tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6128062592045784724.post2037012945726627777..comments2022-07-24T07:46:47.116+01:00Comments on Elizannie: To all my wonderful Female Ancestors on International Women's Day 2011Elizanniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15968498385486949779noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6128062592045784724.post-80609910868581093262011-03-12T09:57:01.312+00:002011-03-12T09:57:01.312+00:00Thank you so much for this really interesting look...Thank you so much for this really interesting look at your family history. Lots more strong women - and this is not a denigration of the men of the time btw but women often had to 'fill in the gaps' out of sheer necessity with men working such long hours in the late 19thC.<br /><br />Reading about the paper mills, spinners and weavers gender balances workforce has made me realise too that there is not so much a North/South divide as a regional divide. Most of the research I have done has been around the London/Essex areas; Bristol/Somerset/Wiltshire and South Wales.<br /><br />Again the demands of the male jobs determined what women could do. By my great grandmothers' time in S.Wales women did not work in the colleries or ironworks who were the main male employers - not even in the offices - but would work in shops and domestic jobs. But many like one of my great grandmothers ran little 'businesses' from their houses: dressmaking, cooking, laundry for others, small shops even! <br /><br />In London the position was slightly different because there were many factories South of the Thames and women living there could get 'outwork' - making brushes for example whilst their menfolk were either working in other factories, doctors or in other occupations. North of the river women working outside the home seemed to find different areas of work - mostly domestic jobs ranging from maids to governesses or companions. And again both sides of the river women did the 'at home' jobs as in Wales. But here home circumstances sometimes dictated what 'home work' could be done - laundry for others was difficult if the woman lived at the top of block of 'dwellings' with no running water or an area for drying clothes..<br /><br />In the 'countryside' areas such as Essex and and the part of the West country I describe of course the women took part in the seasonal working in the fields and were 'ag labs' - agricultural labourers alongside the men. And also filled in with all the other 'home' jobs described in all the other areas - and all looked after their and others' children too!<br /><br />I could go on more but I don't want to bore, thank you again for your lovely comment.Elizanniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15968498385486949779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6128062592045784724.post-75627556613781554422011-03-12T02:23:45.541+00:002011-03-12T02:23:45.541+00:00Hi Elizannie, glad you find it interesting. My mum...Hi Elizannie, glad you find it interesting. My mum left the bank when she got married because she moved to Manchester where her husband lived. I dont know if there was a ban on married women. Its something I'll have to ask her about. Really need to get a family history done soon as she is in her mid eighties now!<br /><br />My mums grandmother was one of 13 kids who were brought up by the two eldests sisters. Their parents died within a few years of each other when they were in their thirties. The two eldest girls were in their teens ( one was 13 and a "pupil teacher" who had hoped to go on to be a teacher but had to leave school to look after the family) and managed to keep the house on (a two up two down stone terraced cottage)and bring up the younger children. The two eldest girls both worked in the local cotton mill and the rest of the kids all started work when they were 10 or 11. This would have been in the 1870's/80's. My mum still talks about her great aunts (they were alve when she was a child) and how they brought up their siblings. It was all ways spoken of with pride in their achievment by all the family. And it was a very big extended family in the village added to by marriage with other large families. It could be that the experience of being brought up in a big poor family influenced my mums gradmother to only have two children herself.<br /><br />My mum and dad ran their business based on my dads trade. My mum ran all the paper work side of things partly because she had passed school certificate at 16 and then worked in the bank, whilst my dad had left school at 14 with no qualifications. He worked as a milkman before starting his apprenticeship at 15 and then worked around the country as a journeyman. He hated working for bosses and being told what to do by people who didnt know what they were talking about. My mum encouraged him to set up on his own and whilst he was an excellent tradesman with a very quick mind he couldnt have done it without her and the business was a straight 50/50 prtnership. As well as running the business togther they split the house work between them too. My mum did the cooking and washing and dad did the cleaning, ironing and sewing ( he could shorten a pair of trousers and hand stitch the bottom in about 15 minutes to a tailoring standard) <br /><br />As to a North/South divide, well that could be a possibility. My mum was brought up in a Lancashire village where the majority of people worked in the cotton or paper making industries. The women worked in the cotton mills alongside the men on the shopfloor and in the offices. The paper mills were all male on the shopfloor. The women spinners and weavers traditionally carried on working after they got married.<br /><br />As to the North being more enlightened....well of course it was better all round! But seriously, I think it was more a case of economic neccesity and the fact that the cotton industry traditionaly employed lot of women workers, as well as children in the earlier days. So there were opportunities for employment after marriage.<br /><br />I wouldnt describe my family background as particularly "progressive" (whatever that means)but they were all grafters and the majority non conformists either Quakers on my dads mothers side (although he didnt take it up) or Unitarians on my mums. So maybe that had some influence.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6128062592045784724.post-34659938585814400662011-03-10T15:28:10.880+00:002011-03-10T15:28:10.880+00:00Thank you for this comment, it is lovely to hear t...Thank you for this comment, it is lovely to hear this. I was a child in the 1950s in a small town in the Southern part of England so was speaking from experiences there -obviously the Northern part was more enlightened. Even our post office counter staff were mostly men. It would be interesting to hear if these experiences were replicated and if there were North/South differences and/or villages vs town differences. I know that in my father's small Welsh home village there was a female postmistress for example. <br />However I notice that you say your mother left when she married. Did she have to leave or was this her choice to go into business with her husband? My mother-in-law had to leave nursing when she married in the late 1940s and I know that was the position in teaching pre WW2, although I believe by the 1950s at least this 'ban' had been raised in teaching at least.<br />From my researches women even in the late Victorian era and early part of the 20th century were often equal business partners with their husbands but often did not 'offically' declare themselves so for various reasons. Sometimes husbands did not want 'outsiders' to know in case they thought that the man could not support his wife. Sometimes women felt it made them seem unfeminine or unmaternal to be working outside the home. And as I initmated above for centuries women have worked in or outside the home to ensure economic survival and too often have been underpaid.Elizanniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15968498385486949779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6128062592045784724.post-41121446336339698952011-03-10T13:09:33.742+00:002011-03-10T13:09:33.742+00:00I am just old enough to remember when one never sa...I am just old enough to remember when one never saw a woman clerk on bank counters<br /><br />you obviously never went to the Distric Bank in Darwin Lancs then. My mum worked as a bank clerk on the counter there for fifteen years in the 1940's and 1950's. There were other women bank clerks there too. She left when she got married and worked with her husband as an equal partner in the business they started together.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com