Gertrude Tuckwell and the British Labour Movement, 1891–1921: a study in motives and influences

Abstract

This article adopts a biographical approach to examine the politicization of a woman activist, Gertrude Tuckwell (1861–1951), in the British labour movement at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. In particular, it focuses on the influence of Tuckwell's radical background and argues that her loyalty and sense of duty towards her family shaped and directed the nature of her social and political work. With emphasis on the years between 1891, when she began to work for the Women's Trade Union League, and 1921, when this organization was transferred to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, it is argued that these characteristics have contributed to her neglect within British labour history, which has tended to foreground those women whose leadership roles have been easier to define.