Which historic WI member are you?

You are Lady Denman! A true trailblazer, Lady Denman was elected the first national chair of the WI in 1917 and served until 1946.

Known as Trudie, Lady Denman was originally born in London in 1884, the second child of the Viscount and Viscountess Cowdray. Her father was a staunch liberal, who championed women’s suffrage and her mother was a feminist and an active member of the executive of the Women’s Liberal Federation. In 1894 young Trudie moved with her family to Sussex.

In 1902 Trudie met her future husband Thomas Denman at a ball in London. The couple married in 1903 and Trudie gave birth to two children in 1905 and 1907. They lived at an estate in Sussex. In 1908 at the young age of 24 Trudie was herself elected to the Executive of the Women’s Liberal Federation, where she soon began actively campaigning for women’s suffrage.

However, her campaigning days took a turn when in 1911 her husband was appointed Governor General of Australia. Despite all of her new official duties as wife of the Governor-General, Lady Denman took a keen interest in women’s rights in Australia. She also began a campaign for nursing in rural Australia- an effort referred to as bush nursing. When Trudie had arrived in Australia there was only one bush nurse at work on the entire continent, but by the time she left in 1914 there were over twenty Bush Nursing Centres in Victoria alone. Lady Denman also made her mark on Australia when she named the capital city Canberra.

On her return to Britain Trudie wasted little time getting involved in campaigning again. She became the first Chair of the Family Planning Association, President of the Ladies Golf Union, as well as the National Chair of the Women’s Institutes. At the outbreak of the Second World War, she was invited by the Minister of Agriculture to become the Director of the Women’s Land Army. For this work she was awarded the Grand Cross of the British Empire in 1951.

On her eventual retirement at the 1946 AGM she said:“I think that countrywomen are the salt of the earth. I do not feel they get a fair deal, and I have always thought that if we got together we could do something about it.”

You are Lady Anglesey! The National Chair of the NFWI from 1966 until 1969, Lady Anglesey’s intelligence is matched only by her commitment to protecting the environment and safeguarding rural areas.

The daughter of two novelists and an active writer herself, she was born Shirley Morgan in Wales on December 4th, 1924. When she married Sir George Paget, 7th Marquess of Anglesey, in 1948 she inherited the interest shown by her husband's family in the first WI in Britain at Llanfair PG. A cousin of the Marquess, Col. Hon Robert Stapleton Cotton, played an important part in getting the WI started; he allowed the new WI to meet in the Toll Gate House free of rent for over 25 years, and the Marchioness became a patron. Dame Shirley Paget joined Llanedwen WI and subsequently became a member of the Anglesey Federation executive committee. She was elected to the NFWI executive committee at the young age of 29 when she had three small children.

Dame Shirley Paget sat on the Royal Commission on the Environment and a working party on sewage disposal, which WI members helped by providing evidence of inadequate services in the rural areas which were included in the report. She was Chairman of the Welsh Arts Council and the Civic Trust for Wales.

In 1967 Dame Shirley Paget toured some projects in the Caribbean that received money from the WI’s fundraising for the Freedom from Hunger Campaign.

She was a Trustee of NFWI until incorporation in 1991 and continues to be active in public life.

You are Margaret Wintringham! Margaret’s practical can-do attitude saw her take a seat in the House of Commons, only the second woman to ever do so.

Born in Yorkshire in 1879, Margaret first worked as a teacher and then headmistress of a school in Grimsby. In 1903 she married a timber merchant, who would later go on to become a Member of Parliament for Louth in Lincolnshire.

After relocating to Lincolnshire she became active in many political movements, advocating for equal pay and equal rights for women workers. When her husband sadly passed away in 1921, she was selected as the Liberal candidate to replace him and on 22 September, 1921 (before women could even vote on equal terms with men) she was elected.

Once in Parliament, she campaigned for equal franchise, equal pay, scholarships for girls, and women-only railway cars. Although she lost her seat in 1924, she continued to be active in public life.

