Patricia Hollis – författare

Fifty years before the suffragettes fought to have the parliamentary vote, women in England were able to elect and be elected to local district councils, school boards and Poor Law boards. This pioneering study explores the world of those women who held office on behalf of other women, children, the old and the sick. They faced widespread hostility, but such was their success that in many cities and counties they were a stronger presence in 1900 than in 1975. Local government offered that conjunction of "compulsory philanthropy", "municipal housekeeping" and local responsibility which made it a sphere suitable for women. Based on the records of some 20 towns and 10 rural districts, Ladies Elect describes and assesses their work in local government before 1914, and places it in the context of the general movement towards woman's emancipation.

Assembling a full and comprehensive collection of material which illustrates all aspects of the emergent women’s movement during the years 1850-1900, this fascinating book will prove invaluable to students of nineteenth century social history and women's studies, to those studying the Victorian novel and to sociologists.Women’s pamphlets and speeches, parliamentary debates and popular journalism, letters and memoirs, royal commissions and the leading reviews, are all used to document the conflicting images of women: ‘surplus women’ and the issue of emigration; women’s work and male hostility to it; the opening of education by Emily Davies; the claim to equity at law; the attack on the sexual double standard, led by Josephine Butler; women’s public service from philanthropy – exemplified in a Mary Carpenter or Louisa Twining or Octavia Hill – to local government; and finally women’s entry into politics led by Lydia Becker.The contents range from Caroline Norton on her battle for child custody in the 1830s to Annie Besant’s inspiration of the match-girl’s strike in 1888, and from W. T. Stead on child prostitution to Mrs Humphrey War’s Appeal against female suffrage in 1889.The book was originally published in 1979.

Assembling a full and comprehensive collection of material which illustrates all aspects of the emergent women’s movement during the years 1850-1900, this fascinating book will prove invaluable to students of nineteenth century social history and women's studies, to those studying the Victorian novel and to sociologists.Women’s pamphlets and speeches, parliamentary debates and popular journalism, letters and memoirs, royal commissions and the leading reviews, are all used to document the conflicting images of women: ‘surplus women’ and the issue of emigration; women’s work and male hostility to it; the opening of education by Emily Davies; the claim to equity at law; the attack on the sexual double standard, led by Josephine Butler; women’s public service from philanthropy – exemplified in a Mary Carpenter or Louisa Twining or Octavia Hill – to local government; and finally women’s entry into politics led by Lydia Becker.The contents range from Caroline Norton on her battle for child custody in the 1830s to Annie Besant’s inspiration of the match-girl’s strike in 1888, and from W. T. Stead on child prostitution to Mrs Humphrey War’s Appeal against female suffrage in 1889.The book was originally published in 1979.

First published in 1997, Patricia Hollis's biography of the pioneering Labour MP Jennie Lee (1904-1988) won both the Wolfson History Prize and the Orwell Prize. It is the definitive study of this remarkable woman, her stormy political career, and her marriage to Aneurin Bevan. In a new preface to this edition Hollis adds insights into Lee's life which emerged subsequent to first publication, and also draws on her own experience as a Labour Minister from 1997-2005.'Lee's lives and loves, passions and drives are beautifully and frankly explored in Patricia Hollis's compelling book.' THES'Superbly researched, engrossingly written, scrupulously honest.' Gerald Kaufman, Daily Telegraph'What makes it particularly fascinating is the author's own first-hand knowledge of politics and of the Labour movement.' TLS'One of the best political biographies of recent years' Alan Watkins, New Statesman

First published in 1973. This title aims to use contemporary documents to illustrate the attitudes and relationships of working men towards each other and against other groups in society in the years 1815 to 1850. The material comes under three headings; the analysis of class in terms of economic and political theory; class relations in the years between the end of the French wars and the move into mid-Victorianism; and finally, the response to the more disturbing aspects of class by the appropriate vehicles of social control. This title will be of interest to students of history.