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Clara Rackham
Clara Dorothea Rackham née Tabor (3 December 1875 – 11 March 1966) was an English feminist and politician active in the women's suffrage movement, the Women's Co-operative Guild, the peace movement, adult education, family planning and the labour movement. She was a pioneering magistrate, Poor Law Guardian, educator, anti-poverty campaigner and penal reformer in Cambridge where she was a long-serving city and county councillor.
Rackham was vice-chairman of Cambridgeshire County Council from 1956 to 1958 and chairman of the Cambridgeshire County Council Education Committee from 1945 to 1957. She first came to prominence through her leading role in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and later became a significant national figure in the labour movement, acquiring a national reputation for her expertise on factory conditions, workers' rights, equal pay, and national insurance.
Clara Rackham (known as Dorothea to her family) was born in Notting Hill, the daughter of Henry Tabor, a gentleman farmer from a non-conformist family based in Bocking in Essex and Emma Tabor (née Woodcock) who came from Wigan, Lancashire. She was educated at Notting Hill High School, St Leonards School (1892–93), Bedford College in 1894, and like her older sister, Margaret, attended Newnham College, Cambridge.
At Newnham College (1895–98) Clara Tabor studied Classics but much of her time was taken up with outdoor pursuits and with politics. She was a prominent supporter of the Liberal Party in the Newnham College Political Society, a proficient long-distance cyclist, swam regularly in the River Cam, and was captain of the hockey team. Clara left with the equivalent of a third-class degree (women did not officially receive degrees from Cambridge University until 1948). However, she had made a lifelong friend in another Newnham student, Susan Lawrence, one of the first three women to be elected to parliament as Labour MPs, and had also met her future husband, Harris Rackham, a lecturer in classics at Newnham College from 1893. Harris, a brother of the illustrator Arthur Rackham, became a Senior Fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1899. The couple married in 1901 and lived at 4 Grange Terrace before moving to 18 Hobson Street, the Senior Tutor's House at Christ's College in 1911, and then setting up home in a Georgian house at 9 Park Terrace, Cambridge overlooking Parker's Piece in 1924. The marriage was a happy one and lasted until Harris's death in 1944. Clara remained in the house until 1957.
Rackham established the Cambridge branch of the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1902 and became its president, remaining active in her local group for over twenty years and writing on the value of co-operative ideals in Cambridge: A Brief Study in Social Questions (1906) edited by Eglantyne Jebb. Jebb founded the Save the Children Fund in 1919 to raise money for German and Austrian children. In 1923 Rackham served on the birth control subcommittee of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organizations (SJCIWO) and by 1930 had become chairman of the organisation. Rackham chaired the National Conference of Labour Women at the Kingsway Hall in London where SJCIWO put forward two reports for discussion; on abolition of the marriage bar, and on equal pay for equal work. In Cambridge she worked with her friend, the Homerton College-trained Leah Manning (President of the National Union of Teachers in 1930, elected as the Labour MP for Islington East in 1928 and then for Epping in 1945). Both women were associated with the ragged school set up in a building in Young Street which is now the site of Anglia Ruskin University Music Therapy Department. In the 1930s Rackham supported Manning's initiatives in parliament to welcome Basque children to Britain who were seeking refuge during the Spanish Civil War and some of these children were given homes in Cambridge.
The youthful Rackham was an admirer of William Ewart Gladstone. She was the leader of the Liberal group at Newnham College and spoke in student debates. When Gladstone died in 1898 on the day before she was due to begin part one of the Classical Tripos she was not told the news in case she were to do badly. Rackham is first listed as a host of a public meeting in an advertisement that appeared on 24 October 1902 in The Cambridge Independent Press. Her attendance is reported at the public meeting on 29 October 1902 held at the old Sturton Hall. The Liberal Party were protesting against the Education Bill which would have excluded women from their role on school boards. Rackham objection to the legislation was that it removed the right of women to be elected by local voters to their existing roles and made them reliant on the consent of other members of boards rather than a direct mandate from the people.
Like other suffragists from a privileged background, Rackham was brought into direct contact with the plight of the poor and disadvantaged through her work as a Poor Law Guardian and was shocked by what she saw. Her experiences with poor relief for the Castle End ward of Cambridge (1904–15) reinforced her conviction that it was essential for women to have the vote if things were to change. Adela Adam, a classicist at Girton College, persuaded Rackham to join the Cambridge Women's Suffrage Association. This was a branch of the constitutional, non-militant National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), the President of which was the veteran suffragist, Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
Rackham proved to be a first-class organiser, giving rousing speeches, and touring the surrounding villages to drum up support for women's suffrage. She was faced with a hostile crowd in Newmarket. Rackham was elected to the executive committee of the Eastern Federation of the NUWSS and then to the national executive committee which she chaired from 1909 to 1915 when she resigned to take up a position as a government factory inspector. Cambridge sent a sizeable contingent to the 'Great Pilgrimage' of law-abiding suffragists that converged on Hyde Park from routes all over the country in 1913. Rackham joined the procession at Burwell and gave a stirring address to the marchers in the market square in Cambridge before the procession set off for Royston. In London she was seated on the podium next to Millicent Fawcett and formed part of the delegation to visit Asquith.
