Dimensionado de la línea de producción de horchata UHT

In 1928, Valentine Goldsmith, the Assistant Controller with responsibility for Administration, sent a memo to Reith in which he clarified the BBC’s position

with regard to the employment of married women. “The principle of women working with equal status is accepted”, he wrote, “The principle of married women so working is also accepted.”¹⁰ In 1931, the convention was praised by Hilda Matheson, the BBC’s Director of Talks:

As regards women on the staff, the BBC has set an example which is not always to be found among public bodies. Women are not compelled to resign at marriage…. while married women are not debarred from applying for posts.¹¹

Prior to 1928, no official document states that married women were eligible to work at the BBC, it was accepted practice. Nor is there any indication as to why the BBC adopted the custom. As an innovative post-war Company undergoing fast and haphazard growth, questions as to a woman’s marital status appear not to have been a recruitment priority; rather decisions were made on aptitude and whether an individual was likely to be an asset to the BBC. It is even possible that the early BBC took a positive decision to employ married women, seeing them as emblematic of the Company/Corporation’s modernity.

In 1932, as part of the deliberations surrounding the introduction of the marriage bar, BBC management carried out an audit of married female staff.¹² This

showed that out of an approximate female staff of 400, thirty-one married women were employed by the Corporation, both at Head Office and in the Regions.¹³ They were in jobs as varied as Multigraph operator, telephonist, registry clerk, shorthand typist and secretary. While some had married since joining the BBC, others had been married when they became staff, including two mothers. No information is given as to when these women joined the BBC, so it is not possible to see if fewer married women were employed as the Corporation matured.

Although married women were entitled to work at the BBC there was an informal practise of resignation on marriage, as illustrated by the staff magazines which

10 MWP:1, Goldsmith to Reith, November 27^th 1928

11 Women’s Leader, January 2nd 1931, “Women and Broadcasting”

12 MWP:1, October 25th 1932: Brief Report on Married Women at Present Working for the Corporation.

13 In 1932 there were approximately 1,200 staff. The ratio of female to male staff was generally around one third.

frequently celebrated weddings and engagements. For example, in May 1928, The Saveloy (the original staff newsletter) informed its readers that Isabel Shields, Reith’s personal secretary, had left to be married. Of the eight other women whose matrimony was announced (four of whom were engaged to BBC

colleagues) only two had elected to stay with the Corporation. The approaching marriage and retirement of Miss Johnson, secretary to the Manchester Station Director, was described as a ‘disaster looming ahead’.¹⁴ This suggests that management were often frustrated that marriage led to resignation. Certainly Reith recorded his sadness that his secretary, Miss Shields, had gone. He noted in his diary her loyal and devoted service over five “very strenuous” years.¹⁵

Reith’s regret at losing valuable female staff is most pronounced in the case of Olive May, the Telephone Supervisor at Savoy Hill. The announcement of her engagement in January 1928 to Cecil Bottle, an engineer in Leeds, prompted an angry reaction. On hearing the news, Reith telephoned Peter Eckersley, the Chief Engineer, and demanded that he take disciplinary action against Bottle for getting betrothed to his “star operator”. It was left to Lady Reith to telephone Miss May the next day to apologise. She explained that Sir John thought “everybody should put the BBC first.”¹⁶ Mrs Bottle’s treachery was forgiven by Reith; he gave her a silver inkstand as a parting gift, commenting that she had been “beyond praise in every way and I regret her going very much”.¹⁷ In 1931, as we learnt in Chapter Two, she was invited to return to the BBC for twelve months, to help with the move of the telephone exchange from Savoy Hill to Broadcasting House.¹⁸

The Civil Service, the closest organisation in structure and workplace custom to the BBC, offered a gratuity to women who left on marriage, in lieu of pension.

The BBC on the other hand, operated a system of Wedding Present and Wedding Leave which was granted equally to both male and female staff. The Wedding Present was a gift of between £5 to £10 for weekly-paid staff (depending on length of service) and one-thirtieth of annual salary for those who were

14 The Saveloy, May 1928

15 Reith Diaries, February 29^th 1928

16 Reith Remembered, BBC Sound Archive Ref no. 87181, broadcast June 21^st 1989

17 Reith Diaries, January 27th 1928

18 Prospero, June 1984. Article by Olive Bottle

paid.¹⁹ Wedding Leave was an extra week’s holiday for the honeymoon. In addition, any member of staff who resigned from the BBC, and who had paid into the pension scheme, was entitled to receive a refund of their contributions plus interest. As a result, women who resigned on marriage were financially

compensated. However, there were no specific incentives for women to leave the BBC on marriage. Those who opted to remain on the staff were, like men, equally eligible for marriage benefits and equally entitled to a refund of pension contributions if they chose to leave at a later date.

