A ‘Trade Union for Married Women'

The 1910s were years of unprecedented change for women in Britain. This chapter focuses on the character and experience of what was arguably the most outstanding women’s organization of this period – the Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG). The WCG – an auxiliary body of the consumers’ co-operative movement – was founded in 1883; during the 1890s and early 1900s its original, and relatively modest, aim of teaching women about co-operation was transformed into a far more political agenda which articulated the needs of a previously unrepresented constituency – working-class wives and mothers. ‘Being composed of married women who are co-operators’, explained the General Secretary, Margaret Llewelyn Davies, in 1920, ‘it has naturally become a sort of trade union for married women’. The Guild’s distinctive reputation was based on its pioneering work in two areas: divorce law reform and maternity care.