| List of Maps, Tables and
Figures
Acknowledgments
Part I Rethinking Women, Welfare and
Local Politics
1. The New Poor Law, Female Agency and Feminism
2. Poverty and Poor Relief in Lancashire and Bolton
3. Preparing the Ground? Philanthropy, Public Service and
Activism
4. Fighting an Election
5. Negotiating Power
6. Making a Difference
7. Feminism, the Politics of Local Government and Suffrage
Part II Born to Intellectual Freedom?
The Records of Mary Haslam, Bolton Activist
8. Brief Autobiographical Notes Written by Mary Haslam
9. Diary Kept by Mary Haslam of her Work as a Poor Law Guardian
10. The Travel Diaries of Mary Haslam
11. Women’s Suffrage in Bolton
Notes
Bibliography of Secondary Sources
Index
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“A fascinating
and provocative book. Steven King has an established reputation
in the history of social welfare; yet, he acknowledges that his
discovery in 1994 of the manuscript diary of Mary Haslam led him
to less familiar territory. Born in 1851, Haslam was a philanthropist,
suffragist, and a Poor Law Guardian who lived and worked in Bolton,
Lancashire. As a middle-class woman with a supportive family network,
she was able to participate in local politics and Poor Law administration
at a time when this was the principal form of state welfare. King,
inspired by Haslam’s political life, attempts to fuse the
history of welfare with the history of women’s activism, aiming
to rewrite both in the process … A very attractive volume,
which has something to offer all those interested in women’s
lives in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.” Choice
“This is an interesting local and
biographical study…King provides a vivid and valuable picture
of philanthropy and public service among middle-class men and women
in one town, and rightly comments that if we are fully to understand
activities so important to late Victorian and Edwardian society
and politics we need many more such studies, which for this period
are all too few.”
English Historical Review
“In this examination of the life and
papers of Mary Haslam, poor law guardian and leader of the women’s
movement in Bolton, Steven King sets out to elucidate a number of
contentious debates over the influence of women on poor law policy
and the development of feminism at the local level. In this as in
so many areas of British social history, far more is known about
national figures (usually based in London) than about local leaders.
What makes Mary Haslam so valuable is not only her long service
as a poor law guardian in the manufacturing city of Bolton, but
the detailed working diary she kept during those years, which is
reproduced in this volume. We can know precisely what Mary Haslam
did and why she did it, from the time she became a member of the
Bolton Ladies Workhouse Visiting Committee in 1893, through her
election to the Board of Guardians, to the early months of 1905.
To illustrate Haslam’s activities and the principles behind
them, King also makes effective use of her travel diaries and her
papers on the campaign for women’s suffrage in Britain. Hers
was not only an interesting but also a well-documented life.
… To a reader interested in the poor law, therefore, the book
has much to offer in the way of details of administration on a local
level … but the principal function of poor law administration
in this study is as a pathway to involvement in local politics and
the feminist movement. To the study of these issues, the book is
certainly a valuable contribution.” Journal
of Social History
“At the beginning of the twentieth
century, there were over 1000 women serving as Poor Law Guardians.
Among them was Mary Haslam (1851–1922) of Bolton, a middle-class
philanthropist, who came from one prominent local family and married
into another, and who was the leading figure in the women’s
movement in the town during this period. Haslam kept a working diary
of her activities on the Bolton Ladies Workhouse Visiting Committee
and as a Poor Law Guardian, and it is this unique source that underpins
King’s study of the role of women in welfare and local politics
between 1880 and 1920. The second part of the book reproduces this
diary (covering the period 1893 to 1905), together with several
other sources relating to Haslam: brief autobiographical notes,
her diary of a family holiday to Ireland (which included a fact-finding
visit to the local workhouse), and her history of the local women’s
suffrage campaign in which she played a central role as founder
of the Bolton Women’s Suffrage Association. She also served
as president of its successor, the Bolton Women Citizens’
Association, and the source material concludes with its tribute
to her as ‘a leader of great personality, high courage, and
lofty ideals’ (273).
…King’s aim is to use his material on Bolton to tackle
three interconnected themes: the workings of the Poor Law in the
late Victorian and Edwardian period; the impact of female guardians
such as Haslam on the Poor Law’s operation; and the broader
development of the women’s movement in the late nineteenth
century, thinking in particular about ‘the relationship between
feminism and poor law work in the individual and collective feminist
journey’ (4). These themes are linked together in King’s
assertion that, contrary to interpretations that have seen female
guardians as marginalized, resented by male colleagues and achieving
little, women — in Bolton at least — made a substantive
difference to the implementation of the Poor Law.
… As King himself notes, further local studies are necessary
to establish how representative these experiences were, and he suggests
at least 12 other women in Lancashire alone for whom similar studies
could be undertaken. His engaging and thought-provoking survey of
Bolton clearly shows the value of such work.” Journal of Contemporary History
“This is an excellent and innovative book. It reproduces
for the very first time the working diary of a female poor law guardian
and offers a complex and comprehensive rethinking of the role of
women in late nineteenth and early twentieth century local
government.” Pat Thane, Leverhulme Trust Professor at
the University of London
King concludes that women like Haslam were more typical of
those who ran for election to local bodies as the municipal franchise
changed to include women electors who formed as many as a quarter
of all local voters; women like her were instrumental in the provincial
suffrage organizations such as those that sprang up in Bolton as
direct inheritors of poor law reform activism. Haslam’s feminism
inhered in this course of action, although she and many of her fellow
women participants in Bolton’s political community were opponents
of militant suffragism. Haslam was an enlightened Liberal Party
supporter who often refrained from partisan rhetoric in tactical
bids to wage cross-party policy efforts, assisted by women Conservatives
and ultimately mingling with women socialist and trade union advocates
of the Labour Party and its left offshoot, the Independent Labour
Party. In King’s estimation, Haslam can legitimately be cast
as a feminist and a social reformer who was unlike her metropolitan
counterparts, both more familiar and more ubiquitous as a type than
much feminist historiography allows, even in her loyalty to her
tirelessly supportive spouse. Haslam’s disciplined and rigorous
work routine demonstrated compassion and steadfastness; her care
for her poorer neighbors is apparent – driven by conscience,
attentiveness to detail, and political savvy.” Journal
of Modern History |
