Preventing ‘robotised women workers’: women, sport and the workplace in Scotland 1919–1939

Abstract

This article examines a new area of women's leisure; women's participation in work-related sport. The growth and development of industrial welfare in Scotland in the interwar period will be discussed. Within broader studies, Stephen Jones, Helen Jones and Melling have all indicated that there was a growth in industrial welfarism in Britain from the turn of the twentieth century. This development of welfarism, which included provision of educational classes, pensions and medical support, increasingly also encompassed a variety of sports and physical activities. By looking at case studies, developments in provision across a range of industries will be examined. This discussion will draw on a wide range of sources from a variety of women's employment, from factories to clerical positions and from the retail sector to the civil service. This article will examine the types of sporting opportunities open to women through their workplaces, including organised welfare schemes and independent employee-led activities. Moreover, it will explore working women's experiences of these activities and the ways in which they chose to participate in sport.

Keywords::

• sport
• women
• welfarism
• leisure

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editors of the special issue, Dave Dee and Matt Taylor and colleagues in Sport, Event and Tourism at Glasgow Caledonian University who offered constructive feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

^1. Langhamer, Women's Leisure; Todd, Young Women, Work and Family; Alexander, Becoming a Woman; Soland, Becoming Modern; Hargreaves, Sporting Females, chpt. 6 and Hargreaves, Playing Like Gentlemen, pp. 40–52.

^2. For example, see Langhamer, Women's Leisure; Todd, Young Women, Work and Family; Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty and Osborne and Skillen, The State of Play, p. 1–4.

^3. Many of the sports and activities being examined were run by employees and, therefore, the records of these clubs, organisations and minutes were in the hands of employees rather than the employers and so have not been archived with other everyday records. Similarly, many of the companies examined, while they had developed often high levels of leisure provision for their workers had not, by this period, developed in-house employee magazines and newsletters. These became much more common after World War Two.

^4. Research suggests that across Britain, women were experiencing a wider range of occupations in this period; however, regional variations significantly impacted on the type of work available. See Langhamer, Women's Leisure; Todd, Young Women, Work and Family; Alexander, Becoming a Woman; Soland, Becoming Modern and McIvor, “Gender Apartheid?: Women in Scottish Society.”

^5. Hughes, “Rough Kind of ‘Feminism’,” 17.

^6. Arnot, “Women Workers,” 53.

^7. McIvor, “Women and Work.”

^8. Scottish Census 1921 and 1931. Also see McIvor, “Women and Work,” 139 and Arnot, “Women Workers,” 31.

^9. Hughes, “Rough Kind of ‘Feminism’,” 24 and Arnot, “Women Workers,” 87.

^10. Arnot, “Women Workers,” 73.

^11. Hughes, “Rough Kind of ‘Feminism’,” 25.

^12. Ibid., 26.

^13. Parl. Papers 1918, vi, (9108), Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1918, 32.

^14. See for examples Parl. Papers 1931, iv, (4098), Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1931, 48 and Parl. Papers 1932, iii, (4377), Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1932, 62.

^15. Jones, “Employers' Welfare Schemes,” 61–75; Melling, “Industrial Strife,” 63–179; Jones, “Cotton Employers”; Fitzgerald, “Employers' Labour Strategies,” 48–65 and Fitzgerald, “Employment Relations and Industrial Welfare in Britain,” 167–80.

^16. Jones, “Cotton Employers,” 64.

^17. Definition from US Department of Labour, 1919, quoted in Balnave, “Company-Sponsored Recreation,” 130.

^18. Anon, Scotsman, September 16, 1929, 11.

^19. Ibid.

^20. Ibid.

^21. See MacDonald, The Radical Thread; Jones, “Employers' Welfare Schemes”; Melling, “Industrial Strife”; Jones, “Cotton Employers” and Joyce, Work, Society and Politics.

^22. See Joyce, Work, Society and Politics.

^23. The Industrial Welfare Society was founded in 1918 and by 1922, 150 companies had become members, of which 42 were represented at the annual conference by women. “Industrial Welfare” (Scotsman, September 16, 1922, 11).

^24. Joyce, Work, Society and Politics, 143.

^25. “The Human Factor in Industry” (Scotsman, June 28, 1922, 7).

^26. “Modern Industry” (Scotsman, July 24, 1926, 12).

^27. Balnave, “Company-Sponsored Recreation,” 129.

^28. McIvor, Singer Strike Clydebank, 54–5.

