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Julia Varley

ladylinda

master brummie
Saw this in the Mail
A Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque is to be unveiled in honour of Julia Varley.
Birmingham Civic Society will honour Julia Varley with a ceremony at the Minworth Greaves building in Selly Manor on May 24.A blue plaque will be erected on her former home in Hay Green Lane, Bournville

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/ne...ham-suffragette-julia-varley-honoured-3862243

I had never heard of her before,but I've been reading about her for the last hour and she was a remarkable lady. Very interesting life!
 
She is a really interesting person , I only know about her because Katy had to do a project on Suffragettes for school and wanted a lesser known one, as Julia Varley did a lot of wok in Birmingham, with Cadburys, although she was born in Bradford, that's who she studied. There are some fascinating articles on her, a true example for women.
Sue
 
From my forthcoming 'Great War Trail of Birmingham'

42, Hay Green Lane, Bournville. It has not been possible to find a wartime address for Miss Julia Varley, a leading woman trade unionist of the time. This was her address in November 1952 when she died at the age of 81. She was born at Bradford, the daughter of a worsted mill worker. She left school at twelve and became a weaver. At the age of 15 she was branch secretary of the Weavers and Textile Workers’ Union. She became the first woman member of the executive committee of the Bradford Trades Council in 1899. In 1904 she became a Bradford Poor Law Guardian. To investigate the life of tramping women she tramped from Leeds to Liverpool to find out first hand. She did the same for licensed women’s lodgings houses in London. She was twice imprisoned in 1907 as a suffragette. She now became involved with Mary Macarthur and the National Federation of Women Workers and, in particular, the cause of the women chain workers of Cradley Heath.
In 1909 Edward Cadbury invited to organise women workers at Bournville and a branch of the NFWW was established. In January 1910 she became the first woman to be elected to the executive of the Birmingham Trades Council and was to serve for ten years. In 1911 she failed to win election to the new Greater Birmingham Council after standing as a socialist in Kings Norton. By 1912 she had joined the Workers’ Union which sought to organise both sexes.
Two days after the declaration of war Julia Varley was part of a Birmingham Trades Council deputation to meet the Lord Mayor to discuss the steps which might be needed to deal with the dislocation of trade and employment created by the war. She became one of five from the Trades Council who joined the Emergency Committee. Julia was also part of Trades Council initiatives to help Belgian refugees as well as trying to ensure that their employment conformed to trade union practice. This work was praised by Vandervelde, the Belgian socialist, who visited in November 1914. During the war she served on the Munitions Tribunal and the Citizens’ Committee.
She was the only woman organiser in Workers’ Union until August 1915 and was an active organiser throughout the war despite having a major throat operation in early 1917. She disagreed with many men on the Birmingham Trades Council over the introduction of conscription which she accepted and joined a breakaway Birmingham Trade Union Industrial Council. In 1917 she was selected to serve on the Labour Advisory Board set up by the Ministry of Labour and which monitored the working of labour exchanges. In early 1918 she went to France as one of five women sent to investigate rumours of immoral behaviour by WAACs in France; they were groundless. The commission found “a healthy, cheerful, self-respecting body of hard-working women, conscious of their position as links in the great chain of the Nation’s purpose and zealous in its service”. Afterwards Julia spoke at a factory gate meeting at the Austin about the slanders on the women of the WAAC.
In 1920 Julia Varley took up the cause of female domestic servants. In 1917 there were still 1.25 million women in service, a drop of only 400000 since the war began. The fall was mainly in middle class households. In 1920 she formed in Birmingham a Domestic Servants’ Union and set up their own social club in the city at 1, Loveday Street. The Daily Chronicle called the club a ‘servants’ paradise’. A charter of appropriate conditions of work was issued which covered hours, time off, a minimum wage, their own bedroom, the mistress should pay for uniform and servants should be addressed by their proper names. Julia was a member of a 1923 Ministry of Labour enquiry into the ‘servant shortage’. She told them that one part of the problem was caused by parents wishing a better life for their daughters.
Post-war she continued to serve as the chief woman organiser of her union which became the Transport and General Workers. She was elected to the General Council of the TUC and also served on Government committees. In 1931 her public work was recognised by an OBE. In September 1935 Julia was part of a large international delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva on the subject of women’s claims for equality all over the world. She was the principal speaker of the delegation in her role on the Women’s Committee of the TUC and the International Committee of Trade Union Women. She retired from trade union work in 1936 and began to live at Hay Green Lane. As she grew older she lost her sight. She died at the home of her sisters in her native Bradford on November 24 1952 and was buried in Undercliffe cemetery there. George Haynes, a Birmingham trade unionist, had always believed that she was a ‘pocket dreadnought’.
‘Socialism in Birmingham and the Black Country 1850-1939’. George Barnsby. Integrated Publishing, 1998
‘The Birmingham Trades Council 1866-1966’. John Corbett. Lawrence and Wishart. 1966.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
 
