The Woman as Citizen. The New Town Guild Movement

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18313, 3 February 1934, Page 10

The Woman as Citizen. The New Town Guild Movement

LONDON, Dec. 3. WERY many women are excellent V citizens without knowing it. They take an intercut in the public life surrounding thorn, and in conversation mako suggestions as to rubbishcollecting or the mining of public baths which would interest their town council considerably. That is the kind of woman who is joining the new Townswomen’s Guilds, which arc doing for the urban dweller what the Women’s Institutes have done for the countrywoman. That programme is a wide one—everything from how to make jam to how to uso the vote.

It can be summarised; both the Women’s Institutes and fhe Townswomen’s Guilds arc teaching women to make their lives interesting to themselves and useful to their like. This is a very great, deal. To have uso for your leisure and pleasure in your work is to be a very happy person.

A Young Society. The National Union of Townswomen ’s Guilds, to give full weight to its title, is young in itself but aged in the wisdom which comes from a stormy past. It is in direct descent from the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, but its present scope is entirely non-political, nonsectarian, and peaceful. It wants to teach women to uso aud enjoy the rights and privileges conferred upon them when they became equal citizens with men.

The Town Guilds were founded in 1929; at the meeting of the council in that year there were four guilds. On the first of this month there were 190, and there is a waiting-list of applications for the formation of more, only held up till the necessary funds shall be forthcoming. (The guilds enjoy- no public grants; each guild is self-supporting. As the annual subscription is 2s, alike for Mrs Midas and Mrs Lazarus, this is an achievement worthy of laurels.) When an application is received an officer of the federation visits every existing local organisation, with the view of avoiding uneconomic overlapping. No religious body is overlooked, no club; the local mayoress is wooed to take an interest.

Much helpful interest is always forthcoming in small centres from the nearest Women’s Institute, and many of the registered Townswomen are members of the W. 1., too. The Women’s Institutes confine themselves to inhabited centres of less than 4000 souls, which leaves many small towns outside their influence. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and dwellers on the border sometimes suffer. . Small Guilds. The Town Guilds havo covered the necessary border-line, and by a peaceful penetration havo extended inwards. In distinct contrast to most conferences, the most successful guilds are those that have the greatest number of sub-eommittecs, served by members of the rank and file, not by executive committee members. These off-shoots are suggested by the members to carry out forms of work or play also suggested by the members. There is one feature of the movement in which it differs widely from that of the •Women’s Institutes. The work to be done locally, for and by the members, is of the most diverse nature. The members in one town have taken over the upkeep and decoration of the war memorial. In another they assure the cataloguing and service of the hospital library. No Class. As an indication of the class unconsciousness of the movement one may cite the charwoman, who, accepting the usual invitation to bring a friend, brought her employer. At the ‘following annual meeting tho employer was the chairwoman, and the dial-woman as the secretary made ‘an admirable speech, and suggested tor the slogan of tho work no easier duetto than: “If you learn, teach; if you got, give; if you receive, distribute.’’ The guilds are found in very well-to-do districts, as well as in the very poorest. The over-leisure of the moneyed and the unmoncyed alike is rendered fruitful and interesting.