Jambusters (5 page)

Mrs Watt found people in the country villages in England and Wales a great deal more conservative than the pioneer communities of Canada, where the first institutes had taken off so successfully eighteen years earlier. Life in Canada was harder but it was also socially more equal. ‘Rural Britain was a very narrow society, hidebound and with groups who were suspicious of each other,’
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wrote WI archivist Anne Stamper. Allegiances ran along predetermined lines. If parents were conservative then children joined the Conservative Association. If they were liberal they joined the Liberal Association and ‘the Other Party if their parents were Otherwise’. The same applied to church or chapel as well as where people shopped. In short, there were sections of society who had no idea how the people who worked for them lived, or vice versa.

The impact of the First World War on rural Britain was enormous. Hundreds of thousands of young farmers, farmhands and village boys signed up in a patriotic haze. The workforce was badly depleted and as the greedy war machine consumed ever more men, the situation for working farmers became increasingly difficult. Women were called on both privately and by the government to help to provide food for the nation. The Women’s Land Army was brought into being in 1915 to fill the gaps left by farmworkers who had been called up. According to official records there were some 250,000 women working as farm labourers by the end of 1917, though just 20,000 of them, less
than 10 per cent, were members of the Land Army. This pointed to the huge pool of potential labour in the countryside. In the face of the mounting casualties on the Western Front, and the call of the Army and Navy for more men, party politics and class distinctions seemed much less important than they had before the war. People were forced into cooperation and sacrifice for the common good. Robertson Scott wrote: ‘Men saw new merits in other men, women discerned new merits in other women, and men and women beheld new merits in each other. Women, whose enfranchisement had justly come, but before the nation was wholly in favour of it, had their great chance of showing their quality and proving their right.’
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Mrs Watt was invited by Mr Nugent Harris to speak at a conference at the University of Bangor and it was here that her message made an impression and started the WI ball rolling. Two of those present were Sir Harry Reichel, Principal of University College at Bangor, and Colonel the Hon. Stapleton Cotton, Chairman of the North Wales branch of the Agricultural Organisation Society. The colonel and his wife invited Mrs Watt to come and speak at a village meeting in their village, Llanfairpwll, the following day.

Thus, Britain’s first Women’s Institute was formed with Mrs Stapleton Cotton as the president. This small institute was to meet monthly on Tuesdays at two o’clock in the afternoon in a room kindly lent by Mrs W.E. Jones ‘until such time as the Women’s Institute has its own building’. The colonel admitted later to Mrs Watt that he had not shared his wife’s belief that a women’s institute would work. He wrote to her six months later that he had been ‘one of the many who had doubted the capacity of women to conduct even their ordinary business with success but I have learned more about women than I have learned in forty years . . . I see and believe that women can and will bring all classes, all
denominations, all interest, all schools of the best thought together in that common brotherhood of love . . . which every man and every woman longs for in his or her innermost heart.’

There were two factors that ensured the survival of the Llanfairpwll institute. The first was the support of Sir Harry Reichel and his willingness to supply speakers on rural matters, as Erland Lee had done in Canada twenty years earlier. The second was the approval of the Marquis and Marchioness of Anglesey, who provided the patronage that would ensure enduring success. Lady Anglesey became their patron, setting a model that was copied in villages throughout the country.

As Anne Stamper wrote in her book
Rooms Off the Corridor
: ‘in the early days if the “big house” did not support the formation of a WI (and often the lady of the manor became the president) then the WI was either not formed or did not flourish.’ Rural Britain was perhaps not quite as ready for equality as Mrs Watt might have hoped but the fact that a farm labourer’s wife and the lady of the manor could sit in the same meeting and discuss sewerage or child welfare, join in a song or a beetle drive or listen to a lecture on the latest agricultural ideas was something radical and new. Not every woman was confident enough to speak up at meetings but simply being there and being part of a new community movement, of having a monthly event to look forward to and on which to reflect, gave a large number of women something precious to hold on to.