She was a JP (one of the first women to be appointed in 1920) and served on numerous committees, including the royal commission on the civil service in 1929–31. She was appointed as a women's representative to the Liberal Party inquiry, on the reorganization of the party after its 1924 election defeat. She was in demand as a speaker and continued to support many of the causes for which she had fought in parliament. She lobbied for the representation of women on agricultural wages boards and pointed out the huge differentials between their pay and that of men, although she always advocated better wages and conditions for all rural workers.

Already a member of the WI, she then became an honorary secretary to Lincolnshire Federation. In her later years, she made several visits to the USA, to European countries, and to South Africa to study their educational systems. During the Second World War she worked with the Land Army and continued to promote the nursery movement, through the Nursery Association. She passed away in 1955, and is now cited as one of the most unsung heroines of the 20th century.

You are intrepid traveller Madge Watt!

Madge was truly a force to be reckoned with. Born Margaret Rose Watt in 1868 in Ontario, Canada, Madge lived a life that took her across Canada, the United States, and the UK, promoting the newly inaugurated Women’s Institute movement. Prior to her interest in the WI movement, Madge was a reporter in New York where she wrote literary criticism for American and Canadian newspapers.

Madge’s lifelong interest in the WI began when she became a founder member of the Metchosin Women's Institute, Vancouver Island, in 1909. She helped to develop the movement in British Columbia as secretary, from 1911, to the British Columbia government's women's advisory board. After the death of her husband in 1913, she brought their sons to England for their education. Soon after her arrival she threw herself into promoting the WI at public meetings and private gatherings. Her efforts were ineffective until she wrote a pamphlet which promoted the WI as part of the war effort, by encouraging countrywomen to increase and safeguard the food supply. This idea convinced Nugent Harris of the Agricultural Organisation Society that his organisation should foster Women's Institutes, and Madge was appointed to organise them on behalf of the society.

Under the society's sponsorship the first Institute was started at Llanfair, Anglesey, Wales, in September 1915 as a non-party political, non-denominational body. Some months afterwards the first English Institute, at Singleton, Sussex, came into being. Following her experience in Canada, Mrs Watt favoured government support, and financial backing was provided by the women's branch of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries food production department. This paid for a small staff of organizers, of which Mrs Watt was at the head. A National Federation of Women's Institutes was founded, chaired by Lady Denman, and by the end of 1918 there were 760 institutes in operation. Ill health forced her to give up the post of chief organiser and in July 1919 she returned to Canada.

In 1919 she was made an MBE for her contribution to the war effort; in 1923 she received the Belgian médaille de mérite agricole, and in 1935, a rare honour for a woman, the French médaille d'agriculture.

But her greatest achievement was perhaps still ahead of her: for a long time she had sought to create a worldwide association of rural women, whose interchange of knowledge and experience would be of mutual advantage and would increase international understanding. She was instrumental in the foundation in 1930 of the Associated Country Women of the World, first as an offshoot of the International Council of Women, then as an independent organization. Under her leadership the association brought together country women from the Americas, Europe, Australasia, South Africa, and Ceylon.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Madge was in Canada, where she continued to serve as president of the Associated Country Women of the World until her retirement in September 1947. She died in Montreal on 29 November 1948 after a heart attack, and was buried there. Her death was publicly marked by memorial services in Victoria, British Columbia, and at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

You are Gabrielle Pike, the most fearless chair of the NFWI ever!

The first non-aristocratic woman elected to be national Chair of the WI, Gabrielle’s passionate commitment to the WI was matched only be her love of cycling and gardening.

Born Gabrielle Woods in 1916, she was the youngest of six children and the daughter of the Bishop of Lichfield. She became involved in the WI after her marriage to Major George Pike of the Scots Guards. Active first in her local Berkshire Federation, Gabrielle’s public speaking talents were noted and she soon started travelling across the country lecturing to WIs.

