The British Library and the History of Parliament Trust joined forces in 2011 on the collaborative Oral History Project which aims to interview as many former MPs as possible to reflect on their parliamentary careers. So far over 160 former MPs have been interviewed, providing first-hand testimony of the past and a truly unique record of post-Second World War British political history. You can listen to 50 of the interviews in full at the British Library’s Sound Archive or explore the Library’s wider collections of oral histories of politics and Government here.

Our major Exhibition Unfinished Business: The Fight For Women’s Rights has been rescheduled to open later this autumn. We spoke with Dr Emma Peplow, Head of Development at the History of Parliament Trust and asked her about the Oral History Project and reflecting the theme of the upcoming exhibition, we asked her what she learnt about the changing experience of female MP’s during this period. Emma and her colleague, Dr Priscila Pivatto, have recently published a book: The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs based on the archive.

Can you tell us a little bit about the Oral History Project, how it came about and why you think it is an important project?

The History of Parliament Trust began its Oral History Project in 2011, aiming to interview as many former MPs as possible about their lives and careers. It was inspired by our founder – Josiah Wedgwood MP – who in the 1930s sent out a questionnaire to MPs who sat between 1885 and 1918. He wanted to capture their ‘minds not deeds,’ so an oral history project seemed to us the best way to revive his idea. Its real strength is in the personal stories it has captured, and in getting behind the scenes of everyday life in Parliament – what it felt like to walk the corridors of power, face pressure from the Whips, and gossip in the tea rooms and bars!

You interview MPs from different parties, different generations [1960s-2000s] and you touch on many different topics. Can you tell us a little bit about what the conversations taught you about the experience of female MPs in Parliament at that time and the environment they found themselves in?

Before 1997 there were very few women in Parliament, and although they were made welcome by some of their colleagues (just tolerated by others!) Parliament was a very male institution – designed by men, for men. Some of our interviewees were not bothered by this, but others faced outright discrimination and even sexual harassment by their colleagues. They might have had to work up courage to go into the male-dominated smoking room (Elizabeth Peacock can be heard talking about this on a clip here), or fight to speak on a defence or international affairs bill.

After 1997 the numbers increased dramatically, and women drove changes in the working hours and atmosphere of the House. Women still faced difficulties and discrimination, but they did make Parliament friendlier for them.

Women entering politics during the post-war period had many barriers to overcome – including the sexism, the drinking culture and the late nights of voting. What do you think was the most significant barrier facing female MPs and do you think many of these persist today?

In many ways the most significant barrier faced by women was getting in to Parliament. Before the Labour party introduced All Women Shortlists for the 1997 election many of our interviewees really struggled to find a seat. Many local selection committees simply expected their MP would be a man – and a straight, white, married man at that. Conservative women described selection committees asking them how they would look after their children if they were elected; whereas Labour women might face the problem of not being accepted in the pub or working men’s club. Women felt that they had to be three or four times better than their male rivals for selection panels to choose them, and men also acknowledged they benefitted from this bias.

In this case things certainly have improved after 1997. Many more women are being selected to be MPs, and are accepted as ‘MP material’, even if other barriers mean that there aren’t an equal number of men and women applying for seats.

The British Library’s upcoming major exhibition ‘’Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights’’ (which has  been rescheduled for later this year) explores how feminist activism in the UK is rooted in the long and complex history of women’s rights. It looks at how protest and self-expression has shaped the fight for equality – for example through the innovative use of subversive art and music, and humour and imagination to demand change.

Can you tell us of the ways that women in politics have fought with imagination, humour and tenacity to insist on change?

Women in politics have certainly had to keep their tenacity and sense of humour in the face of an institution that is extremely reluctant to change! The examples are many and wide-ranging: in 1974 Helene Hayman was told by the Speaker she shouldn’t sit with the other women because he couldn’t tell them apart, so she chose to sit next to Willie Ross. Whilst for the Conservatives, Jill Knight laughed off being considered ‘not a nice girl’ for heading in to the Smoking Room with the men (you can hear this clip on our website). On more serious note Labour MP Hilary Armstrong described the fight to convince the Labour party to accept All-Women Shortlists, and then the later legal challenges that this policy faced. Changing the culture in the Commons took more than just an increase in numbers - those who suggested a crèche when they arrived in 1997 had to wait until 2009 before one opened.

