Geltaidd (The Celtic Society), 85 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 150, 158, 165