1875: The annual assembly of the Trade Union Congress held in Glasgow,
for the first time admitted two women delegates.
Both the women delegates, Emma Paterson and Edith Simcox, had long been
engaged in the struggle to advance the rights of women workers. They
established numerous Trade Unions for shirtmakers, tailoresses and tailors,
nailmakers, bookmakers, miners, metallurgists, tenants and lodgers, and
hammermen. They established these unions in London, Manchester, Oxford,
Sheffield, and Portsmouth.
Emma Paterson (1848-1886) née Smith, worked as a
bookbinder and teacher before becoming assistant secretary of the Working Men's
Club and Institute Union in 1867. In 1872, she became secretary of the Women's
Suffrage Association, but left when she married in 1873. During a visit to the
USA she was impressed by unions organised solely by and for women, and in 1874
she founded the Women's Protective and Provident League (later the Women's
Trade Union League) with the aim of establishing unions in every trade in which
women worked. By her death, over thirty had been established in dressmaking,
bookbinding, millinery and other trades.
She continued to attend the annual assembly of the TUC regularly until
her death. Although a supporter of the Factory Inspectorate (and argued for
women inspectors to be appointed), as with many other feminists she was opposed
to protective legislation exclusively for women which she saw as restricting
their access to higher paid jobs and inappropriate when women had no political
influence to frame such legislation.
Edith Simcox (1844 – 1901) established a reputation as an
educator and author. She wrote on a broad range of subjects—her article on
the influence of John Stuart Mill's writings was of particular interest to all
those engaged in the struggle to improve the social and economic position of
workers. One reviewer of her literature categorized her as a "scientific
rationalist." She was well known as a lecturer at workmen's clubs, and had the
practical experience of managing a small cooperative shirt-making enterprise -
Hamilton and Company, established in July, 1875 in collaboration with Mary
Hamilton. The company was a cooperative that hired only women.
