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WOMEN, POLITICS AND WELFARE

The Papers of Nancy Astor, 1879-1964, from Reading University Library

Part 1: Autobiography, Political Diaries, Speeches, Articles and Newscuttings

Part 2: Subject Files - Children and the Family

Publisher's Note

Part 1: Autobiography, Political Diaries, Speeches, Articles & News Cuttings

Part 2: Subject Files – Children and the Family

Part 3: Subject Files – Health, Birth Control and Social Insurance

Part 4: Subject Files – Women, The Franchise, Marriage Laws and Papers regarding Pressure Groups

Part 5: Subject Files – Drinks, Drugs and International Relations

Part 6; Subject Files – Industry, Unemployment, Housing and Related Topics

Part 7: Papers on Political Elections and Correspondence with Eminent people

“Nancy Astor could be as bold as brass: but she was in fact a kind and compassionate woman with, especially where women were concerned, a great sense of justice. She was no respecter of persons, and would take you down a peg as soon as look at you, but not if you were getting a raw deal or down on your luck…..Her most valuable work was to make it possible, often behind the scenes, for able and worthy people, welfare workers and social reformers, to get a hearing and a chance to act. She was amongst the impresarios of the Welfare State…People like Nancy Astor, quite apart from their good works are atmospheric. They make things hum.”

Lord Attlee , The Observer, 3 May 1964

“The variety of her excellence was impressive. Politician, hostess, mother of a large family, conversationalist, expert in mimicry and charade, formidable champion of assorted causes, anything you can do, she could do better.”

Leader, Daily Telegraph, 4 May 1964

These two tributes – the former by Labour Leader Clement Attlee, one of her political adversaries – were amongst the many that acknowledged the wide-ranging talents and accomplishments of Nancy Astor who died on 2 May 1964.

Yet whilst it is usually remembered that Nancy Astor was the first women to take her seat in the House of Commons, the fact that she was a champion of the underprivileged (particularly women and children) and a leading figure in Welfare legislation is often overlooked.

This major new project makes available for the first time the correspondence and archives of Nancy Astor and will make a substantial contribution to the examination of issues such as:

  • Women in Politics
  • The origins of the Welfare State
  • Political Oratory
  • Anglo-American relations, 1914-1964
  • The rights of women and children
  • The Cliveden Set

 

Born in Danville, Virginia, in 1879, Nancy Astor was the eighth of eleven children and one of the “Langhorne belles”, noted for her beauty. Married disastrously at the age of 17 to the son of a wealthy New York family, she obtained a divorce in 1903.

A divorcée with a young son, she married Waldorf Astor in 1906 after meeting him on a trip to Europe. Settling at Cliveden House in Berkshire, she went on to become the mother of five further children between 1907 and 1918.

Waldorf Astor was elected as Conservative member for Plymouth in December 1910. During the First World War he acted as Parliamentary private secretary to Lloyd George and Cliveden served as a hospital for the Canadian army. In 1919, Waldorf succeeded to the Viscountcy and Nancy decided to fight for his Plymouth seat, declaring her intention “to fight the fight, not only for the men but of the women and children of England.”

Successively elected 7 times until her retirement in 1945, Nancy Astor flew in the face of many conventions as she fought for:

  • Equal pay and opportunities for women
  • Nursery School provision and the raising of the school leaving age
  • The elimination of venereal diseases
  • The prohibition of liquor
  • The control of prostitution
  • The supply of benefits to the needy
  • The appointment of women to public boards and inspectorates

 

Nancy Astor remained the only woman member in the House of Commons until 1921, when she was joined by Margaret Wintringham, a Liberal. In 1924 the number of women members increased to 6; and in 1929 to 14, a small number given that there were 615 MPs overall.

Cliveden became an important meeting place for politicians, pressure group activists, writers, social workers, civil servants and aristocrats.

“As for Cliveden it is not a hotel. Money can take me into the Berkeley or the Ritz, but not into Cliveden. In our drawing room the Rhodes Scholars have foregathered; we have groups of educationalists to plan for the children; we have had other groups discussing agriculture. We have had people at Cliveden because we like them. We have entertained many politicians of all countries. At a time when the Soviet Union was being ostracised we entertained Krassin at Cliveden. We did so because we liked him. In the same way Ribbentrop never crossed the threshold at Cliveden simply because we did not like him…..”

