Elizabeth Andrews (1882-1960)
Elizabeth Andrews was born in 1882 in Hirwaen, Breconshire. She was the third of eleven children. Her father was a miner. He died at the age of 57 from silicosis, known as ‘miners’ asthema’, and two of her brothers died of the same. Her mother lived to the age of 86. At the time, large families and high mortality rates were the norm among the mining communities of the coalfields of South Wales. Andrews devoted her life to help alleviate the terrible conditions in which they lived. She was a central figure in the building of the labour party in Wales after the First World War. In 1918, when women’s suffrage was won the Labour party needed to revise its structure to include the new female voter. Consequently, a woman’s department was established, and women organisers appointed; Andrews was one of the first. In 1919, she teamed up with Mr. TC Morris and they were given the whole of Wales to organise. Andrews’ duties included the setting up of conferences, committees, rallies, and advisory councils. She was also secretary of the first branch of the Women’s Co-operative Guild in Wales, and responsible for the formation of a number of local branches. In what was traditionally a male dominated political arena, Andrews highlighted subjects that were previously unspoken about, like maternity and child-birth. She believed that miners’ wives were at greater risk than their husbands down pit. She knew at first-hand the extent of the women’s suffering as they tried to raise their families in overcrowded and insanitary housing. Her motto was ‘Educate, Agitate, Organise’, and she campaigned extensively for many issues to help ease the difficulties of their lives, such as pit-head baths, better housing, maternity and childcare provision, and trained midwives. Andrews also wrote political articles for the party journal, The Labour Woman, and the South Wales Federation monthly newspaper, The Colliery Workers Magazine. Her articles were often written in the heat of the moment, and give valuable insight into the life and times of the mining familes and the problems they faced..
Andrews’ autobiography, A Woman’s Work, was first published in 1957. It was written at the behest of friends and colleagues to record the changes that had taken place in women’s lives in the last 30 years, where her place in the home, in the professions and in public life had completely altered. Women’s emancipation was hard-won and Andrews is keen to remind the reader of the struggles: ‘It is by looking backwards that we can see the road we have travelled. Our pioneers blazed the trail and made the sacrifices that have bought us so far. Never let us betray those pioneers by indifference and apathy.’ Her third chapter, ‘Votes for women’, is a brief history of women’s emancipation up to their attainment of equal voting rights in 1928. Her autobiography is organised into eleven short chapters. The first two chapters deal with her own upbringing and formative years in the South Wales coalfields, while the narrative drive for the others is specific issues and campaigns she was involved in and fought for. She often mentions notable labour women and credits their services to the party. In the Forward to this particular edition (2006) Glenys Kinnock refers to Andrews as ‘a truly great Welsh woman who has sadly fallen out of our history’. Kinnock campaigned for many years to get the autobiography republished, and she writes: ‘her story needs to be told not just because she achieved so much, but also because her life tells us the story of a woman of the South Wales valleys during the first half of the twentieth century.’ This kind of appreciation is echoed by Jim Griffiths (MP for Llanelli 1936-1970 and cabinet minister in the Labour government 1945-51), who attests that Andrews was loved and respected by the labour women of the valleys, that ‘she shared their life, spoke their language and voiced their hopes – and fears’, and that ‘she has written a chapter in the history of the people of the valleys’.
Christianity in the form of Nonconformist religion played a large part in Andrews’ life. She was Christened in Zoar Welsh Wesleyan chapel, and her family attended mass and Sunday school. In their home they had a large colourfully illustrated Welsh Bible, and her mother would explain the stories to the children on a Sunday evening. Andrews informs us that her mother ‘took a keen interest in religious work’, and that her father was a strong moral influence: ‘a devout Christian; his wise guidance and advice we all treasured’. Her father was also a Radical. He was literate in Welsh but not English, and her early political education was forged at a young age by reading him the newspaper. For example, she remembers reading about Keir-Hardie’s victorious election campaign in Merthyr and Aberdare in 1900. She also recalls (although she was only age three at the time) the 1885 victory celebrations for William Abraham (known as Mabon) when he became the first lib/lab MP for Rhondda: ‘There was great excitement, all the houses were lit up with candles in each windows and the crowd sang Mabon yw y Dyn (Mabon is the man).’ Thereafter, Mabon became a household name. He fought for the first Monday of each month to be a holiday for the miners, and this became known as Mabon day. In 1918, at the age of 36, Andrews was one of Mabon’s sponsers in his final election contest.
