Biographies

Margaret Llewelyn Davies

Emmy Freundlich

Co-operative Women's Guild

Margaret Llewelyn Davies

Born in London in 1861, daughter of John Llewelyn Davies, Rector of Christ Church, Marylebone

Moved with her father to Kirkby Londsale, Westmorland, where he was Rector, in 1889

Educated at Girton College Cambridge

General Secretary of the WCG 1889 - 1922

Lived in Kirkby Lonsdale, later Hampstead and finally Dorking, with her life-long friend, Lilian Harris

Died in Dorking in 1943

Published her autobiography Life as we have known it in 1931

Emmy Freundlich

Born Emmy Kogler, in 1878 in Aussig, daughter of a former mayor of the town

Married Leo Freundlich, a Jewish socialist, in Gretna Green, 1900, against the wishes of her parents

Settled in Schonberg and had two children, but divorced and moved to Vienna in 1911

First president of the International Co-operative Women's Guild, 1921

Arrested in a purge of socialist leaders by the Dollfuss regime in Austria in February 1934; released April 1934

Fled to England, 1939

Died in America, 1948

Co-operative Women's Guild

First women's page in the Co-operative News and formation of Women's League for the Spread of Co-operation, 1883

Organisation changed its name to the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1885

WCG involved in a number of political campaigns to improve the political and legal position and the social conditions of women

Membership grew to a peak of 72,000 in 1,500 branches in 1933. Jubilee Congress held in London

International Co-operative Congress in Glasgow, 1913

International Women's Co-operative Guild formed, 1921

WCG Annual Congress held in Hull, 1939

WCG and IWCG involvement in peace campaigns in the 1930s, socialism, feminism and calls for peace in the 1940s, and the global co-operative movement in the 1950s

1963. Change of name, to the Co-operative Women's Guild, reflecting a closer association with other co-operative societies. International Women's Co-operative Guild subsumed as a committee of the International co-operative Alliance

Margaret Llewelyn Davies and Emmy Freundlich

Margaret Llewelyn Davies grew up in a family with strong convictions and a commitment to involvement in public life. Her father was a Christian Socialist and strong supporter of women's rights. Her aunt, Emily Sarah Davies had helped to found Girton College Cambridge, where Margaret studied from 1881 to 1883.

Margaret Llewelyn Davies joined the Women's Co-operative Guild soon after it was founded in 1883 and became its General Secretaryin 1889. She continued in this role for 32 years, during which time she never accepted a salary. The papers of the Women's Co-operative Guild are held at Hull University Archives.

During her leadership the WCG campaigned for a minimum wage for all women co-operative employees (achieved in 1912) and campaigned for reform to divorce laws, with Llewelyn Davies giving evidence to the Royal Commission. She also campaigned for ante-natal, natal and post-natal care, and in 1915 published a moving and influential book about women's experiences of child-birth and child-rearing, Maternity: letters from working women. The success of the WCG continued after the retirement of Margaret Llewelyn Davies, partly illustrated by its large publishing output. There was a change in direction after the end of the Second World War and by the 1960s Margaret Llewelyn Davies's socialism remained intact but her feminist ideas appeared to have gone into retreat as domestic issues prevailed.

The WCG took a pacifist stance during the First World War. Llewelyn Davies was regarded as an oustanding campaigner in the pacifist cause and was elected to the General Council of the Union of Democratic Control, which called for a negotiated peace settlement. In 1921 Llewelyn Davies helped to found the International Women's Co-operative Guild.

Emmy Freundlich was a democratic socialist member of the Austrian parliament and become involved in the co-operative movement in Austria, playing a leading role from 1919 onwards. She was the first president of the International Guild of Co-operative Women, formed at the International Co-operative Congress in Basle in 1921 and based in Vienna. As Austrian representative, she was the sole woman delegate to the Committee of the League of Nations in 1928; and was a noted writer, with articles on politics and economics published in Europe and America.

Freundlich seems to have had her first contact with the English WCG in 1913 and soon built up a strong friendship and partnership with Honora Enfield, active in the English Guild and the IWCG's first secretary. The 1920s and 1930s were arguably the International Guild's most productive and successful decades. The new spirit of international co-operation influenced national guilds, one lasting example is the English Guild's white poppies for peace campaign in 1932.

Following Emmy Freundlich's arrest in February 1934, during the Austrian civil war and subsequent crackdown on the Social Democratic Party, the IWCG petitioned and campaigned for her freedom. When she was released she spent some time in England, but soon returned to Vienna and continued her political activities and writing, until she was forced to more to England permanently in 1939. During the war the ICWG continued to work for peace and disarmament, in collaboration with the League of Nations. Freundlich moved to America in 1947 and represented the ICWG on the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.