Summary
The Mother of Modern Cambridge wrote this article at the request of the Cambridge Daily News on 31 May 1938. Transcribed from photos by Mike Petty from the Cambridgeshire Collection in the Cambridge Central Library. You can visit the collection on the 3rd Floor in Lion Yard.
Pioneers on Board of Guardians, Council and Bench
By Alderman Mrs Keynes, J.P.
“There is no one better qualified to describe the great changes affecting women in the last fifty years than Ald. Mrs Keynes, whose long and distinguished record of public service is well known to readers. The first woman to serve on the Cambridge Town Council, and at present the only woman to have been elected an alderman, Mrs Keynes filled the office of Mayor in 1932-33.”
“In reviewing the last fifty years in Cambridge, it may be claimed that while there has been nothing phenomenal in the grown of the town in size or wealth, there has been steady development in all directions, and notably in the efficiency of the social services. Cambridge has kept abreast of the times, and if it were compatible with its instinctive modesty, might even claim occasionally to have given a lead.
“One matter in which it has been in advance of many boroughs, both large and small, has been its gradual acceptance – in a natural way and without much comment – of the co-operation of women in the administration of the Poor Law, the varied work of the Town Council, and the Magistracy.
“At the beginning of the period under consideration, women had no place in these fields of public service. They were, however, gaining experience of local conditions in voluntary organisations, such as the Charity Organisation Society (now the Central Aid [and today, the Citizens’ Advice Bureau]) started by Professor Sidgwick [husband of Newnham College co-founder Eleanor Sidgwick] in 1879, the Cambridge Association for the Care of Girls founded by Lady Humphry, wife of the famous Surgeon, and in many other societies.
First Woman Guardian
“The only elected body for which women were eligible fifty years ago was the Board of Guardians, but little advantage of this right (dating from 1875) had been taken until the end of the century. When, in 1884, Mrs Bateson, wife of the Master of St John’s, won a seat at the Cambridge Board, it was still regarded as extraordinary, even inappropriate, although as Guardian of the Poor, if anywhere was work for a woman crying out to be done. Mrs Bateson held the seat for only two years, and there was, therefore a long interval before Mrs [Clara] Rackham was returned in 1904. After that date, women continued to come forward, slowly at first, but in increasing numbers, until the Boards of Guardians were abolished twenty-five years later by the Act of 1929, there were 15 women out of 47 members on the Cambridge Board, and before that date women had been Chairmen of the Board and of all its committees.
“The right to share the work of the Town Council came later. It was not until 1907 that the “Qualification of Women” Act was passed by which they were rendered eligible for Count and Borough Councils and for the offices of Chairman and Mayor. In drafting the Bill there was, however, a defect which must surely have been unintentional. Residence alone was not a qualification. The candidate must be a householder, and since no women with a husband living could be regarded as a householder, eligibility was confined to women householders who were spinsters or widows. An attempt to obtain a seat on the Borough Council was made by Miss Julia Kennedy, but without success, and in Cambridge the Act remained ineffective.
Removing the anomalies
“It was not until 1914 that the Government were induced to bring in a short Bill “to remove the various anomalies, especially that which arises from the fact that under the present law married women, although otherwise qualified, cannot be councillors or aldermen of a County Council (other than that of London) or of a Municipal Borough Council, whereas unmarried women can be.” This Act received Royal Assent on August 7th, 1914 and Cambridge was the first place to make use of the Act, but during the war, ordinary elections having been replaced by co-option, only one woman councillor secured a seat. [That woman being Florence Ada Keynes herself]. That number increased rapidly after the [First World] War, and reached six in 1924, when Mrs [Eva] Hartree was elected as the first woman mayor. So far, the high-water mark in the position of women members of the Borough Council was attained in the period 1931-32. The period included the office of the second woman Mayor [also Florence Ada Keynes herself!], when there were also eleven women councillors.
“The Act of 1914, of which the preamble is quoted above, did not remove all disabilities, for a clause was inserted providing that a woman, if elected as Mayor of a Borough, should not, by virtue of holding that office, be a Justice of the Peace. IT remained for the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 to put that matter right by throwing open the legal profession to women and also the Magistracy.
Pioneers on the Bench
“Cambridge was again well to the fore, for in the first list of women Magistrates for England and Wales, issued by the Lord Chancellor in 1920, Cambridge had a larger share in the new honours than any other borough.
“The development of the Juvenile Courts and the formation of a panel of magistrates, specially qualified to deal with children and young persons, has emphasised the need for women on the Bench, and in Cambridge they have taken an active part in the Juvenile Court and on the Probation Committee, while even yet 66 Juvenile Courts where no woman is on the rota.
“Again, in the employment of Women Police, Cambridge has been among the pioneers. As long ago as May 1915, a deputation from the National Union of Women Workers, now the National Council of Women, waited upon the Watch Committee to urge the appointment of women to the police force, as had already been done in eight or nine other boroughs. There was no immediate result, but in January 1918, woman was appointed, and six months later another one, both on a temporary basis. [One of these being WPC, later Sergeant Annie Carnegie Brown]. Under our present Chief Constable, they were sworn in as constables on the strength of the force in January 1920. The number has been increased to three, and the value of their work is too well known to require emphasis here.
“This brief account of a few of the many ways in which women have endeavoured to play a useful part in the public life of Cambridge cannot conclude without a word of appreciation of the help rendered by the “Cambridge Daily News”, in making note of these activities from time to time. The daily Press has great opportunities of influencing public opinion , and in Cambridge there is cause to be grateful to successive editors of our local paper – not least to the present occupant of the editorial chair – for providing its large public with a comprehensive and sympathetic view of women’s work and interests. [Historical note – not all newspapers around during that period were as supportive as the Daily News and the Cambridge Independent].”
From the British Newspaper Archive, the first women magistrates are announced in October 1920:
- Edith Bethune Baker
- Dr Jane Harrison (Newnham College)
- Florence Ada Keynes
- Leah Manning (Later MP and Dame)
- Clara Rackham
Note the presence of Sir Horace Darwin (Mayor 1896/97 and founder of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company), Algernon Sidney Campkin (pharmacist and founder of Campkin’s Cameras – still going on King’s Parade), and Joshua Taylor, the retailer whose shop kept going until the early 1990s.
From the Cambridgeshire Collection: Leah Manning, Dr Jane Harrison and Edith Bethune Baker taking their oaths and hearing their first cases on the Magistrates’ Bench.
Lost Cambridge 