Mary Barbour was a Member of the Co-operative Guild which was a platform campaigning against poverty and with specific policy demands to counter women’s poverty such as maternity benefit, education, the vote and a national minimum wage. At the same time the Guild offered its members training in organisation, and running and chairing meetings as well as addressing them – in effect, a political education.

Mary Barbour brought these political skills to her local activism most famously culminating in the 1915 Rent Strikes. She was active in the Greater Govan area – including Linthouse, Govan and Kinning Park and got elected in Fairfield Ward for Glasgow Council as an ILP Councillor alongside Emmanuel Shinwell and Tom Kerr in 1920.

The Kinning Park Co-op was founded in 1871 and the Scottish Co-operative Women’s Guild was founded nineteen years later. It was originally little more than a cookery class but soon grew to become what Patrick Dollan described as “a feminine university”, where members were encouraged to discuss and debate politics and other important issues of the day.

By 1923 there were 283 Women’s Guilds in Scotland with 28,000 members. Mary Barbour was among them and when you look back at the development of the Scottish Co-operative Women’s Guild you can see how closely it shaped her political creed.

Co-operative News published its first “Women’s Column” in January 1883, a column that immediately argued that it was time for women to be active co-operators. Soon afterwards the Co-operative Congress of June 1883, held in Edinburgh, agreed to establish the Women’s League for the Spread of Co-operation. The first branch was established in Hebden Bridge followed by others in Rochdale and Woolwich by the end of 1883.

By August 1884 the League had become the Women’s Co-operative Guild. Its founding principles included the aims of spreading knowledge of the advantages of co-operation and improving the conditions of women all over the country.

In 1889 Margaret Llewelyn Davies became General Secretary of the Guild, a post she was to hold until her retirement in 1921. She had a clear vision of how she wanted the Guild to develop. Soon after appointment she issued a circular saying that meetings should not descend into mere Mother’s Meetings weighed down by discussions of sewing and bakery. She reminded the Guild that their purpose was the spread of co-operation and that this could be achieved by educating themselves and then others. She advised branch committees to draw up a definite programme for their meetings and encouraged them to organise lectures. The next Annual Meeting, held in Glasgow in 1890, invited men for the first time.

In 1890 the Kinning Park Central branch became the “mother branch” of the Guild in Scotland, followed closely by the Govan and Hutchestown branches of the Kinning Park Society. In November 1892 the Association of the Co-operative Women’s Guild in Scotland was set up.

A publication marking its 21st birthday in 1913 noted that “mutual aid” was their motto. It explained that Mrs McLean, the first President, from the beginning had the idea “to provide opportunity to help and develop the latent talent that only wanted a chance to show that the ‘hand that rocked the cradle’ was directed by a brain”.

The Guild threw itself into fundraising to open convalescent homes to allow members to recover from illness, setting up homes in West Kilbride by 1896 and in Galashiels, Dunoon, Largs and North Berwick. And the range of issues under discussion in 1900 ranged from the “Slum Problem”, to “The Rights of the Child”, “Sweated Labour”, and the “Minimum Wage for Women Workers”.

Membership of the Co-operative Guild linked Mary Barbour to a platform campaigning against poverty and with specific policy demands to counter women’s poverty such as maternity benefit, education, the vote and a national minimum wage. At the same time the Guild offered its members training in organisation, and running and chairing meetings as well as addressing them – in effect, a political education.

A good education for Mary Barbour – an outstanding graduate!

The campaign to Remember Mary Barbour is seeking to raise the funds to build a statue of her in Govan.  To make a donation please visit www.JustGiving.com/r-m-b-a or text 70070 with “RMBA15 £amount” – amount can be £1, £5 or £10.

To find out more visit www.facebook.com/RememberMaryBarbour or www.RememberMaryBarbour.com