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Clara Rackham
Clara Dorothea Rackham née Tabor (3 December 1875 – 11 March 1966) was an English feminist and politician active in the women's suffrage movement, the Women's Co-operative Guild, the peace movement, adult education, family planning and the labour movement. She was a pioneering magistrate, Poor Law Guardian, educator, anti-poverty campaigner and penal reformer in Cambridge where she was a long-serving city and county councillor.
Rackham was vice-chairman of Cambridgeshire County Council from 1956 to 1958 and chairman of the Cambridgeshire County Council Education Committee from 1945 to 1957. She first came to prominence through her leading role in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and later became a significant national figure in the labour movement, acquiring a national reputation for her expertise on factory conditions, workers' rights, equal pay, and national insurance.
Clara Rackham (known as Dorothea to her family) was born in Notting Hill, the daughter of Henry Tabor, a gentleman farmer from a non-conformist family based in Bocking in Essex and Emma Tabor (née Woodcock) who came from Wigan, Lancashire. She was educated at Notting Hill High School, St Leonards School (1892–93), Bedford College in 1894, and like her older sister, Margaret, attended Newnham College, Cambridge.
At Newnham College (1895–98) Clara Tabor studied Classics but much of her time was taken up with outdoor pursuits and with politics. She was a prominent supporter of the Liberal Party in the Newnham College Political Society, a proficient long-distance cyclist, swam regularly in the River Cam, and was captain of the hockey team. Clara left with the equivalent of a third-class degree (women did not officially receive degrees from Cambridge University until 1948). However, she had made a lifelong friend in another Newnham student, Susan Lawrence, one of the first three women to be elected to parliament as Labour MPs, and had also met her future husband, Harris Rackham, a lecturer in classics at Newnham College from 1893. Harris, a brother of the illustrator Arthur Rackham, became a Senior Fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1899. The couple married in 1901 and lived at 4 Grange Terrace before moving to 18 Hobson Street, the Senior Tutor's House at Christ's College in 1911, and then setting up home in a Georgian house at 9 Park Terrace, Cambridge overlooking Parker's Piece in 1924. The marriage was a happy one and lasted until Harris's death in 1944. Clara remained in the house until 1957.
Rackham established the Cambridge branch of the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1902 and became its president, remaining active in her local group for over twenty years and writing on the value of co-operative ideals in Cambridge: A Brief Study in Social Questions (1906) edited by Eglantyne Jebb. Jebb founded the Save the Children Fund in 1919 to raise money for German and Austrian children. In 1923 Rackham served on the birth control subcommittee of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organizations (SJCIWO) and by 1930 had become chairman of the organisation. Rackham chaired the National Conference of Labour Women at the Kingsway Hall in London where SJCIWO put forward two reports for discussion; on abolition of the marriage bar, and on equal pay for equal work. In Cambridge she worked with her friend, the Homerton College-trained Leah Manning (President of the National Union of Teachers in 1930, elected as the Labour MP for Islington East in 1928 and then for Epping in 1945). Both women were associated with the ragged school set up in a building in Young Street which is now the site of Anglia Ruskin University Music Therapy Department. In the 1930s Rackham supported Manning's initiatives in parliament to welcome Basque children to Britain who were seeking refuge during the Spanish Civil War and some of these children were given homes in Cambridge.
The youthful Rackham was an admirer of William Ewart Gladstone. She was the leader of the Liberal group at Newnham College and spoke in student debates. When Gladstone died in 1898 on the day before she was due to begin part one of the Classical Tripos she was not told the news in case she were to do badly. Rackham is first listed as a host of a public meeting in an advertisement that appeared on 24 October 1902 in The Cambridge Independent Press. Her attendance is reported at the public meeting on 29 October 1902 held at the old Sturton Hall. The Liberal Party were protesting against the Education Bill which would have excluded women from their role on school boards. Rackham objection to the legislation was that it removed the right of women to be elected by local voters to their existing roles and made them reliant on the consent of other members of boards rather than a direct mandate from the people.
Like other suffragists from a privileged background, Rackham was brought into direct contact with the plight of the poor and disadvantaged through her work as a Poor Law Guardian and was shocked by what she saw. Her experiences with poor relief for the Castle End ward of Cambridge (1904–15) reinforced her conviction that it was essential for women to have the vote if things were to change. Adela Adam, a classicist at Girton College, persuaded Rackham to join the Cambridge Women's Suffrage Association. This was a branch of the constitutional, non-militant National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), the President of which was the veteran suffragist, Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
Rackham proved to be a first-class organiser, giving rousing speeches, and touring the surrounding villages to drum up support for women's suffrage. She was faced with a hostile crowd in Newmarket. Rackham was elected to the executive committee of the Eastern Federation of the NUWSS and then to the national executive committee which she chaired from 1909 to 1915 when she resigned to take up a position as a government factory inspector. Cambridge sent a sizeable contingent to the 'Great Pilgrimage' of law-abiding suffragists that converged on Hyde Park from routes all over the country in 1913. Rackham joined the procession at Burwell and gave a stirring address to the marchers in the market square in Cambridge before the procession set off for Royston. In London she was seated on the podium next to Millicent Fawcett and formed part of the delegation to visit Asquith.