Draft for Chapter XI of Autobiography

A true net-worker, Nancy Astor relished the opportunity to put people together – acting as a catalyst for action. George Bernard Shaw, with whom she visited the Soviet Union in 1931 (asking Stalin “when are you going to stop killing people?”), was a regular visitor, as were Sir Samuel Hoare, Sir John Simon, Lord Halifax, Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden, Joseph Kennedy and Bill Bullitt. Despite allegations of pro-Nazism, the papers show that Nancy Astor was staunchly anti-Nazi. The “Second Foreign Office” (as Cliveden became known) exerted a major influence on Foreign Affairs from 1931 onwards (and it was at Cliveden that Christine Keeler met John Profumo by the swimming pool in 1963).

“One of the penalties of public life is that the line, between one’s private and one’s public life is blurred…legends arise about public figures which have little foundation in fact. The legend which has most distressed myself and my husband is that associated with the so-called Cliveden Set. According to this legend, my husband and myself and our friends are somehow or other regarded as conspirators …. according to the highly-coloured accounts, the Chancelleries of Europe are influenced by our wishes. A whisper at Cliveden causes Legations to tremble and Embassies to rock…What Elstree-Hollywood nonsense it all is!...I wish those people who believed in the legend of the Cliveden Set could come to Cliveden and see the Visitor’s Book. They would get their eyes opened. They would see the kind of people whom we like and in whom we are interested. They would find to their surprise that names of obscure social workers who are in need of rest and refreshment occur more frequently than the better-known names of politicians and statesmen.”

Draft for Chapter XI of Autobiography

Part 1 makes it possible to examine and assess Nancy Astor’s full and interesting life.  It includes her unpublished manuscript autobiography and two extracts below give a flavour of the range of topics covered:

“Mr Lloyd George on the other hand was bustling, vigorous and full of energy. Like the war-horse in the Bible he sniffed battle from afar. Not even the Irish Members enjoyed a fight more than Lloyd George. He was the complete man of affairs.  His capacity for work was enormous and he knew how to pick his lieutenants. His skill in conference was uncanny. His tongue could charm a bird from a tree. His prestige at the time was enormous. He has led the country triumphantly through the war. He had been a great war-leader; the greatest since Pitt.”

Draft for Chapter 1 of Autobiography

“I do not think I shall ever forget the year 1942 because it was in that year that the people of Plymouth were brought face to face with the Americans. They came gradually, quite unheralded and almost apologetically into the City…Of course there were many funny incidents. As a Virginian I would not have it that a Virginian could do wrong: I used to say to American Troops ‘If you are in trouble, say you come from New York’….”

Draft for Chapter XIII of Autobiography

Also included are Nancy Astor’s well-organised political diaries which contain the text of all her parliamentary contributions. In the following extracts she gives her thoughts on the training of women in domestic work and the setting up of juvenile unemployment centres and on the question of insurance:

“It may be asked why train them? Why not take them straight into your houses? Everyone ought to know that some of these girls have gone straight from school into the factories where they were a national asset but the minute the War was over the State dispensed with their services and it was suggested that they should go into domestic service. Many of them had not the slightest idea as to how things should be done…”

8 March, 1923 Political Diaries

“…something is wrong about insurance and I do no think it is a good thing for the House of Commons to say that there is nothing wrong and that the doctors are all right….”

29 April, 1930 Political Diaries

Also included are Nancy Astor’s Speeches (national and local) and 89 volumes of newscuttings which show how she was perceived in the national and local press in both Britain and America. These cuttings show how she was initially trivialized on account of her gender and her beauty, but was gradually accepted as a formidable reformer. A woman who wanted other women to “Go on being mothers, wives, inspirations to men.” But “We must make them know we are just as necessary in their public lives as in their private lives.”

The following extract shows her depth of compassion for women and people in general:

When you go into the slums of a big town and see the swarms of children playing in the streets; when you smell the odours and see the dirt and hear the everlasting racket which goes on, you wonder what sort of lives the people who live there can lead, what sort of pleasure they can find, and what sort of happiness or satisfaction is possible to them.

