DESPITE HUGE CURRENT CONCERNS WITH UKRAINE, WE MUST SPARE TIME FOR THIS SPECIAL DAY

 

 

This #InternationalWomensDay, we recognize every woman who continues to pave the way for change by breaking biases at work and in their communities, helping create a more equitable future for generations to come. #BreakTheBias #IWD2022

Although great changes linked to the rights of working women were taking place worldwide, in Victorian England, the pace seems to have been much slower. The London newspaper industry was thriving in the bustling Fleet Street cobbles of the 1880s. Much has been written about this most famous of London thoroughfares, lit at dusk by gas lamps, workers dodging hurrying horse-drawn hansom cabs, and the inevitable smell of printers’ ink amid the incessant thrumming from the huge hot metal typesetting machines – standard technology of the day for mass-market printing. These machines lurked in the basements, churning out hundreds of ‘dailies’, books and magazines created predominantly by male journalists.

Over past centuries, there had existed many talented female writers, but rarely did women acquire the opportunity of seeing their work on the page and performed on the stage. Although Britain had been ruled by a queen for sixty-four years, the status of women writers at the end of her reign was abysmal. Many females whose written work was enjoyed by all social classes, had to fight hard for their work to be recognised and published, but often resorting to adopting male pseudonyms.

However, during Victoria’s last decade, a wealthy influential newspaper proprietor and editor of several newspapers came on the scene. Joseph Snell-Wood was the editor of The Daily Graphic and Bystander; also Queen Victoria’s favourite best-selling weekly journal, The Gentlewoman.  Entrepreneurial skills seem to have been inherently part of this forty-one-year-old publishing magnate’s character. His organising ability was illustrious. He was well-known in royal circles and had been responsible for creating a charity which raised over £10,000 for the Chelsea Hospital in the form of the Chelsea Arts Ball which was held annually thereafter at the Royal Albert Hall until the 1950s. As an employer of several women on his newspaper, Joseph understood their dilemma and promised to help. 

On 1 May 1894, Joseph created the Society of Women Journalists, pledging to launch and fund a specialised organisation purely for women, paying initial set-up costs, providing advice and helping with contacts and introductions. Immediately, more than two hundred women applied to become members, mostly journalists at the start, but later joined by novelists, poets, playwrights and females working in many areas of publishing. In 1951 Joseph’s Victorian brainchild was renamed The Society of Women Writers and Journalists. By then, its reputation had spread and we were welcoming members from many nations around the world. 

SWWJ pioneers have included luminaries such as Lady Sarah Wilson, Lady Violet Astor, Dame Rebecca West, Radclyffe Hall, Dr Marie Stopes, Vera Brittain, Elizabeth, Lady Longford, Shirley, Baroness Williams and in later years, Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Martina Cole, Sandra, Baroness Howard, Joyce Grenfell OBE and a host of other well known writers including Victoria Wood CBE  and currently Floella, Baroness Benjamin, DBE DL, our current President.

In 2019, our SWWJ members celebrated their 125^th anniversary lunch at Stationers’ Hall, the place where, despite Hitler’s blitz bombardment in 1940, members continued meetings.  Nowadays, in the midst of this pandemic, we keep in touch via our website where we regularly enjoy uplifting zoom interviews and webinars by well-known writers and entertainers.

 To learn more about joining SWWJ, please contact us at www.swwj.co.uk where a warm welcome awaits both professional and aspiring writers.