Three more institutes were set up in North Wales before Mrs Watt moved back into England: Cefn, Trefnant and Criccieth. Which was the first WI to be formed in England is disputed. Singleton in Sussex and Wallisdown in Dorset both claimed the honour and when Mr Robertson Scott wrote his
Story of the Women’s Institute Movement
in 1925 he gave the palm to Wallisdown. He summarised the success of the WI: ‘The Institute
movement is wide enough to include women who fought passionately for the suffrage, women who loyally accepted votes when women’s suffrage became the law of the land, and women who are still opposed to the participation of women in politics.’ Mr Nugent Harris agreed, writing: ‘The suffragists made the pot boil, the Institute movement showed how some things could be got out of the pot.’
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Mrs Watt was very anxious that the institutes were set up on the same lines as they had been in Canada, adopting the rules and principles. These defined clearly the non-sectarian, non-political character of the Women’s Institutes, which was such an important aspect of their character, most especially in the early days. News spread quickly and soon institutes were springing up all over the country. By the end of 1915 there were twelve institutes in England and Wales. This grew to 37 in 1916 and 187 in 1917. At the end of the First World War there were 773 institutes and over the next three years that figure went up by nearly 600 a year. In Scotland things moved a little more slowly and the first institute was formed at Longniddry in East Lothian 1917. They called themselves the Scottish Women’s Rural Institutes and were run under the auspices of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland until they became independent in the late 1920s.

While no democratic organisation would ever wish to be defined by the personality of its chairman there is no doubt that Lady Denman had a very great impact on the way the WI developed. She chaired what became the National Federation of Women’s Institutes from 1917 until 1946, seeing it through two world wars, the great depression and many teething problems. She was also the honorary director of the Women’s Land Army from 1939 to 1945 and chairman of the Family Planning Association, which was something she was passionate about. As an able sportswoman she was president of the Ladies
Golf Union from 1932–38, vice president of the Royal College of Nursing from 1933 until her death in 1954 and chairman of the Cowdray Club, for the nation’s nurses and professional women, from 1937 until 1953. She was described as ‘attractive, very intelligent, [she] had a fine stride in walking, was good at sport and expert in tree felling, a capable business woman, a good housekeeper, shy, devoid of sentimentality, and full of sympathy for those in trouble. She believed in success and demanded a high standard of work in everything and never spared herself.’
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Born the Hon. Gertrude Mary ‘Trudie’ Pearson on 7 November 1884, she was the second child and only daughter of the Liberal MP and later first Viscount Cowdray, Weetman Dickinson Pearson. Her mother, Annie Cass, was a charitable worker and political hostess. Educated at a day school in London and then at a finishing school in Dresden, Trudie Pearson supplemented her education by reading books on economics and philosophy in her father’s library. Her parents were often abroad on business so that she grew up as a wholly independently minded but somewhat shy young woman, a trait which she later overcame by hard work and enthusiasm. She was brought up to believe that being born to great wealth and privilege came with a duty to give something back by service to the community and she did not avoid what she considered to be a lifelong obligation.

In November 1903, at the age of nineteen, she married Thomas Denman, ten years her senior. He was the third Baron Denman, an army officer and a Liberal peer. Her mother was happy with the marriage but it would appear that her daughter was less so and it was no secret that the couple lived separate lives, though remained on friendly terms, within a few short years of their wedding. They had two children. Thomas was born
in 1905 and Judith in 1907. In 1908 Lady Denman served on the Executive Committee of the Women’s Liberal Federation. With a membership of 100,000 and the main business being women’s suffrage, the lessons she learned during her two years on the committee gave her a valuable introduction to large organisations as well as an interest in women’s issues. Three years later Lord Denman was appointed Governor General of Australia and she accompanied him to Canberra as First Lady. They spent three years in Australia but the climate did not suit her husband, whose health was frail, and they returned to Britain in June 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War.