But when you go into the insides of the houses and tenements, and get to know the people, you find that human nature is the same everywhere and that the finest virtues often flourish in these terrible surroundings..”

Chapter V: Politics and Town Women Women and the New Age

Draft compiled 23 February 1922

In America, “our Nancy” was compared to Jeanette Rankin – the first US congresswoman – and she played an important role in developing Anglo-American relations.

“Lady Astor’s wonderful vitality seems to have carried her through the ordeal of her American visit…she said…”I can’t hedge and pretend and camouflage my opinions. I have been warned that it was inadvisable to speak about the League of Nations. But when I began to prepare my first speeches I found I could not leave out the most important thing in world politics to-day – international co-operation. After all the League of Nations was an American conception….”

Western Independent, 4 June 1922

Parts 2-6 make available the main body of the collection – the Subject Files. These are a major resource for the topics that they cover as Nancy Astor had her correspondence, background notes, and rare contemporary pamphlets and leaflets (from pressure groups rather than political parties) filed together.

We have aided scholars by grouping the Subject files in Parts 2-6 under common themes.

Part 2 covers the theme of Children and the Family and includes Nancy Astor’s Subject Files for: Adoption, Baby Week, Child Welfare, Education, Family Endowment, Guardianship, Head Mistresses, Child Slavery, Infant Welfare and Maternity, Milk, Playing Fields, the Children’s Bill, Juveniles, Children in Institutions and Nursery Schools.

These files give a clear insight into the topics which were so close to Nancy Astor’s heart – all matters relating to women and children.

The following extracts concerning Adoption, Nursery Schools and Milk give an idea of how closely involved she was.

“Dear Lady Astor

At our Committee meeting yesterday my Committee asked me to write to you and thank you for your kindness in speaking for our Council on Thursday last. Your speech delighted a great many people and as a result of your presence we got an excellent “press”…I was personally very touched that my story of “Nicholas” made an impression on you as I can assure you that after hearing of his earlier “Lancashire” life and then seeing him so happy with his “mother” (adoptive) I felt as if one couldn’t possibly have done anything more worthwhile than to bring those two together…”

Letter from Lancashire and Cheshire Adoption Council, 1929

“You really were a dear to come yesterday and you were greatly appreciated both by the audience and the Welshmen…We are having our first ‘Welsh Nursery School’ committee at Deptford tomorrow…

Letter from Lucy B Cadbury, 28 April 1929

And Nancy Astor replies:

“I know that your heart will be rejoiced for here is £400 from an American friend of mine. I wonder if I might ask you to let me put my subscriptions towards a definite day nursery and could it be at Merthyr. If ever you get the chance, you might say that we really are doing something for Wales, for they make it their business to go round the country saying that we are doing nothing…”

“Lady Astor has herself opened several Milk Bars in the country and considers that their growing popularity in this country will help forward the cause of temperance.”

Letter from Lady Astor’s Political Secretary to the Canadian Legion, 31 August 1935

Nancy Astor was very concerned with the health of the nation’s mothers and babies and emphasis is made in the files on the importance of healthy Motherhood, stressing the requirements of sufficient food, reasonable domestic comfort, no undue burden of household or industrial work, facilities for readily obtaining medical and nursing advice or treatment and adequate treatment and care at the time of confinement with admission to a maternity home or hospital if their own home was unsuitable. An extract from Nancy Astor’s notes for a speech on Baby Week reinforce the importance of healthy Motherhood:

“All these requirements can be provided, partly or wholly, by the Local Authority when the mother cannot otherwise secure them. The importance of sufficient food is not always realised; during pregnancy a mother must provide nourishment for two, the claims of the developing child become increasingly heavy and if food is insufficient they will be satisfied at the expense of the mother. The drain on the mother’s strength continues during lactation and many women might nurse their own infants with far greater success if they themselves were adequately fed. Breast-feeding is one of the great safeguards of infancy.”

