Words by Florence Boyle
Photos courtesy of West Dunbartonshire Council Arts & Heritage Services
Nowadays, it’s jarring (or it should be) to see any sort of group photograph that only includes men.
In the 19th and for most of the 20th centuries it was the norm, women were largely invisible in images and absent from the written record despite some notable episodes in this area’s history where women took the lead.
The 1911 Singer Strike started with women – a team of cabinet polishers was reduced from 15 to 12.
Management expected the same quality and volume of work.
The women knew that was impossible and went on strike.
Within a week they were joined by 10,000 fellow workers.
Jane Rae (1872 – 1959) emerged as a strike leader and because of that she and 400 others lost their jobs.
After hearing Keir Hardie, founder of the Independent Labour Party, speak in 1913, she joined the party, becoming the Clydebank Branch Secretary and later, a Burgh Councillor.
What has been lost is that she was not alone, but she’s often the only one remembered in the handed down stories.
That’s often the problem with history, there’s only limited space for women.
It’s time to get to know more about the women who have contributed to the history of this area.
Women of Action
Isabella (Bella) Lappin (1880 – 1961) was a contemporary of Jane Rae.
How many know she was also Clydebank’s first woman councillor or that Lappin Street in Clydebank was named after her?
Elected in 1919 (the first election to include some women voters) as an Independent Labour candidate, Bella was also leader in the Co-operative movement and for the following 40+ years she lived in Dalmuir and campaigned on the issues that mattered to her: education, health, and housing.
Both Jane and Bella were involved in the Clydebank Rent Strike which lasted longer than the more famous Govan Rent strike.
In Clydebank the strike persisted into the mid-1920s and, following the war, men took centre stage in the newspaper coverage, including the legendary Red Clydesider, Davie Kirkwood.
But while the men were at work it was women who were left to do what they could to protect their home and resist the Sheriff Officers trying to evict them.
Birmingham woman Annie Craig (1864 – 1948) moved to Scotland in 1899 when she married her Scottish husband, Frank Craig.
Like Bella and Jane, she was a member the Independent Labour Party.
A self-described militant she became secretary of the Dumbarton ILP and a key organiser in Scotland for the legendary suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).
The WSPU’s motto ‘deeds not words’ summed up the suffragette’s belief that the time for talking was over and direct action was the only route left to achieving universal suffrage-votes for all.
Annie participated in civil disruption and protest often using aliases to evade arrest.
She threw stones at Churchill’s car when he visited Glasgow, smashed windows at the Home Office in London and was involved in one of the most notorious episodes in the Scottish Suffragette campaign when she took part in an arson attack on houses in Strathearn, Perthshire, using the name Rhoda Robinson.
When the suffragette campaign was won Annie remained politically active in the area serving as a member of the Old Kilpatrick School Board.
School of Art
Clydeside history is dominated by men’s stories partly because of the nature of the industry, social constraints and because often the activities that women were involved in were seen as less important.
One of the forgotten institutions in this area is the Dumbarton School of Art.
Established in the late 1880s, the Dumbarton school was the brainchild of the then head of Glasgow School of Art, Thomas Simmonds who saw an opportunity to integrate art design and industry.
Similar schools were established in Helensburgh and Paisley.
Benjamin Strongman, a teacher at the Glasgow School of Art arrived in Dumbarton with his family, to take charge of the school.
Strongman’s teenage daughter Amy started as a pupil before becoming a teacher and eventually succeeding her father as head.
Amy was a talented artist and a member of the pioneering Glasgow Society of Lady Artists which continues to this day as the Glasgow Society of Women Artists.
Founded in 1882 it was established with the aim of ensuring that women artists got the recognition they deserved.
Admission to the society was by election and Amy was admitted in 1888.
It was a significant honour and allowed her to contribute to the annual exhibition and access the Society’s club premises – latterly at 5 Blythswood Square behind a doorway designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (still there).
Amy remained in Dumbarton, teaching art, until she retired in 1923 when she moved back to Cornwall, and her family’s roots.
The Strongman family had contributed nearly 50 years to art education in the area.
Women’s history isn’t unimportant, it’s just been forgotten.
Read more about local women’s history in ‘Undeservedly Forgotten’ published by Cartsburn Publishing https://www.cartsburnpublishing.com
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