Andrews loved school (despite the terrible conditions in which she had to learn). She had hoped to become a teacher, but she says her parents could not afford the bus fare to Aberdare for her higher education, and besides she was needed at home where there were three working miners and six school children to look after. At the age of 17, she learnt dressmaking for a period of twelve months, for which she had to pay 10/ - a quarter to learn the trade. Subsequently, she would be sent out to people’s homes with her sewing-machine. She moved on to a larger business and managed to earn a reasonable living for several years. At the age of 26, she moved to the Rhondda valley and it was here she met Thomas T Andrews, her future husband (she dedicates her autobiography to him). He had worked as a miner for a number of years. He was involved with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and later became secretary. Elizabeth helped him and attended meetings with him, where she was usually the only woman present. They were married in 1910. At their home they received many ILP and suffragette speakers that came to the valleys. Andrews says the suffragettes were very unpopular, and she describes an occasion when group of them were forced to secretly escape a club via the back entrance because the antagonism was becoming violent. Socialism and feminism have always had an ambivalent relationship, mainly because women’s particular problems were thought to weaken the working-class cause; so they were subsumed under the more pressing general issues of social class, such as unemployment, low pay and poor working conditions. Nevertheless, Andrews joined a non-militant suffrage society, although she does not specify which one. After the partial enfranchisement of women in 1918 she continued to campaign for equal franchise, and through her newspaper columns she urged women to do likewise: ‘It will raise our status as voters and remove that insult to our womanhood that we got the vote because we weremarried to men, not because we were intelligent human beings and citizens’. Andrews’ first loyalty was to the leaders of the party, who were male; however, she does not mention any antagonism she may have personally experienced.
When women got the vote, many were new to politics. Andrews wanted to get the miners’ wives interested and involved, and get them to see that they had the power to change the conditions of their own lives. She used simple language and drafted a chart entitled ‘Mother in The Home’: the mother was situated in the centre and surrounded by all the laws that affected her in every aspect of daily life. Andrews’ journalism was aimed at the miner’s wives and she wanted them to read it. At the end of one of her article she wrote: ‘I want to make an appeal to all the mineworkers to get the womenfolk to read this magazine, and, if possible, to contribute to it by way of questions, letters, or short articles on all matters that affect the lives of mineworkers’. The title to her autobiography is a traditional maxim referring to the endlessness of women’s work within the family, but more specifically it affirms her own work in the political sphere as woman’s work, and her attempts to change the world. Likewise, women as mothers must take an interest and get involved in political issues such as unemployment, low pay, poverty and sanitation if they wanted to make the world better for their children
Conditions in the coalfields grew worse, and from 1921to 1932 250,000 people left South Wales to look for work elsewhere. Hit by mass unemployment and means-testing, demonstrations and protests were rife. At the time, communism had a good following in the Rhondda, so much so that it became known as ‘Little Moscow’. Andrews wrote extensively during the General Strike from May to December in 1926, and the following miners’ lockout. In an attempt to ease the terrible conditions of acute poverty she helped to organise women-centred initiatives, which were aimed at pregnant and nursing mothers, and children. Parcels of food, medical supplies and clothing were sent out to those in need. She talks about an adoption scheme that was set up so that children from the hardest hit families were sent to away to temporary homes in London, Birmingham and Swindon. Andrews gives a first-hand and emotive account of the problems experienced by the mining families during a particularly difficult time, an account which will not be reflected in the formal annals of history ‘When history comes to be written about the period of mass unemployment it will be dealt with in statistics and percentages. Readers and students of the future will need much imagination and understanding to give the human factor its rightful place. I hope what I have written here will help’. In so doing, Andrews also recounts the resilience of the inhabitants of the coalfields, their will to survive and their ability to pull together in the face of adversity. Last but not least, she also recounts the untiring energy and goodwill of women like herself who helped those in their time of need: acts of goodness that will be forever remembered in the mining valleys of Wales
Andrews retired from her post as Labour Woman Organiser for Wales in 1947, after 28 years of service. In 1949, she was awarded an OBE, and she stood in local elections; although unsucessfully. She died in 1960, aged 77.
Andrews’ autobiography, A Woman’s Work, was first published in 1957. It was written at the behest of friends and colleagues to record the changes that had taken place in women’s lives in the last 30 years, where her place in the home, in the professions and in public life had completely altered. Women’s emancipation was hard-won and Andrews is keen to remind the reader of the struggles: ‘It is by looking backwards that we can see the road we have travelled. Our pioneers blazed the trail and made the sacrifices that have bought us so far. Never let us betray those pioneers by indifference and apathy.’ Her third chapter, ‘Votes for women’, is a brief history of women’s emancipation up to their attainment of equal voting rights in 1928. Her autobiography is organised into eleven short chapters. The first two chapters deal with her own upbringing and formative years in the South Wales coalfields, while the narrative drive for the others is specific issues and campaigns she was involved in and fought for. She often mentions notable labour women and credits their services to the party. In the Forward to this particular edition (2006) Glenys Kinnock refers to Andrews as ‘a truly great Welsh woman who has sadly fallen out of our history’. Kinnock campaigned for many years to get the autobiography republished, and she writes: ‘her story needs to be told not just because she achieved so much, but also because her life tells us the story of a woman of the South Wales valleys during the first half of the twentieth century.’ This kind of appreciation is echoed by Jim Griffiths (MP for Llanelli 1936-1970 and cabinet minister in the Labour government 1945-51), who attests that Andrews was loved and respected by the labour women of the valleys, that ‘she shared their life, spoke their language and voiced their hopes – and fears’, and that ‘she has written a chapter in the history of the people of the valleys’.
