Women in the Workplace
The Women's Library Exhibition
Timeline Guide
"Life was a drab affair for the average woman clerk before the
war…so drab that the
war with all its privations and most exciting time she had ever had in her
working life." 1
This recollection of World War I by Janet Elizabeth Courtney, one of
the first female bank clerks in the Bank of England, sums up the complicated
affects that historic events have had in shaping women's lives.
In the midst of a devastating war, new freedoms and oppertunities opened up
for women. This timeline guides you through the exhibition currently at
The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University, Old Castle St,
London E1
For more details visit www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk
or call 020 7320 2222
| Date |
Quote |
Historical Event |
| 1850 |
|
1855
The Electric Telegraph Company begins to recruit woman.
1859
founding of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Woman. The ‘Langham
Group’ trained woman in law copying.
|
| 1860 |
|
1866
The first transatlantic telegraph cable is laid between Ireland and Newfoundland.
|
| 1870 |
"It is very desirable that we should extend
the employment of females. In the first place, they have in an eminent
degree the quickness of eye and ear, the delicacy of touch, which
are essential qualifications of a good operator." 2 |
1870
The Education Act
introduces compulsory education for boy and girls
1871
1,446 woman employed as clerks in Britain: 1.1% of all clerks.
1874
Remington introduces the typewriter in England.
1876
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. Two years later, a Manchester
firm is the first British company to introduce telephones into the
office.
|
| 1880 |
"The type-writer involves no hard labour,
and no more skills than playing the piano."3 |
1881
6,420 woman employed as clerks in Britain: 2.7% of all clerks.
1882
The Married Woman’s Property Act abolishes the rule that
married woman could not legally hold property or control their
own earnings.
|
| 1890 |
"…they had to devise a way to and
form the woman’s water-tight quarters where thy would not even
catch a glimpse of a male, and the first rule was that from this
new no circumstances whatsoever, enter another office." 4 |
1894
Bank of England employ woman clerks in a separate department.
|
| 1900 |
|
|
| 1910s |
"If you pay a single woman the same wage
as you pay a family man, you are giving her a much higher standard
of comfort than you are giving to them." 5 |
1911
124,843 women employed as clerks in Britain: 18.1% of all clerks.
1914-1918
World War I most companies give up spatial segregation of woman and men.
1918
Woman aged 30 and over are granted the vote.
1919
Sex Disqualification Act allows woman access to the legal profession
and accountancy.
|
| 1920s |
"Formerly woman were architectural, like
the prows of ships and very beautiful. Now they resemble little undernourished
telephone clerks." 6 |
C1920
Introduction of the first purpose-designed typist chair.7
1921
591,741 woman employed as clerks in Britain: 46.1% of all clerks.
|
| 1930s |
"During the war, the unwritten rules prohibiting
the retention on the staff of a woman marrying another member of
the staff will not be enforced." 8 |
1939-1945
World War II
|
| 1940s |
|
1946
The Civil Service removes the marriage bar.
|
| 1950 |
"When I was interviewed for my job (I joined
Barclays at 54 Lombard Street in 1952) I was told no make-up-although
this was ignored as long as it was discreet – no ‘dare’ legs,
no sandals, and definitely no trousers." 9 |
1958
Hilda Harding of Barclays Bank becomes Britain’s first woman bank
manager.
We don’t want Lady /bank Managers, Prime Ministers, or Big Lady
Executives in business. God made woman foe the home to be man’s
help-mate and comfort advisor.10
|
| 1960s |
|
1961
1,780,190 woman employed as clerks in Britain: 64.2% of all clerks.
1961
Barclays Bank abolishes the marriage bar.
|
| 1970s |
|
1970
The Equal Pay Act grants woman and men, doing the same jobs, the right
to the same pay.
1973
The Stock Exchange admits woman to the London Stock Exchange for the
first time in its 200 years history.
1978
Dame Rosemary Murray joins the Boardroom of Midland Bank and becomes
Britain’s first woman director of clearing bank.
|
| 1980s |
"We are used to young ladies coming in the
LNI department, barefoot, wearing shorts, jeans and all manner of
attire more suited to the beach or garden than an established assurance
comapany." 11 |
1981
Over 75% of all secretaries and administrators are woman: 2,342,570 woman
all together.
1981
Adam Osborne invent the first portable personal computer.
1983
E mployees gain the right not to be paid less than colleagues, where
their work is different but of the same value to their employer.
|
| 1990s |
|
1990s
Wireless technology and the internet are introduced into the office.
1996
Woman gain the right to maternity leave, whilst men have to take unpaid
paternity leave.
|
| 2000s |
"It is still a very traditional world out
there. Many men are comfortable with being with other men and are
discomfited by woman who are their superiors." 12 |
2003
Marjorie Scardino, Chief Executive Officer of Pearson, is the only woman
to lead one of Britain’s top 100 companies. And less than 9% of
director positions in Britain’s leading companies are held by woman.13
|
Statistics are taken from:
Jane E Lewis "Women Clerical workers", in "The White Blouse
Revolution",
edited by Gregory Anderson Mancester University Press, 1988
1* Janet E Courtney
Recollected in Tranquillity
London, 1926
2* FI Scudamore
Internal report on the reorganisations of the Telegraph office
BT Archives, c1870
3* John Harrison ‘A Manual of the Type-Writer’ quoted in
The Culture Work of the Type-Writer Girl from Victorian Studies, volume 40,
number 3
Christopher Keep
London, Isaac Pitman, 1888
4* HG De Fraine
‘Servant of his house: Life in the /bank of England’ London, 1960
quoted in
Pioneers in a Dead-end Profession; The White Blouse Revolution,
Susanne Dohrn, ed G Anderson, Manchester University press, 1988
5* Extract from Report of Deputation of the National Joint Committee
of Post Office Union
quoted in ‘Jobs for the Girls: The Expansion of Clerical Work for Woman1850-1914,
in Unequal opportunities: Woman’s Employment in England, 1800-1918
Meta Zimmeck, ed Angela V john, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986
6* Paul Poiret quoted in Edmonde Charel-Roux, p157, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
1981
7* Adrian Forty, Objects of desire: Design and Society 1759-1980
London, Themes and Hudson, 1986
8* BBC internal circulating memo
BBC Written Archive Centre
R 49/371/3
9* Joyce Weston in ‘Challenges and triumphs’, Jessie Campbell,
Barclays Magazine, May 2003, issue 17
10* Letter dated 20 May 1958 to the Daily Mail, Barclays Group Archive
11* Prunews, Archives of Prudential plc, July 1983
12* Barbara Cassani quoted in Evening Standards, Jonathan Prynn, 12
December 2002
13* ‘Boardroom culture – Woman’s Business’,
The Guardian online, 12 November 2003
|
