By Isabella Fletcher and Graeme Gooday, University of Leeds
This is the sixth of a series of blogs written by Liberal Arts students at the University of Leeds to celebrate the centenary of the Electrical Association for Women in 2024. These blogs on early EAW activities are based on themes that the students selected from reading digitised versions of the first two volumes (1926-1935) of The Electrical Age (for Women). You can read Isabella’s first blog here.
Introduction
The Manchester District Branch of the Electrical Association for Women (EAW), launched on the 25th of March 1926, was the fifth such to be founded. Staffed by some of the most ardent pioneers for the domestic uptake of electricity, Manchester’s was soon one of the most active EAW branches. Although the women we discuss had backgrounds in engineering, medical, legal and theatrical spheres, remarkably little information is publicly available about their life and voluntary work for the EAW. Several were married, so being subject to the marriage bar against formal employment they mostly served in voluntary/honorary roles for the EAW. Mostly we do not know their pre-marital surnames ,or even their first names. Yet even if we can only acknowledge them as conventional at the time via their husband’s surname and initials, at least we can give these remarkable women recognition for their interwar work in promoting domestic electricity across the Manchester district.
Gertrude Entwisle, first Manchester Branch Secretary
The best known among the Manchester EAW activists is Gertrude Lilian Entwisle, a pioneering female in the field of electrical engineering. Born in Swinton, Lancashire in June 1892, she never married. By thus evading the constraints of the marriage bar, Ms Entwisle was one of the first women in the UK to sustain a full career in electrical engineering, retiring eventually in 1954. Entwisle’s career began when she joined the Public Trustee’s Office in 1915, during World War 1 when women were called in to roles formerly held by men who had since gone to the battlefront. Here, she demonstrated her talent by designing small motors and generators, showcasing her early aptitude for engineering. Next she became the first woman to attend engineering classes at Manchester College of Technology, further cementing her status as a female pioneer in the male-dominated field of engineering.
In 1916, Entwisle became the first ever female student member of the prestigious UK Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE, now the IET), advancing to graduate member status three years later and then in 1920 became the first woman Associate Member of the IEE. Entwisle’s influence extended beyond her individual accomplishments in setting new individual ‘firsts’ for female professional engineers. She was closely involved in the formation of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), joining as a member of the Council in 1919, and serving as the WES Manchester Branch’s Honorary Secretary (also succeeding Caroline Haslett as the WES President in 1941).
Most importantly, in 1924 Entwisle joined with Haslett and other WES members to set up the householder-focused Electrical Association for Women. When the EAW’s Manchester branch was launched in March 1926, Entwistle served as its first honorary secretary – as documented in the first two issues of the EAW’s journal, The Electrical Age for Women (see above). From these issues we learn that the Branch’s March 1926 launch was hosted in the Manchester Lord Mayor’s parlour: EAW National President Caroline Haslett spoke to outline the EAW’s goals, and as District Secretary, Gertrude Entwisle outlined the new District Branch’s plans. The enactment of Entwisle’s vision of a large public meeting involving the Manchester Branch President, M.P. Ellen Wilkinson, was, however, frustratingly postponed by the General Strike which shut down the U.K. in early May that year.
Mrs H C Lamb, first chair of the Manchester District Branch
It is at the EAW branch public meeting postponed to October 1926 that we first encounter the ‘chairman’ of the Manchester EAW branch, Mrs. H C Lamb – spouse of Mr H C Lamb, the city’s Electrical Engineer (an attendee at the March launch). That October meeting began with a talk by Sebastian de Ferranti, the head of the Oldham-based Ferranti company on the advantages of domestic electricity. Mrs Lamb then followed up by adding her own further illustrative ‘anecdotes’ of electrification within the home.