Christianity in the form of Nonconformist religion played a large part in Andrews’ life. She was Christened in Zoar Welsh Wesleyan chapel, and her family attended mass and Sunday school. In their home they had a large colourfully illustrated Welsh Bible, and her mother would explain the stories to the children on a Sunday evening. Andrews informs us that her mother ‘took a keen interest in religious work’, and that her father was a strong moral influence: ‘a devout Christian; his wise guidance and advice we all treasured’. Her father was also a Radical. He was literate in Welsh but not English, and her early political education was forged at a young age by reading him the newspaper. For example, she remembers reading about Keir-Hardie’s victorious election campaign in Merthyr and Aberdare in 1900. She also recalls (although she was only age three at the time) the 1885 victory celebrations for William Abraham (known as Mabon) when he became the first lib/lab MP for Rhondda: ‘There was great excitement, all the houses were lit up with candles in each windows and the crowd sang Mabon yw y Dyn (Mabon is the man).’ Thereafter, Mabon became a household name. He fought for the first Monday of each month to be a holiday for the miners, and this became known as Mabon day. In 1918, at the age of 36, Andrews was one of Mabon’s sponsers in his final election contest.
Andrews loved school (despite the terrible conditions in which she had to learn). She had hoped to become a teacher, but she says her parents could not afford the bus fare to Aberdare for her higher education, and besides she was needed at home where there were three working miners and six school children to look after. At the age of 17, she learnt dressmaking for a period of twelve months, for which she had to pay 10/ - a quarter to learn the trade. Subsequently, she would be sent out to people’s homes with her sewing-machine. She moved on to a larger business and managed to earn a reasonable living for several years. At the age of 26, she moved to the Rhondda valley and it was here she met Thomas T Andrews, her future husband (she dedicates her autobiography to him). He had worked as a miner for a number of years. He was involved with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and later became secretary. Elizabeth helped him and attended meetings with him, where she was usually the only woman present. They were married in 1910. At their home they received many ILP and suffragette speakers that came to the valleys. Andrews says the suffragettes were very unpopular, and she describes an occasion when group of them were forced to secretly escape a club via the back entrance because the antagonism was becoming violent. Socialism and feminism have always had an ambivalent relationship, mainly because women’s particular problems were thought to weaken the working-class cause; so they were subsumed under the more pressing general issues of social class, such as unemployment, low pay and poor working conditions. Nevertheless, Andrews joined a non-militant suffrage society, although she does not specify which one. After the partial enfranchisement of women in 1918 she continued to campaign for equal franchise, and through her newspaper columns she urged women to do likewise: ‘It will raise our status as voters and remove that insult to our womanhood that we got the vote because we weremarried to men, not because we were intelligent human beings and citizens’. Andrews’ first loyalty was to the leaders of the party, who were male; however, she does not mention any antagonism she may have personally experienced.
When women got the vote, many were new to politics. Andrews wanted to get the miners’ wives interested and involved, and get them to see that they had the power to change the conditions of their own lives. She used simple language and drafted a chart entitled ‘Mother in The Home’: the mother was situated in the centre and surrounded by all the laws that affected her in every aspect of daily life. Andrews’ journalism was aimed at the miner’s wives and she wanted them to read it. At the end of one of her article she wrote: ‘I want to make an appeal to all the mineworkers to get the womenfolk to read this magazine, and, if possible, to contribute to it by way of questions, letters, or short articles on all matters that affect the lives of mineworkers’. The title to her autobiography is a traditional maxim referring to the endlessness of women’s work within the family, but more specifically it affirms her own work in the political sphere as woman’s work, and her attempts to change the world. Likewise, women as mothers must take an interest and get involved in political issues such as unemployment, low pay, poverty and sanitation if they wanted to make the world better for their children
Conditions in the coalfields grew worse, and from 1921to 1932 250,000 people left South Wales to look for work elsewhere. Hit by mass unemployment and means-testing, demonstrations and protests were rife. At the time, communism had a good following in the Rhondda, so much so that it became known as ‘Little Moscow’. Andrews wrote extensively during the General Strike from May to December in 1926, and the following miners’ lockout. In an attempt to ease the terrible conditions of acute poverty she helped to organise women-centred initiatives, which were aimed at pregnant and nursing mothers, and children. Parcels of food, medical supplies and clothing were sent out to those in need. She talks about an adoption scheme that was set up so that children from the hardest hit families were sent to away to temporary homes in London, Birmingham and Swindon. Andrews gives a first-hand and emotive account of the problems experienced by the mining families during a particularly difficult time, an account which will not be reflected in the formal annals of history ‘When history comes to be written about the period of mass unemployment it will be dealt with in statistics and percentages. Readers and students of the future will need much imagination and understanding to give the human factor its rightful place. I hope what I have written here will help’. In so doing, Andrews also recounts the resilience of the inhabitants of the coalfields, their will to survive and their ability to pull together in the face of adversity. Last but not least, she also recounts the untiring energy and goodwill of women like herself who helped those in their time of need: acts of goodness that will be forever remembered in the mining valleys of Wales
Andrews retired from her post as Labour Woman Organiser for Wales in 1947, after 28 years of service. In 1949, she was awarded an OBE, and she stood in local elections; although unsucessfully. She died in 1960, aged 77.