She extols, in addition to the virtues of breast feeding, wise mothering, a good environment with fresh air, sunshine, warmth and facilities for proper medical and nursing supervision through the role of Health Visitors and Infant Welfare Centres. It is noted:

“That the efforts which have been made of recent years to reduce unnecessary suffering and death among infants are becoming increasingly successful, is indicated by the steady fall in the infant mortality rate. In 1919 the rate was 89 per 1000 births, the lowest rate ever recorded  for this country and this in spite of the shortage of houses and consequent overcrowding, the scarcity of milk, high prices etc. Such a result is most encouraged to us to persevere with efforts to save infant life.”

The files on Education contain some fascinating material and show that Nancy Astor was very forthright in her discussions on the subject with other politicians. She writes to Harold Macmillan on 30 July 1936 concerning the Ten Year Plan:

“Dear Harold

I hope you have not forgotten our Ten Year Plan for children which you were good enough to sign….I am convinced myself that the Plan really does meet a long felt need. Its reception ever since publication has been extraordinarily gratifying and all sorts of people and Societies have become interested. We are most anxious not to lose ground… You know how much I care about the importance of building our foundations right. The more money we spend on sickness, on cripples and on crime, especially juvenile crime, the more convinced I am that we are working at the wrong end and that much, very much, can be saved if only we gave the children a better chance at the outset….”

The following heated exchange of information between Lord Eustace Percy at the Board of Education and Nancy Astor indicates her depth of feelings on the subject of Education.

“My dear Nancy

Don’t you think that if you want to find out what is actually going on in Education it would be a good thing if you come round here some time and have a talk with one or two of my people to find out that facts? There are many points of policy on which you and I have a legitimate difference of opinion, but when it comes to the facts of progress, it is really a pity that you should give currency in public to statements, for instance, that I have reduced the grants on Higher Education when as a matter of fact, so far as we can estimate the expenditure this year, I have increased them by £331,745 in two years, and that classes of over 50 are not being attended to when, as a matter of fact, I have publicly stated that their number has been reduced by 20 per cent in two years. It is difficult enough to get the public to realise the facts of educational administration, but I feel that the members of our party who are interested in education should try to put the actual facts before the country.

Board of Education, 18 February 1927

“Dear Eustace

I’m sorry you felt I should have come to the Board. Perhaps I should have – I most assuredly would be there oftener if I got more sympathy on progress. Quite frankly I don’t get much encouragement when I do come to you, on the expansion of Education…”

21 February 1927

“My dear Nancy

You are really too bad. Cannot you make that assumption – just for the sake of argument – that I do not tell deliberate lies? Just to show you how hopeless your letter is, may I point out that the average expenditure per pupil in maintained secondary schools in 1924-5 was not £26 but between £16 and £17? You have confused gross with net expenditure. And the figures for classes over 50 to which you refer are as old as March 31, 1925….”

22 February 1927

“My dear Nancy

I apologise for a slip in my letter last night – when I was writing from memory. ‘£16 to £17’ should have been ‘£19 to £20’.”

23 February 1927

“My dear Eustace

How ever can the ‘wildly inaccurate statistics’ which you say I am now flinging at your head have caused you to regret my approaches in the past? Your sequences and your causes and effects are topsy-turvy, even if your logical mind causes you to say that I justify my ‘torrent of abuse’ by the inaccuracy of my statements:

However to be serious-

When I see you urging and helping Local Authorities to adopt a policy of expansion – preparing this year and next year and the year after for complete raising on the school age which the Hadow Committee recommended, then I will sing your praises as the head of a really progressive Ministry of Education. So long, however, as I see your Department (whether under you or anyone else) knuckling under to the Treasury – practising the false economy of the Anti-wastrels, then I shall be found among the critics.

Why don’t you give the Nation a real lead and vision – of an educated Democracy, trained, skilled – with a picture of the adults off the dole, but on the job, due to the boys being out of the slums, etc, because in the schools……”

24 February 1927

The last section of Part 2 is dedicated to the files on Nursery Education and there is information on Nursery Schools all over Great Britain, including files on American Nursery Schools, the History of the Beginning of Nursery Schools, the Nursery School Association, a file on Nancy Astor’s commitments and specific contributions to particular Nursery Schools, and on War-Time Nurseries. These files are organised alphabetically. The following extract is from a letter to Nancy Astor from Miss Grace Owen, Honorary Secretary of the Nursery School Association:

“Dear Lady Astor

Our Executive is anxious to make the best possible use of the opportunity afforded by the Debate on the Educational Estimates in July, to press for the definitive allocation of a part of the moneys voted for education, to the provision of more Nursery Schools throughout the country.