How interesting. I did know how she worked for better conditions for the women chain makers, but had no idea of all her campaigns, a woman to be celebrated.
 
Julia Varley is living at 42 Hay Green Lane in the 1911 census and is listed there in the Electoral Rolls until at least 1950.She died at 32 Hampden Street,Bradford on 24th November 1952. Probate was granted to her sister Jessie and accountant Oliver Kitcheman.
 
Interesting that Julia Varley is taking 70 girls to Canada under the auspices of the Overseas Settlement Committee. This begs the question as to how the girls were chosen.

A094C4C1-231E-4A95-AC3C-6709395689D0.jpeg
 
1920, although domestic service was still held in low regard by women workers, a Domestic Servants' Union had been formed in Birmingham by Julia Varley, the Birmingham organizer of the Workers' Union.
 
Interesting that Julia Varley is taking 70 girls to Canada under the auspices of the Overseas Settlement Committee. This begs the question as to how the girls were chosen.

View attachment 165536
The scale of British Home Children resettlement in Canada was vast. They were trained as indentured farm workers and domestic servants. Many were told that they were orphans, though this wasn't true. https://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com
It is only recently that much attention has been given to these overseas resettlement schemes. They existed for older unmarried women too- British Women’s Emigration Association.
 
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The emigration to Canada is discussed on the thread…

 
I unfortunately left out the date for the picture of Julia Varley and her trip to Canada with 70 girls. The date was October 1925, and this led me to ask the rather cryptic question as to how the girls were chosen.

Julia Varley had moved to Birmingham in 1909 and established the National Federation of Women Workers at the Cadbury Factory. Paul Cadbury had taken over charge of Middlemore Homes in 1925, and there was a policy change. He outsourced the care of the children, once they left England, to the Fairbridge Society with some very sad consequences.
 
I unfortunately left out the date for the picture of Julia Varley and her trip to Canada with 70 girls. The date was October 1925, and this led me to ask the rather cryptic question as to how the girls were chosen.

Julia Varley had moved to Birmingham in 1909 and established the National Federation of Women Workers at the Cadbury Factory. Paul Cadbury had taken over charge of Middlemore Homes in 1925, and there was a policy change. He outsourced the care of the children, once they left England, to the Fairbridge Society with some very sad consequences.
Thanks Pedrocut. I wasn't aware of the Cadbury connection. Very sad consequences indeed.
 
I'm guessing she didn't get that OBE for her Trade Union work then... Perhaps we will be able to come to terms with the workings of the Empire, but it will take a time. Doubtless Julia Varley thought she was acting to improve the lives of the child migrants.

Many aristocratic women were involved in similar schemes a local one in Bromsgrove sent unmarried women to Canada, Tasmania and South Africa and trained them in farming and housekeeping.

Earlier Dickens had the 'Urania Cottage' scheme with Angela Burnett-Coutts the banking heiress. 'Fallen women' were sent out to Australia. Though a smaller number about a hundred I think.
 
Concerning the OBE 1931 list…

Julia Varley, a member of the Work-people's Panel of the Birmingham Court of Referees and a member of the Birmingham Employment Committee. For public services.
 
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