Gender, Radio Broadcasting and the Role of the Public Intellectual: The BBC Career of Margery Fry, 1928–1958

Abstract

This article explores the issue of gender and the role of the public intellectual on the BBC in the middle of the 20th century through an examination of the broadcasting career of S. Margery Fry (1874–1958). Scholars such as Hugh Chignell have emphasised that, with very few exceptions, speaking to the nation was pre-eminently the work of men in this period. Margery Fry was a well-known personality, connected to the Bloomsbury Group, with expertise in higher education and penal reform. She also served a brief term as a Governor of the BBC. The article argues that Fry was somewhat exceptional as a woman who was able to establish a reputation in the period 1928–1958 as a broadcaster and pundit, which to some extent at least, transcended gendered boundaries. However, it acknowledges that a great deal of her broadcast output was directed at female listeners and that she possessed plentiful social and cultural capital which made her an attractive contributor to broadcasting executives.