We know inequality is experienced differently depending on race, gender identity, class and sexuality, which is also a theme that features in the exhibition. Reflecting on the archives, do you get a sense of MP’s raising these issues?

Yes - MPs do raise issues of inequalities, but the picture is quite complicated. We certainly have women from working class backgrounds who struggled to fit in with Commons culture. Labour MP Alice Mahon told us 'the class divide hit me smack in the face' and described the problems she encountered because of her strong accent. However, other working class women told us that they immediately felt at home. Some of our interviewees mention hearing homophobic comments made towards lesbian MPs, although in our interview Chris Smith, the first MP to choose to come out, he described his colleagues as being largely supportive and respectful.

Both male and female MPs reflected that 1997 marked a serious change of personnel in the Commons. Many praised the wider diversity in MPs after 1997: more from black or ethnic minority backgrounds, more women, more who had a disability. Yet others lamented that the old class differences had disappeared -MPs were less likely to be white men, but were much more likely to have a university education than to a background in a trade or a union. For these interviewees, Parliament had become less representative of different classes.

The fight for women’s rights isn’t exclusively a woman’s fight. We know that men have to be part of the resistance too.

Are there instances in your conversations where male MPs have led the fight in Parliament, or supported female MPs in changing rules and structures to advance female empowerment in Parliament and across the country?

Yes – in the 1960s it was mostly men who led the campaign for the decriminalisation of abortion. At this time men had to lead the way, as there were very few women in Parliament! The private member’s bill that led to the change was introduced by Liberal leader David Steel, and Labour MP Peter Jackson became the unofficial whip for the legislation (you can hear Peter Jackson discussing his decision to support this legislation on our website).

Sadly though most of the men in our archive did not mention gender relations at all – other than the odd remark about the change in 1997.

The Representation of the People Act of 1918, gave women over 30 the right to vote (for the same voting rights as men, women had to wait until 1928). Out of all the parliamentary reform Bills, this Act enfranchised the largest number of people. © UK Parliament

There are 220 female MPs in Parliament in 2020 – the highest number ever but falls short of reflecting society as a whole.  What do you think is the ultimate ‘’Unfinished Business’’ for women in Parliament and in politics generally?  And if someone in 20-30 years’ time looks back at the environment for women in Parliament today, what do you think might be the one thing they might find most difficult to comprehend about the state of politics today? 

Listening to our interviews, the abuse that women MPs (and MPs in general) faced via hate mail from the ‘green ink brigade’ in the past sounds very familiar to online abuse faced by female politicians today. That said, most interviewees felt that the abuse they received was nothing compared to the volume female MPs experience nowadays. Hopefully that will become a barrier to women’s involvement that will seem difficult for future women to comprehend.  

If you had the chance to interview any woman in history – past or present - who would it be and why?

Barbara Castle – there are some great stories about her in our archive, and I’d love to talk to her about the Equal Pay Act.

Photo from https://labour.org.uk/latest/stories/barbara-castle-equal-pay-act/

Dr Emma Peplow is Head of Development responsible for developing the History of Parliament Trust’s Oral History Project, new project funding and areas of the website.

She is currently working, with Dr Priscila Pivatto, on publications based on the oral history project interviews. The first book - an introduction to the interviews was published by Bloomsbury Academic in August 2020. 

Previously she worked as a Research Associate at the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum, running 'Taking the Field', an oral history project that is creating a collection of digital stories on the importance of grassroots cricket clubs to their communities in the UK and Sri Lanka. Before joining MCC, she completed a PhD in International History at the London School of Economics on The Western Allies in Berlin, 1945-48: Relations at the Ground Level and taught at the LSE until 2018.

