Margaret Bondfield – Her War Years

In preparing for the 80th Anniversary Celebrations for Victory in Europe Day (08th May 1945) Claire Richter provided some historical context to Margaret Bondfields  contribution to national life between 1939 – 1945.

In the spring of 1938, at the age of 65, Margaret Bondfield retired from her official role on the Superannuation Fund of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMW).  When interviewed she explained in typical fashion, ‘It is by no means a complete retirement. There is still plenty for me to do.’  And so it was that for the rest of the year, she travelled throughout America and Canada visiting old acquaintances and giving a series of talks in the region. She was able to see the work of trade unions and get a feeling for America’s response to the troubles brewing across Europe.

Margaret arrived back in England in January, 1939 and whilst, as a lifelong pacifist, the prospect of a second world war was abhorrent to her, she could see the moral case for opposing the rise of fascism in Europe. When hostilities began in September she immediately offered her services in support of the War effort.

Margaret’s affinity with America was an asset. She was asked by the British Information Service to take part in an extensive lecture tour promoting a positive image of Britain in the hope of gaining American support in the War effort.  A leaflet written by Margaret, entitled ‘Why Labour Fights’ was given away to thousands across the States. This effort by members of the BIS lecture circuit, including Margaret, helped change American opinion during the early years 1941 to 1943.

At home, a conference in September 1939 was called by the National Council of Social Service. It was for representatives of organisations concerned with the problems caused by the wartime evacuation of women and children after the widespread bombing of British towns and cities began.  As a result, the Women’s Group on Problems Arising from Evacuation was formed. It was chaired by Margaret. In 1940 the name changed to the Women’s Group on Public Welfare (WGPW). This reflected a widened scope with its main aim to ‘bring the experience of its constituent organisations to bear on the questions of public welfare, more especially those effecting women and children’.   

It had been recommended that evacuation should be voluntary but that powers should be given to compel authorities to receive evacuees and oblige householders to take them in. 

People in areas receiving evacuees approached the invasion of their houses by evacuees with, overall, a ‘praiseworthy measure of goodwill’.  Nevertheless, hardly had the billeting been completed when complaints arose.  Accusations were levelled against groups of women from all the evacuation areas. So obvious were their ‘personal shortcomings’ that compulsory billeting powers had used to secure their accommodation in private dwellings. In almost every reception area there were householders who said that they would defy the law rather than take such persons into their homes again.  

Until this time no social survey of England existed although a limited number of local surveys had been carried out.

The WGPW produced a report ‘Our Towns a Close Up.’ The Report explored the effects of urban poverty that had been highlighted by the evacuations of mainly children from towns and cities to rural villages or country towns. Effects included poor health, education and cleanliness as well as problems of ‘character’.

The Report represented the attempt of a small group of working professional women to understand at first hand the conditions of poverty. Then build a nationwide survey of the conditions of town life in England and identify what was responsible for the physical condition, habits and conduct of the evacuees which were complained about  by their hostesses.

In her preface to ‘Our Towns a Close Up’ Margaret Bondfield as Chairman of Women’s Group of Public Welfare wrote:

‘This book will be, I hope, the last of its kind.  It exposes a weakness which runs through a great deal of the effort to reform certain bad conditions of living. We are too easily satisfied with the top crust of results. A housing crusade secures a scheme of slum clearance, a bright patch of town planning to which we bring enquiring visitors.  We accept their congratulations and too often our crusading zeal ends at that point.  But it is a patchwork reform, and so often the pieces do not fit’.

Margaret went on to say that ‘we must take the needs of the community, get right down to foundations, and build a co-ordinated structure of services which leaves no gap.  Education – physical, mental and social – must be a birthright for all.  Health work in the schools must not be nullified by constant threat to health in the home surroundings and habits in such slums as herein described.  A high sanitary standard for both home and person must be made possible for all.

She concluded that we must ‘learn the lesson that it is not high spots that are required so much as continuous common-sense workday by day – using the power of the law where it is adequate; extending this power where needful, but always working to secure co-operation between authority and the citizen for the sake of the community.’

The Report was reprinted many times and was followed up by the WGPW collecting and analysing the reactions and views of its readers.  These findings were published in 1944 as ‘What Do You Think? The Study Outlines Based on Our Towns’.  Views were favourable and helped influence attitudes towards the creation of a welfare state and a better society following the War. 

The main work of the group was done by sub-committees and working parties which undertook a few surveys and established links with foreign organisations. In 1942 the group co-operated with the local Group Action Councils of the Federation of Soroptimist Clubs to found the Standing Conference of Women’s organisations.  Its work continued after the war under different names until the final Women’s Forum was wound up in 1980.

In her autobiography Margeret wrote:

‘Some people have said that it was really all one war, with an interval in between; but that is not the way it appeared to others.  To me there was a great gulf between 1914 and 1939.  I had changed; the world had changed, everything had changed.

It is not possible to say that a war is right, but it can be said that sometimes it is unavoidable. This was one of the unavoidable wars – the only one I positively know of. The great criticism of the war of 1914 was that not enough had been done to prevent it. It had been allowed to come upon us as a surprise.

But no-one could find this fault in 1939. Our case was clear.  The Labour Movement of 1939 was very different from the Labour Movement of 1914.  We had learned from experience. Our power was greater; our mandate much clearer.  We understood the problem much better.  We knew our enemy – at any rate better than in 1914.

The fighting - the physical strife – in the recent war was the least thing about it.  The primary thing was the revolt of the spirit, the unqualified opposition to all that the Axis powers stood for. The British worker’s acute sense of danger in which all his rights of citizenship lay from the Nazi movement instantly geared the War to a hundred and fifty years of past effort and determination.  The men in the factories were fighting for more than their lives – and well they knew it.’