In the early years of the war she was a moving spirit and chair of the Smokes for Wounded Soldiers and Sailors Society. However, it was her interest in smallholdings that introduced her to the newly formed subcommittee of the Women’s Institutes, still under the aegis of the Agricultural Organisation Society, that was to change her life. Already convinced that making use of waste scraps was a responsible and sensible way to save on food imports, she began a scheme to start backyard hen-keeping. She and a friend, Nellie Grant, took an office in Pimlico and commissioned another friend to make designs for a model hen house which could be set up in small gardens, on allotments and in backyards. She started her own poultry farm at Balcombe in Sussex, the house and estate that had been given to her by her father in 1905, and made plans for a cooperative poultry colony of smallholders at Balcombe.

During the First World War she had been appointed to the Board of Agriculture as assistant director of the women’s branch of food production. The board had responsibility for the early Women’s Institutes and Lady Denman’s job was to bolster those as well as look after the Women’s Land Army. She believed that women were at least as capable as men at running
their own affairs as well as producing food for the nation. She came to the attention of the subcommittee of the Women’s Institutes in 1916. Her name was put forward to be approached if Lady Salisbury, the first choice of leader, were to refuse. In the event Lady Salisbury did turn down the offer and Lady Denman accepted. ‘By this chance and as second choice the Institute movement had acquired the Chairman whose ability and personality were to colour, enliven, and hall-mark the growing organisation,’
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wrote Inez Jenkins in her history of the Women’s Institute in 1953.

The experience of living in Australia, where she had seen for herself the great difficulties endured by countrywomen, most especially in the suffering caused by too-frequent childbirth, combined with her practical approach to problems and her contacts and experience gathered partly from her standing in society but also in her work for the Women’s Federation, made her well qualified for the task of running the WI. She knew that they would need someone who had a good understanding of rural issues, as well as an entrée into the older, established families. A note in the WI files reads: ‘I can see that if rightly worked, we are going to get the pick of the county ladies in support of our movement. You know that I am naturally democratic, but so much depends on getting that ear of the ladies in the counties . . .’
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She knew that these contacts would be key to the success or failure of the WI and she was determined that there would be success. She had strong feelings about the difference between life in London and in the country. On one occasion she invited a candidate to come down to Balcombe for an interview. ‘How shall I recognise you at the station?’ she asked the woman. ‘I shall be wearing pink’ came back the reply. Lady Denman was perturbed by this and felt certain that the woman would be completely out of place. When the train
arrived the candidate disembarked and was greeted warmly by Lady Denman who shook her hand and said: ‘What very smart pink tweed.’

Tall, slim but not beautiful, Lady Denman cut an impressive figure. She looked like a leader and was sometimes feared. Her friends explained that her shyness often led to the impression that she was standoffish yet she was always keen for people to challenge her views. One county voluntary organiser met Lady Denman at a meeting in London. She was nervous and told her that she would be no use on the committee as she was so uneducated. Lady Denman retorted that ‘education doesn’t mean a thing. It is experience that counts. We go down the village streets and see all the nice doorways but we don’t know what goes on behind them. This is what you can tell us.’

Robertson Scott summed up her leadership qualities: ‘Lady Denman had the invaluable faculty of devotion, and, what is much needed along with devotion, humour and a sense of perspective . . . She had the faculty of order, the knack of detaching herself, and she was fair. She had the leader’s ability to hit hard or tap gently until the nail was driven home.’
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Lady Denman was admired for her firm belief in democracy as well as her mastery of the rules and public procedure. She never went onto the platform at an annual general meeting without her copy of the
Chairman’s Handbook
and she once told a conference that ‘It is better for a meeting to make the wrong decision it wishes to make than the right decision which its chairman wishes to make.’ She was also admired by those who knew her well for her loyalty to her friends and colleagues, her unfailing sense of justice and ‘her gaiety and odd unexpected twists of humour that enlivened the proceedings of every meeting at which she presided’.
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