The idea originated in Canada amongst a community of farmers’ wives whose lives were so harsh, narrow, and unlovely that they determined to widen and beautify them by the interchange of ideas and fellowship.

The movement was already a success in Canada and at least one flourishing women’s institute existed in Belgium before the Canadian organiser – Mrs. Watt – came to England and the women of a small Welsh village formed their institute a month after war was declared. To-day there are anywhere round three thousand institutes scattered throughout the countryside.

Women’s institutes are gatherings of countrywomen who meet, usually monthly, to discuss matters of interest to everyone; poor and rich pay the same annual 2s. subscription, and the election of officers and committee is by secret ballot.

Lectures are arranged on such subjects as goat-keeping, boot-mending, hygiene, “Things an institute can do,” and the work of county councils. Members cooperate to run an allotment or start a stall at the market town; handicrafts are practised and instruction received in modern business methods. Quite often a group of institutes join together and approach the council to draw attention to sanitation, bad roads, and impossible water supply, or the necessity for a motor-bus.

On institute afternoon the country member starts off on her tramp, carrying her baby and sustained by the thought that she will find “something to hear, something to see, and something to do.” She will bring her contribution in the form of a cherished family recipe for pickling ham, and may receive in return tips for trussing fowls. A simple talk will be given on the best means of ensuring a winter supply of eggs, and there will be a display of handicrafts full of suggestion for work at home during long evenings. Some of the members will show their skill at the newly revived country dancing and others may sing or play. The hostesses for the day will serve tea and a bun, and volunteers will wash up.

The townswoman may see in this only a modernised version of the mothers’ meeting, but she who has dwelt six miles from a station recognises it is an upheaval. For all these women’s institutes are democratic, non-political, and non-sectarian.

Ladies of the Women’s Institute (WI) making jam, circa 1940. Photograph: Hulton Getty

Democratic and non-sectarian

Without the war it would appear to have been impossible for “the quality,” rectory, and villagers to meet on a common ground of national helpfulness for the exchange of household economics. Thanks to the institute, much of this spirit of mutual aid has survived and soars beyond details of domestic management. Between church and chapel there is still a great gulf fixed, but at the institute it is the Tory vicar’s wife who proposes the Radical baker’s capable spouse (who is “chapel”) as president.

New members are invariably overcome by the publicity of their position, and huddle speechless at the back of the room. They neither move nor second a proposition, refuse to vote except as a body, and pass every motion though it is obviously against the feeling of the meeting. But by the end of their first year they have developed courage and are ready to graduate as committee women. They realise their responsibility to their institute and are anxious to be of service to it individually; moreover, their interest extends beyond local topics and they are capable of registering their votes as responsible citizens.

Craftsmanship has received a fresh lease of life, yet remains blessedly free from “arty” affectations. First of all, institute women work for the pleasure of making something useful and beautiful for themselves or their homes. Then, if the article is so attractive as to create a demand, here at hand is a homecraft for the widow with a baby or for the ailing girl unable to go to work. The National Federation guards the financial interests, thus preventing the introduction of another sweated home industry and discouraging individual profiteering.

Basket-making is increasingly popular, and there are classes formed in willow, cane, and raffia work; excellent saleable chairs are contrived on old Windsor models; institute toys enjoy a great vogue; one institution specialises in smocking, and another boasts of its hand-loom weaving, whilst the East Kent women’s institutes have equipped a van with fascinating samples of their exhibits, which under the guidance of two members tours the countryside.

All sorts of village work is undertaken by the institute. A savings’ club campaign is started, unsightly places are cleared up, members work to endow their institute with a hot bath, a “kill that fly” crusade is organised by members, who as children wore a bag of donkey-hair round their throats as a cure for whooping-cough.

Soap – ever a source of worry to the country housewife – is either made or bought cooperatively through the institute, and busy members avoid shoddy by purchasing their clothes from other members with more time for sewing. A Kent institute ran a jam factory cooperatively, and received and weighed the fruit, pulped marrows for mixing with it, prepared it for boiling in their fixed copper, and turned out six and a half tons of jam, on which they cleared a profit of £235.

Labour-saving contrivances are much appreciated, and a judicious investment in one village is a vacuum cleaner lent to members at 6d. a day, whilst another has speculated in a complete sweep’s outfit, for whose use members pay the customary six-pence and non-members just double.