 

Interview by Blerina Hashani

Public Policy Officer

 

Lead image:  State Opening of Parliament, December 2019. A picture of the first female Black Rod, Sarah Clarke. ©UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor

 

For those who have been following the work of the ‘Single Digital Presence’ project, you’ll know we’ve been exploring how public libraries can represent themselves better in the digital world, and how through digital, libraries can provide better services and attract new users.

 Something we’ve learned on the project is how capacious the word ‘digital’ is, it means something different to everyone who uses it.  It could be the systems used to manage collections and user data, it could be the digital services libraries provide such as e/audiobooks and online resources, or it could be the ways users find out about libraries online, on our websites, apps and social media pages.

As we’ve found in our research, isolating ‘digital’ as one discreet part of what libraries do obscures how digital technology now underpins all services libraries offer, both in the physical and online world.

Our focus is on how we can improve the experience of using a public library in both its physical and digital form, through development of intuitive, well-designed and inspiring online presences for public libraries.

 Since our last update, we have been working with partners in the technology sector, to develop in more detail how we can build better digital presences that improve current services and get more people using the public library. 

Discovery and its outputs: Embarking on digital transformation

In April, we partnered with dxw, a digital agency that works with the public and third sectors to build user-centric digital services.

We formed a single multidisciplinary team to conduct a discovery to create and validate practical concepts and prototypes for a national digital presence for public libraries.

Discovery is a phase of developing digital services that enables teams to uncover the problem at hand and test ideas with users. During discovery, we pulled together existing research and interviewed people from similar organisations. We spoke with sector peers at The New York Public Library, the National Library of Australia and the National Library of Scotland, to name only a few.

Focusing on understanding the existing digital capability across the library sector, the landscape that any potential service would operate within and drawing from comparator organisations experiences, revealed a need to shift our thinking. There were two opportunity areas that our team would focus on within design sprints.

1. Present an engaging national identity for public libraries, that showcases the vibrancy of library culture and connects people to their local library
2. A way for every local library to represent themselves as a unique place and community, whilst engaging and informing the public in an authoritative and trusted place

By mapping out the core users’ journey, the discovery team were able to create two possible solutions that can meet these opportunities. The result was a single prototype that covered a connected end to end journey from national to local presence.  The team then tested the prototype firstly with librarians and library staff and then secondly with people who do and do not use libraries (the above image is a screengrab). At the end of discovery, we’d evidenced four clear recommendations:

1. Build a national digital presence for public libraries
2. Help every local library to curate an engaging digital presence
3. Promote regional library consortia for shared lending
4. Create community guidance and resources for safe and effective use of social media

 Our aim is to set the direction and pace, so that we can drive the recommendations from discovery forward.

Understanding the needs of library community - From ‘single’ to national digital presence

Through speaking to librarians, library staff and users, we discovered there is a significant need, and huge appetite for a national digital presence for the UK’s public libraries. We found that the national presence should prioritise three things. It should:

1. Provide a space to showcase the work of libraries and librarians, amplifying the work librarians do and show potential users the variety of activities and services that libraries offer
2. Create a recognised identity for public libraries, becoming a focal point for national campaigns such as libraries week, World Book Day, or the Summer Reading Challenge
3. Connect users to their local library service seamlessly and intuitively

We also found that the development of a national digital presence should coincide with a programme of work focused on finding a way for every public library to have an exciting web-presence that reflects the vibrancy and individuality of their service.

In the climate of COVID-19, it is clearer than ever the role libraries will play in rebuilding our communities and a national presence should support this.

Public libraries already stand at the front-line of community support, providing support for businesses, job-seekers and running digital skills and information literacy sessions. This will be needed more than ever as we tentatively emerge into a post-pandemic world. There is a clear opportunity for a national presence for public libraries to support this through national content, campaigns and services.

 

Moving forward to deliver a national digital presence

We’ll begin by scoping and testing a national digital presence for the public library sector. We’ll draw on the expertise of the technology sector, as we move into the alpha phase of delivery and work in partnership to ensure we continue to embed user centred design within the long-term delivery strategy of a national digital presence.

