Since its opening in 1886, Royal Holloway College has had many student-led societies for sport, politics and other interests. In the 1920s, the College had an active Society for Equal Citizenship, which was a feminist group affiliated with the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC).
The organisation formerly known as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) transformed into NUSEC after 1918, when some women were first enfranchised. NUSEC was an umbrella organisation that united smaller women’s groups in their shared goal of using the vote to grant women the same legal rights as men. These smaller groups, usually local, were commonly called Women Citizens’ Associations (WCAs) or Societies for Equal Citizenship (SECs).
From at least 1920, NUSEC lists Royal Holloway College as an affiliated group. In order to be eligible to join, the College SEC must have had at least 10 members, and paid an annual fee of 2s 6d (approximately £2.65 today).[1] It was also a requirement that affiliated SEC’s endorsed NUSEC’s object and programme. NUSEC’s main object was: ‘To obtain all such reforms as are necessary to secure a real equality of liberties, status and opportunities between men and women.’ [2] Throughout the 1920s, the College SEC sent delegates to represent Royal Holloway at the annual council meetings of NUSEC.
The SEC also engaged with issues about women’s employment rights. In 1925, their regular study circles were on the subject ‘the position of women in industry’. [6] Winifred Le Sueur spoke to the SEC on ‘The Inequalities of Men and Women’ in December 1924. [7] Le Sueur was alumnus of Bedford College for Women [8] and later became the honorary secretary for the Open Door International, an organisation that pushed for the economic emancipation of the women worker. Monica Whately, another prominent member of NUSEC and later the Open Door Council, spoke about ‘The Parliamentary Work of NUSEC’ in early 1926. [9]
By 1927, feminist sentiments at Royal Holloway College seem to have been in decline. The last secretary of the College SEC, H. Conner, reported in the college newsletter that attendance at meetings was dwindling, and the committee ‘felt that the interest shown by the members was not sufficient to justify the existence of the Society, nor yet the engagement of outside speakers or lecturers’. The SEC was subsequently dissolved. [10]
Little is known about the subsequent lives of the women who ran the College SEC. The first documented secretary of the College SEC, Florence Muriel Mager, married into the military Rombulow-Pearse family. She died aged 80 in 1980. The only other member whom much is known about is Winifred Ida Paynter, who was secretary of the SEC in 1923, and a committee member in 1924. She was a civilian fireguard for Holborn during the Second World War, and died aged 37 at the Jewish Club on Alfred Place, London, in an air raid the night of 16/17 April. Paynter’s name is on a plaque at the Jewish Museum London, memorialising those who died at the Jewish club, [11] and she is listed in an online Book of Remembrance for members of the Fire and Rescue Service. [12]
By Katie Carpenter
Katie Carpenter is a Citizens project intern researching the Women’s Library collection at the LSE Library. Katie is also a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London.
[1] National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, Object and Programme. Affiliation Rules. Library and Information Bureau Charges. (1919), p. 5, LSE, WL, 6B/106/2/NUSEC/E1/1.
[2] NUSEC, Annual Report for the Year 1920 (1921), p. 2, LSE, WL, 6B/106/2/NUSEC/C3.
[3] F. Mager, ‘NUSEC, 1920-21’, in Royal Holloway College Association, College Letter, November 1921, pp. 41-2, Royal Holloway Archive, A5/902/64.
[4] B. Johnson, ‘National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship’ in Royal Holloway College Association, College Letter, November 1924, pp. 42-3, Royal Holloway Archive, A5/902/67.
[5] W. I. Paynter, ‘National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship’, in Royal Holloway College Association, College Letter, November 1923, p. 43, Royal Holloway Archive, A5/902/66.
[6] Ibid.
[7] M. Salt, ‘National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship’ in Royal Holloway College Association, College Letter, November 1925, pp. 45-6, Royal Holloway Archive, A5/902/68.
[8] Cheryl Law, Women, a Modern Political Dictionary (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000), p. 95.
[9] H. Salt, ‘National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship’ in Royal Holloway College Association, College Letter, November 1926, p. 40, Royal Holloway Archive, A5/902/69.
[10] H. Conner, ‘National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship’ in Royal Holloway College Association, College Letter, November 1927, p. 49, Royal Holloway Archive, A5/902/70.
[11] West Central Club memorial plaque, 1945, Jewish Museum London, Catalogue number: 1991.30.16.2. Online at jewishmuseum.org.uk/search-collections?adlibid=956&offset=0
[12] The Firefighters Memorial Trust, Book of Remembrance, www.theonlinebookcompany.com/OnlineBooks/FirefighterMemorialTrust/Persons/AZWW2FireGuards/34