In April 1927, her energetic promotion of electricity was highlighted at the formal opening of an ‘All Electric’ house in Denton (east of Manchester). This event showcased electrical fittings in a household setting, demonstrating the practical applications of electricity in everyday life. Described as an excellent ‘very witty’ speaker, Mrs. Lamb captivated audiences with her compelling narratives and engaging presentations. Such was her reputation as an eloquent exponent that in spring 1931, she was invited over the Pennines to deliver a talk on ‘Electricity in the Home’ at the EAW’s Leeds & West Riding branch (Electrical Age for Women vol. 2 no. 5 p. 217).
In spring 1935, the EAW was planning its annual national conference in Manchester that summer, and The Electrical Age reported Mrs. Lamb as one of the event’s ‘notable personalities’ (see further discussion below). Now President of the Manchester & Salford Branch, after a five year term as Chairman, the scope of her civic influence clearly went beyond her role as spouse of the city’s chief electrical engineer. In the Stockport area, she was also Vice-President of the Heaton Chapel Literary and Philosophical Society and had recently been Secretary of the Heaton Moor Women’s Suffrage Society. Such was her experience of public speaking that all in all, the journal reported: ‘Mrs Lamb is an excellent speaker and enthralls her audience with her fascinating stories. In fact she is a prominent and useful member of the Association, and her work is much appreciated by all’ (The Electrical Age vol. 2 issue 20 (April 1935) p. 841).
The Manchester branch day conference 13 October 1927
The EAW Manchester District Branch planned a one-day conference for its members on the October 13th 1927, an event that would tour around city and region. By then Entwistle had resigned as Honorary Secretary, and was replaced by Mrs. Harcourt Williams. Born in 1882 Jean Sterling MacKinlay to a theatrical London family, she had a distinguished acting career before her marriage in 1908 to actor and director Ernest George Harcourt Williams. It is thus Mrs Harcourt Williams’ name that appears as the convenor of the EAW Manchester and District winter 1927 Branch programme.
The conference would start in the morning at the Lighting Service Bureau in Central Manchester. The first address was given by Dr Christine Barrowman, a Wigan-based doctor who had performed Great War service in a shell production factory (Stephen McGreal, Wigan in the Great War, 2016), Dr Barrowman’s topic was ‘Electricity, the Handmaiden of the Home’, and it was reported as follows in the next issue of the Electrical Age:
The Ferranti Family were key figures at this early stage of the conference. The veteran electrical pioneer Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti and his wife Gertrude (nee Ince) were significant discussants of Dr Barrowman’s paper:
At 1.15pm the 270-strong audience moved to a celebrity formal luncheon hosted at the Midland hotel in Central Manchester with speeches. This was followed by an option to visit the Ferranti works at Hollinwood, in the Oldham area of Greater Manchester, in which 100 or so participated. The Ferranti electrical manufacturing business was an important supplier to many electric utility firms and power-distribution companies, as well as regional textile companies. It produced both gigantic power distribution technology for the Empire (New Zealand and Canada) as well as Argentina. Alongside this, very delicate electronic valves for radio sets were produced by Ferranti’s nimble-fingered female workforce.
The Manchester National EAW Conference in 1935
To complete this blogpost, we can look at some key women of the (now expanded) Manchester & Salford Branch as it planned to host the tenth national EAW conference in May 1935. As can be seen in the draft programme published by The Electrical Age in the previous month, this spectacular event would involve civic dignitaries, public elements and another visit to the Ferranti works at Hollinwood.
Considerable attention was given in that April issue of The Electrical Age to encouraging the EAW’s national membership to attend the upcoming conference. In the new Branch Honorary Secretary (and trained lawyer) Dorothy Foster Jeffery LLB wrote a substantial promotional piece ‘On Manchester,’ highlighting the city’s architectural merits, extensive scientific heritage, and the energy of its male and female population, not least in women’s reformist campaigning – especially for suffrage and education. (pp.832-833).
In addition a two page illustrated spread (pp.840-841) was given over to four key Manchester women at the whole EAW conference. As mentioned above Mrs H.C. Lamb was the most familiar among these: by now Branch President, she was photographed with the formal regalia of that position.
