ABSTRACT
There are many ways of approaching the theme of women and citizenship. When the great 'umbrella' campaigning society for female suffrage changed its name in the wake of partial female suffrage in 1918 from the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, it called itself the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. 1 The name embodied the idea that alongside the rights of women went responsibilities, especially moral responsibilities. What role should women play now that they had a chance to operate in the mainstream of national life? 2 For most women though, the question was academic. Family ties, education and job opportunities kept women close to home. This had been true before women got the vote and remained so for most of the inter-war period. The scope for women's action remained their immediate neighbourhood and the city to which it belonged. 3 Thus for many over the whole period from the 1870s to the Second World War and even beyond, citizenship was not a theoretical concept but a practical issue of commitment to locality. There were many outlets for such commitment: in philanthropy, local government, socio-religious activities and the support of women's organizations, the political and non-political, feminist and non-feminist. 4 The element 232that I want to explore is the contribution women made, out of a sense of citizenship, to improving the quality of the urban environment for those less fortunate than themselves. They provided ideas, organizations and voluntary labour to improve the quality of the physical environment of the poor and promoted a whole range of cultural activities for leisure and pleasure. Their contributions in this respect have largely been ignored.
