Guide to the Margaret Grace Bondfield Papers, 1854-1951 (bulk 1898-1951)

Collection Summary

Biographical Note

Margaret Bondfield, (1873-1953) trade union leader and first British woman cabinet minister, was born in humble circumstance near Chard, Somerset. "Maggie," as she was known all her life, went to work at age thirteen as a teacher in a state-aided school. Two years later she got work as a shop assistant. Low wages, long hours, and the living-in system sparked her interest in the National Union of Shop Assistants and led to her lifelong involvement with the British labor movement. The organizations with which she was involved included the Trades Union Congress, Women's Trade Union League, National Federation of Women Workers, and the International Labour Organization. On all these fronts she fought for the rights of women workers and for the recognition of women within the movement. As a socialist she opposed the limited bill for female emancipation and stood for adult suffrage.

Early in her career Bondfield joined the Independent Labour Party. In a six-year preliminary career, she served as secretary to the Ministry of Labour in the first Labour government and became the first woman cabinet member when she was appointed Minister of Labour in 1929. Upon retirement in 1939 she devoted much of her time to social-service groups. Her autobiography, entitled A Life's Work (1949), concerned mainly with the "radical" causes for which she worked.

Scope and Content Note

Correspondence, clippings, speeches, publications, government documents, and other printed material concerning her involvement in the Labour Party and its election campaigns, 1919-1947; unemployment insurance, strikes, and juvenile employment, 1912-1931; political trip to Russia in 1920; political and labor concerns in Australia, 1929-1941; British immigration to Canada, 1924-1938; postwar affairs in Germany, 1946-1947; trips to America, 1910-1949; and various women's groups including the International Congress of Working Women, Women's Group on Public Welfare, National Institute of Houseworkers, the Shaw Training School, and the Women's Peace Crusade, 1921-1940. Correspondents include Helen Lockwood, Edith and Grace Abbott, Clement Atlee, Angelica Balabanoff, Martha Anderson, Mary Anderson, William H. Beveridge, Ernst Bevan, Edward Carpenter, Madame Joliet-Curie, Mary Dingman, David Lilienthal, J. Ramsey MacDonald, Violet Markham, Frieda S. Miller, Mrs. Vijaylaxmi Pandit, Frances Perkins, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rose Schneiderman, and Lillian Wald. Personal and travel diaries, 1898, 1908, 1910-1951. Correspondence with John Hilton and Percy Wallis concerning wage and price controls, 1932. Bondfield's articles, broadcasts, speeches, and related correspondence, 1902-1948, and clippings about her, 1898-1949.

Manuscripts of her books, MY LEISURE, 1947, and A LIFE'S WORK, 1948. Family correspondence, 1896-1948, three letters to her father William Bondfield from Samuel Blasdale in America, 1854-1861, and manuscript on local history by J.S. Bondfield, 1880. Miscellaneous memorabilia, photographs, bibliographies, and notes on the collections.

Access and Use

Encoding Information

Encoded by Elizabeth Clarke, November 2006.

Administrative Information