In 1961 she was elected Chair of the WI and during her five-year tenure she championed the freedom from hunger campaign. She visited Russia which was unusual in the Cold War period. The invitation came, unprompted and totally unexpected, directly from the Soviet Union in a telegram congratulating the NFWI on its Golden Jubilee. Gabrielle visited Moscow, Leningrad and the Ukraine, managing to break through the bureaucracy to visit women in their homes. “I am interested in the country women” she told them, “not in visiting factories.”

You are Diana, Lady Albemarle, the brains behind the WI in the 1940s. Described as “a committee woman of brilliance” Diana’s charm, ability to compromise, and attention to detail made her a natural born policy leader.

Born in 1909, she was an only child whose father would later be killed in the First World War. She was only 21 years old when she married the widower Viscount Bury, acquiring an instant family of five step-children. During the depression years she and her husband worked with the local WI to organise employment relief for women. As a result, Diana became president of the newly-formed Snetterton WI, which she later admitted was the start of a life-long commitment to public service.

Diana rose quickly to prominence in the WI, serving as Chairman of the Norfolk Federation for only one year before being elected National Chair in 1946. As national chair she translated her love of gardening into campaigning for the countryside, fighting for improvement in rural water supplies and sewerage. Her commitment to non-party political action was firm as she realised “no party had the monopoly on wisdom.”

Always studious, with a love of reading, Lady Albemarle was delighted to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law from Reading University in 1960, a much deserved honour. Lady Albemarle enjoyed holidaying in Austria.

You are the fun and charismatic Elizabeth, Lady Brunner!

Elizabeth claimed centre stage wherever she went, literally and figuratively. Born in London in 1904 to two stage actor parents, she made her own stage debut at the young age of 12. In the early 1920s she acted in classical plays and in the silent film of Charlotte Bronte’s novel Shirley (1922).

In 1926 she married Felix John Morgan Brunner, who inherited a baronetcy in 1929. Her husband was very active in Liberal politics, and served as the president of the Liberal party from 1962-63. He was of Swiss descent and Lady Brunner and her husband journeyed to Switzerland often.

After moving from London to Oxfordshire to bring up her family, Elizabeth became increasingly active in her local WI. She was elected local president in 1944 and elected a member of the National Federation in 1945. It was her resolution in 1945 that proposed a Women’s Institute College, which became Denman College. Elizabeth was actively involved in Denman’s opening and deeply committed to providing educational opportunities for women.

She was elected National Chair in 1951 and served until 1956. Under her leadership Keep Britain Tidy was formed. Elizabeth remained active in public life after she stepped down from the WI and remained much loved and admired.

You are Frances Farrer! Known as ‘The Dame’ Frances’s no-nonsense attitude made her one of the most effective General Secretaries that the WI has ever had- and the longest serving one as well!

Frances was a natural born public-servant and an indomitable force. She was born in London in 1895, the daughter of Baron Farrer of Abingder and his musician wife Evelyn née Spring-Rice. After studying economics at Newham College, Cambridge, Farrer first worked as a civil-servant in the Ministry of Shipping and then in the Office of Woods and Forests. In the 1920s she took a life-changing trip to India with her family and drove across the desert via Baghdad, navigating dangerous terrain.

On her return, she became a rural organiser for the NFWI and in 1929 she was appointed the General Secretary, a post she held for thirty years. Her stamp on the organisation is indelible; her style un-replicable. She made a habit of speaking to Government ministers on the telephone before breakfast so she could be sure to get their full attention. Along with Lady Denman, Frances led the WI through the Second World War, commissioning plans for emergency evacuations and the fruit preservation the WI is so famous for.

She urged WI members to welcome evacuees into their homes, writing “the social needs of mothers, teachers, and children will make calls on the resourcefulness and ingenuity of every member.” WI members heeded her wise words.

In June of 1950 Farrer was created a dame of the British Empire in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the country during war-time.