We feel that if a Meeting of Members of the House could be arranged beforehand at which Miss McMillan, supported by one or two of the members of the Nursery School Association could put the case before them, it would at least be a great help in calling the attention of Members of Parliament to the importance of giving definite encouragement to the Local Education Authority to take forward steps in this matter….Public opinion is perceptibly stronger this year and we are most anxious to leave no stone unturned in the endeavour to secure that some practical step is taken….”

5 June 1928

The following confidential letter discusses the future of the McMillan Training College for Nursery teachers and was written by Henrietta Brown-Smith to Nancy Astor:

Dear Lady Astor

You were good enough to say I might write to you about the McMillan Training College and its future. In case you may have forgotten the exact situation may I remind you that I am the Inspector (under the Board of Education) of that college and that Sir Edmund Phipps asked me to speak to you about the matter. I am writing this, of course, in strict confidence and quite unofficially.

We can start by assuming that we are both very anxious for the success of the college. There is a great and increasing need for the type of teachers trained at such a place and only the McMillan and Gipsy Hill Colleges defiantly set out to do this as their prime object.

I have had some difficulty in persuading some of the officials of the Board, who are concerned with administration of Training Colleges, of this need, and of the possibility of making the McMillan Training College efficient enough to do this. Miss McMillan is a genius, but an erratic one, and when I have persuaded an official to come to Deptford and have his heart melted by the work done there, Miss McMillan has not always made the situation an easy one: she is inclined to go off the practical side and become rather vague…teachers have to be turned out, ready to stand on equal ground with those of other Training Colleges, academically as well as professionally.

Now I firmly believe this can be done by Miss Stevenson, helped by a very good and strong Governing Body. Miss McMillan will still be the centre for propaganda and inspiration, but it is to Miss Stevenson we must look for the steady work…”

14 November 1929

Parts 3 to 7 of the Collection will continue the Subject Files.

Part 3 on Health, Birth Control and Social Insurance covers files on:

The Food Council, Health, Illegitimacy, Insurance, Moral Hygiene, Mother’s Pensions, Nurses, Nutrition, Pensions,Prostitution and Settlements.

Part 4 on Women, The Franchise, Marriage Laws and Papers regarding Pressure Groups covers:Women, Franchise, Marriage Laws and Societies (including Women’s Associations).

Part 5 on Drink, Drugs and International Relations covers files on:Dangerous Drugs, Drink, Opium, America, China, Distress in Central Europe, European Relief, India, League of Nations, Palestine, Russia and Slavery.

Part 6 on Industry, Unemployment, Housing and Related Topics covers files on Co-op Movement, Co-partnership, Domestic Servants, Early Closing, Factories Bill, Housing, Industry, Nationalisation, Shop Hours, Trade Boards, Trade Disputes, Trade Unions, Unemployment and Vagrancy.

The listings of files covered here is by no means exhaustive, but it does give a feel of the range of topics dealt with in these highly detailed and extremely informative files.

Part 7 concludes the Collection and offers Nancy Astor’s special files of Correspondence with Eminent People. It includes letters to and from A J Balfour, Margaret McMillan, Sean O’Casey, John Singer Sargent, George Bernard Shaw and other leading politicians, artists and authors.

Nancy Astor played a major part in advancing the cause of women. Serving as a Member of Parliament for over 25 years, she was a powerful advocate of minority issues, famous for her oratory. This collection will enable scholars to re-assess her career and provides important primary evidence on the major social and political issues of the Twentieth Century.

“My abiding interest is in people, especially the needy, the helpless and the young. My husband and I are absolutely at one in our interest in social problems. He approaches them from the point of view of the son; I from the view point of the mother.”

This major new microfilm project is comprised of 7 parts of c20 reels each which will be published at the rate of 1 or 2 parts each year.

The parts of the Collection following Parts 1 and 2 will also be accompanied by Detailed Listings and Guides which will describe the organisation of the original collection, the contents of the microfilm edition and provide general background information.

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