Alongside her was the new Branch ‘chairman’, Mrs Vincent Z de Ferranti, spouse of Vincent, the second son of Dr and Mrs Ferranti discussed in the previous section. Born Dorothy Hettie Wilson, she had travelled with her electrical engineering father (R P Wilson, formerly a Ferranti associate ) to Australia to work on such projects such as the electrification of the Melbourne Suburban Railways. This gave her early exposure to the implementation of large-scale electrical initiatives. Following their return from Australia, she contributed to the UK’s First World War efforts by serving in the Military Intelligence Department until after the Armistice.
It was during her war service that she met and married Vincent Ferranti. Her Australian experiences clearly provided her with valuable insights and skills both to support Vincent’s management of the Ferranti company (in succession to his later father), and later applied to supporting the EAW’s mission, not least through promotion of her all-electric house, and EAW visits to the Hollinwood company works.
The two further women portrayed were the Mayoresses of the branches’ two cities. Although we cannot trace independent information on her earlier life, we do know that Mrs. Greenwood served as Mayoress of Salford, alongside her spouse, William Greenwood as Mayor, from 1934 to 1935. The Electrical Age reported her as an energetic charity worker, and active campaigner against the disease of rickets and smoke pollution in cities. Switching to electricity was not only a means of enhancing civic air quality but ‘like every other Lancashire woman’ she had taken a ‘great interest in her home’, and many years ago had found that ‘electricity was the most efficient means of running it’.
The Lady Mayoress of Manchester, Mrs. Woollam, served for the same period, working closely alongside her husband the Lord Mayor, Samuel Woollam in municipal work. In addition to the civic life of the community, Mrs. Woollam’s belief that women should be actively engaged in matters relating to the welfare of citizens was epitomised in her active charity work in South-East Lancashire, especially her support for the Babies’ hospital. As conservative as her Salford counterpart in promoting the domestic role of women as electricity users, she was also a campaigner for smoke abatement on grounds of community health.
It was these two Mayoresses who hosted the opening festivities, greeted the many attendees at the EAW’s tenth annual conference on a sunny May day.
One striking absence among the more than five hundred delegates was the newly elected President of the EAW, the Marchioness of Reading (born Stella Charnaud in 1892), whose profile picture dominated the opening of the conference report, presumably owing to the grave illness of her husband (who died later that year). Nevertheless there were active representatives not only from the National Smoke Abatement Society, and the UK Government’s Ministry of Labour, but also international participants from the Netherlands and Switzerland. Papers presented by the latter two were published in that June 1935 issue, alongside pictures of Manchester conference participants scattered through the text.
As the Electrical Age reporter commented on the lively proceedings over those three days in May: ‘The success of the Conference was due to the wonderful organisation of the Manchester and Salford District Branch and the help and co-operation given by the Manchester Electricity Department’. From the proportion of men apparent at the conference banquet (see picture below), it is clear that Manchester’s electrical undertakings were indeed keen to use this conference opportunity to promote their utility offerings. From this example of Manchester’s successful hosting in May 1935, future research could usefully explore how far EAW annual conferences helped both EAW and industry’s fulfil their goal of promoting the domestic take up of electricity.
About the authors
My name is Isabella Fletcher, and I am a third-year student at the University of Leeds where I study Liberal Arts with a specified major in Sociology. As part of my degree programme, I am partaking in a research project to mark the centenary of the Electrical Association for Women and commemorate some of the fantastic women which aided the progression of electrification. Growing up in Manchester, where the suffragette movement was born, has played a pivotal role in my interest in women’s history and discovering how women played a crucial role in the domestic uptake of electricity has been enlightening. This blogpost combines my love for my home city and women’s history by exploring some of the key women in the Manchester branch of the Electrical Association for Women.
Graeme Gooday is Professor of History of Science and Technology at the University of Leeds, and has a special research interest in the history of women’s expertise in technology. He has written or co-authored a number of books including Domesticating ElectricityTechnology, Uncertainty and Gender, 1880–1914 (2008) and in 2019-20 he led the AHRC-funded project Electrifying Women: Understanding the Long History of Women in Engineering https://electrifyingwomen.org/