Champion of women's causes addresses Luton meeting

Digest of stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: November 17th, 1917.

At the Corn Exchange on Wednesday evening a meeting, held under the auspices of the Luton and District Trades and Labour Council, was addressed by Miss Margaret Bondfield, of London, Organising Secretary of the Federation of Women Workers. Mr T. H. Knight presided, but the attendance was very poor.

The Chairman announced that this was the first of a series of meetings convened by the Trades and Labour Council. They were looking forward to a bright future in Luton, though they had been somewhat handicapped in the past by the system on which the staple industry had been carried on.

The war had changed matters. Women had congregated under economic pressures, and a spirit of comradeship had become apparent. Women had come in great numbers into the engineering industry, but had not been properly organised. That was partly the fault of the men, who had regarded women somewhat in the sense of interlopers. That was an entirely wrong standpoint, and the men had yet to recognise the mutual interests of men and women. They must do their best to help the women to organise and see that they were not exploited in the future.

Margaret Bondfield (Wikipedia)In her opening remarks, Miss Bondfield [pictured right - Wikipedia] surveyed the history of the trades union movement, speaking of the great sacrifices of the early pioneers. Now there was a great need for the organisation of the women workers of today.

Speaking of the National Federation of Women Workers, Miss Bondfield said it occupied a unique place in the labour movement. The willingness of men's unions to enrol women was not of very long standing, but the Federation had revolutionised certain industries.

Coming to war conditions, they had the Government dilution of labour simultaneously wit the knocking to pieces of certain "luxury" trades. This threw out of employment thousands of women. The Federation brought the matter before Government departments and Parliament, and rendered great assistance to them. It had also thrown open its doors to women who entered the engineering works and woodwork shops.

The Government had pledged that skilled men coming back from the war should be able to go back to their old jobs. There would be no difficulty about that, but what was going to happen to girls? They must organised so that their unions after the war could compel the Government to make alternative schemes of employment for them.

Miss Bondfield appealed for support for the National Union which in recent ballots, she said, had proved by an overwhelming majority that if women got the vote they would affiliate to the Labour Party and take political action.

  • At a meeting of the members of the Luton Parish Church branch C.E.M.S. [Church of England Men's Society] on Thursday evening it was unanimously decided to place war shrines in every street of the parish. Members kindly offered to assist in visiting every house to procure the necessary information.

  • Frederick Hollis, the Ampthill boy who injured his right arm in the fire at Messrs Brown & Green's works, is an in-patient of the Bute Hospital. In putting his arm through a window in an endeavour to escape from the burning buildings, some of the muscles were cut. He is progressing satisfactorily, although in some pain from the severe injury.

  • Another of the old Luton 1/5th Bedfords heroes has received the great summons. Pte George Leonard Hawkes, son of Mrs Hawkes, of 58 Baker Street, Luton, was severely wounded at the second landing at Suvla Bay and underwent no fewer than seven operations for a broken shoulder. After two years he was pronounced fit and was drafted to France with the Norfolk Regiment and within a fortnight was so severely wounded in the head that he died within a few hours on November 5th.

  • The Food Controller has fixed the maximum retail price of margarine from November 26th at one shilling a pound, except in the case of makes containing at least 55 per cent of animal fats, the price of which will be 1s 4d a lb. Packets of this must be marked on the wrapper 'Oleo margarine'. The Food Controller has also completed a scheme to secure a fair distribution of imported, Irish and blended butter throughout Great Britain.

  • Luton Town FC were without a game today.