Labour Party Women's Department

These papers come from the Labour Party Women's Department and its related committees. The Labour Party created a Women's Department, with a Chief Women's Officer in 1919. Propertied women had been enfranchised in 1918 and a women's section had been put on to the Party's National Executive Committee as part of their new constitution, which had been drafted by Sidney Webb in 1917.

The Party's first chief woman officer was Marion Phillips (1881-1932). She was appointed in 1919. She was succeeded on her death by Mary Sutherland (1895-1972), who held the post until 1960. The Standing Joint Committee of Industrial (later Working) Women's Committee was set up in 1916. This became an integral part of the Labour Party's organisation, with the Chief Woman Officer as its secretary. Its work was superseded in the 1950s by the National Labour Women's Advisory Committee. The first National Conference of Labour Women was held in 1927.

The Labour Party Women's Department inherited from the Labour Women's League its journal Labour Woman, 1911-1971.