^29. See note 25 above.

^30. Hay, “Employers' Attitudes to Social Policy.”

^31. Jones, “Cotton Employers and Industrial Welfare,” 68 and Skillen, Women, Sport and Modernity.

^32. Parl. Papers 1935, iv, (5230), Annual Reports of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1935, 70 and Parl. Papers 1937, iii, (5802), Annual Reports of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1937, 27.

^33. Miscellaneous files on JP Coats and Clarks thread works, Paisley Library.

^34. Discussion of establishment of sewing and skating clubs. Minutes of the Jute and Flax Workers Union Sports Club Committee, 13 October 1938, Dundee City Archives, GD/JF/A/22.

^35. Alice, 11 September 2006.

^36. Ibid.

^37. “Dalmuir Swimming Section” (The Beardmore News, 1923, Vol. 5:6, 6).

^38. Jones, “Cotton and Employers,” 75.

^39. “Opening of Ferguslie Bowling Green” (Paisley and Renfreshire Gazette, June 10, 1922, 4).

^40. Quote from a speech made at opening of Ferguslie Bowling Green (Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, June 10, 1922, 4).

^41. “Opening of Anchor Ground” (Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, July 29, 1922, 3).

^42. Miscellaneous files on JP Coats and Clarks thread works, Paisley Library.

^43. For a discussion of the popular discourses which influenced women's participation in sport, see Skillen, Women, Sport and Modernity, Chapter 5.

^44. Ladies Corner, “Girls and Games” (Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, July 4, 1925, 3).

^45. For full lists of races, see Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, June 20, 1925, 8.

^46. “Mill Workers' Sports” (Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, June 7, 1924, 7).

^47. See, for example Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, June 27, 1928, 8; June 20, 1925, 8 and September 19, 1925, 5.

^48. For example, Singers held a highly successful inter-department hockey league in 1934. Programme of Recreation Activities 1934, Singer archive, Clydebank Library.

^49. See report of JP Coats Sports Day, Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, September 18, 1928, 8.

^50. McIvor, Singer Strike Clydebank, 15; Kenefick and McIvor, Roots of Red Clydeside 1910–1914?, 87 and Knox, Industrial Nation, 203–4.

^51. “Industrial Comradeship” (Scotsman, March 3, 1921, 8).

^52. “Robotised Women” (Scotsman, September 16, 1929, 11).

^53. See, for example Minutes of the Jute and Flax Workers Union Sports Club Committee, Dundee City Archives, GD/JF/A/22 and Misc. Recreation Files, Singer archive, Clydebank Library.

^54. Constitution in the Minutes of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Ladies Golf Section 1929, NAS, GD1/1173/1.

^55. Minutes of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Ladies Golf Section 1932, NAS, GD1/1173/1.

^56. Alice 1, 16 November 2004; Jean, 5 September 2006; Belle, 20 October 2004; Margaret S, 19 September 2006.

^57. Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, 31–2.

^58. Singer's ladies' hockey section always played after 6 pm on weekdays and after 1 o'clock on Saturdays, the importance of this was clearly demonstrated in 1938 when due to bad weather a number of league games had been cancelled and needed to be re-scheduled which proved highly problematic as this involved playing outside the regular evening and weekend slots. Programme of Recreation Activities 1938, Singer archive, Clydebank Library.

^59. For example, Dundee Post Office Swimming Gala, Dundee Free Press, 12 October 1927, 12 and both Beardmore Swimming Sections and Singers offered reduced rates for juveniles, see The Beardmore News, 1919–1937, Glasgow Room, Mitchell Library and The Red S Review, Singer Archive, Clydebank Library.

^60. Greta, 12 October 2006, and Jean, 5 September 2006.

^61. There is evidence in all the sports groups examined that this was common practice. See The Beardmore News for regular examples, Glasgow Room, Mitchell Library.

^62. Alice 1, 16 November 2004.

Additional information

Funding

The author would like to thank the ESRC for funding the Ph.D. project that this article has been developed from.

Notes on contributors

Fiona Skillen

Dr Fiona Skillen is a lecturer in Sport and Events Management. Her research interests concern aspects of sports history, gender and changes in popular culture. She is particularly interested in the influence which dominant discourses concerning gender and modernity had on women's popular culture. Her recent monograph, Women, Sport and Modernity (Peter Lang, 2013) focused specifically on the ways in which these discourses impinged on and were negotiated by women who wished to participate in sport within the interwar period.