We’ll continue to regularly engage with the sector, through research sessions, workshops and webinars, as we look to collaborate with our colleagues from across government to help every local library curate a digital presence that reflects the vibrancy of their service. We’ll embed this into a comprehensive digital transformation strategy for public libraries, to be published by April 2021.

 Get in touch

If you’d like to take part in our next round of workshops and user-research, please email us at

[email protected]

This blog was co-written by Jacob Fredrickson, SDP Project Manager, and Kath Cooper, delivery lead at dxw.

 

In March 2020, the British Library closed its doors to the public for the foreseeable future, which was a first during my 30 years of working here. The quiet buzz of researchers and entrepreneurs, the Piazza full of people and visitors in exhibition galleries suddenly disappeared.

Four months on, we are gradually returning to our sites in London and Yorkshire, and have prioritised reopening our Reading Rooms to enable researchers to return to the Library to consult collection items, many of which are not available online. But things will be very different for all of us.

With over 112,000 square metres of floor space in St Pancras and a 44-acre site at Boston Spa, the British Library might seem like the ideal place to socially distance. However, with the London basement stores running as deep as the Victoria line tube and a 1.6km network of airport-style conveyor belts, we still rely on substantial numbers of dedicated staff to get collection items from the Basements to the Reading Rooms.

To make sure our staff can work safely we will be working in bubbles, and staggering start and finish times so their journeys to work – many of which rely on public transport – can be made outside peak times. Because a number of colleagues are shielding or have caring responsibilities, we’ve also adapted our opening hours to accommodate a reduced workforce. 

We can’t wait for the buzz of the Library to return and to welcome as many of you back as possible, but it has to be safe for everyone. So what can Readers expect when they return to the Reading Rooms?

We will initially operate on reduced opening hours and limited capacity, which we hope to extend over time, and you will have to pre-book desks and pre-order collection items. We have adapted our Box Office system to process Reading Room bookings, and have limited the number and length of sessions that can be booked to allow as many Readers as possible a slot in the Reading Rooms. Although our Reading Rooms are now fully booked for the first week, new tickets will be released every Thursday at 11.00.

To adhere to social distancing guidelines we have adapted the Reading Rooms by installing new signage and floor markings to introduce one-way flows of users. This inevitably affects how many people – staff and users – can be in our spaces at any one time, and we’ll be carefully monitoring this as we reopen. Screens have been installed at service points to protect staff and users, and we’ll be providing visors to staff to enable those hard of hearing lip read. All this has taken a number of staff working behind the scenes to order equipment and install it safely in our Grade I listed building ready for reopening.

We’re asking you to wear a face covering while you’re in the Library, although it’s okay to take it off once you’re working at your desk in the Reading Room, or eating and drinking in the café. We’ll be monitoring how these measures work to make sure we’re keeping everyone safe, and may need to adjust our processes as guidance changes.

In the Reading Rooms, we’re allocating desks to keep a safe distance between Readers in line with social distancing guidelines. We appreciate it might be frustrating to not be able to sit in your usual spot (2185 in Humanities 1, anyone?) and to see empty seats, but we won’t be able to reassign desks for the moment.

Seeing you poring over collection items is our favourite thing, and we’ve been working really hard to provide access to as much of the collection as possible when we reopen. Some large format items like maps can’t be viewed in the Reading Rooms we’re opening because they’re too big for the desks, and some items need invigilation we can’t provide at the moment. We’ll announce more details about when these collections – and more Reading Rooms – will be available.

We realise this is going to be a little strange for everyone so we really appreciate your patience while we all adjust to doing things differently. Please bear with us as we continue to monitor the latest guidance, review the measures we have put in place and incorporate any feedback we receive.

Whether you need to continue your vital research, delve into our business databases or retrieve an article in an old newspaper, we can’t wait to see you back here.

Leathea Lee, Reading Rooms Operations Manager