In autumn 1928, the BBC was confronted with one of the realities of employing married women staff, maternity. Mary Somerville, the de facto Head of Schools Broadcasting, was one of those whose future marriage was announced in the May 1928 edition of The Saveloy; her engagement to the journalist R. P. Brown

meriting a cartoon with the caption: “Happy Mr Peter Brown”.²⁰ In November 1928, following her wedding, Somerville announced she was pregnant. Reith made no mention of Somerville’s engagement or marriage in his diary but her impending motherhood did warrant comment. On November 22^nd he wrote:

“Carpendale and wife to tea. We talked about Miss Somerville who is going to have a baby and wants to stay at work.”²¹

Mary Somerville’s desire to retain her job prompted the BBC to clarify its position with regard to the employment of married women and forced it to begin urgent discussions about its attitude towards maternity. There was no precedent within the Corporation because it was rare for a middle-class woman to be pregnant while at work. Maternity leave was not unknown in the UK, for example the John Lewis Partnership allowed extended unpaid leave with

contributions towards financial hardship being underwritten.²² The 1891 Factory Act had obliged working-class women to take a month off after childbirth.²³ The UK had not, however, adopted the International Labour Organisation’s provision for six weeks maternity leave nor had the government agreed, post-war, to provide

19MWP:1, Goldsmith to Salaries Clerk, August 25^th 1927

20 The Saveloy, May 1928

21 Reith Diaries, November 22^nd 1928. Carpendale was Reith’s deputy.

22 Faraday, op.cit., p.83

23 Lewis, op.cit., p.34

financial support after childbirth through National Health Insurance.²⁴ The widespread existence of marriage bars in the 1920s and 1930s, and the custom to leave the workforce before children were born, precluded the possibility of maternity leave in most occupations and professions.

In November 1928, shortly after Somerville’s pregnancy was announced, Valentine Goldsmith, in his capacity as Head of Administration, sent a memo to Reith headlined “Female Staff – Maternity”. ²⁵ The opening sentence revealed his concerns: “The question of whether female staff may be allowed to retain their positions when about to become mothers requires decision.” Goldsmith was clear that because the BBC accepted the employment of married women, “it is not only against public policy it is also illogical to rule that motherhood entails dismissal.”

With this principle established, Goldsmith then elaborated on what he believed was the best way to deal with the issue; it could either be regarded as national service, for which absence on special leave was allowed, or as a lengthy illness.²⁶

For Goldsmith, the simplest way was to treat maternity leave as sick leave. He recommended that the BBC adopt a scheme of four months on full pay and up to a further four months on half pay.²⁷ Before this was offered, however, the BBC would need to be satisfied that the woman’s circumstances left her free to resume full-time work. To guard against a change of mind, the woman concerned would have to sign a statement promising to repay the money if she did not return.

There would be no guarantee that she could go back to her previous position and, while maternity leave could be considered once or twice in a long service:

It is reasonable to assume that a woman who is going to have a family of three or more must attend only to it, and give up thought of competing in the wage-earning field on equal terms, and be dependent only on her husband.

24 Ibid.

25 MWP:1, Goldsmith to Reith, November 27^th 1928

26 Same memo

27 Goldsmith appears to have been guided in this by the custom of the London County Council which, according to a hand-written note in the margin, operated a system of 8 weeks full/9 weeks’

half pay. This is somewhat confusing, as the LCC enforced a strict marriage bar. However, a note in Mary Somerville’s file indicates that this was the LCC situation prior to 1923 when the bar was introduced. L2/195/1 Mary Somerville Personal File, Carpendale to Goldsmith, December 7^th(?) 1928

Goldsmith concluded:

Looking at the matter as a whole, I feel that any large corporation or commercial organization should take this risk rather than assume a 19th century attitude in the present circumstances of women’s employment.²⁸

The BBC accordingly situated itself as a progressive institution, in contrast to long-standing professions such as the Civil Service and banking, where attitudes towards married women staff were negative and entrenched.

A series of memos in early December 1928 about the specifics of Mary

Somerville’s case reveal that she was anxious to know if she could retain her job.

Reith was not to decide the matter on his own, it was to be referred to the Board of Governors with the recommendation that, as long as the BBC was satisfied that her work and health were not suffering, Somerville’s services would be retained.

During her “illness” she was to receive three months leave on full-pay and up to three months on half-pay. When the subject was discussed by the Board of Governors, the principle of maternity leave was agreed although it was felt undesirable to prescribe fixed regulations for women who became mothers, individual cases being considered on merit.²⁹ This meant that although maternity leave was to be offered, it was to be discretionary rather than a right. Mary Somerville began her maternity leave in May 1929 returning to the BBC, initially on a part-time basis, in October 1929. The following April she was awarded an above-average pay rise indicating that her pregnancy and ensuing absence had not adversely affected her standing at work.

The BBC’s view of itself as pioneering in its attitude towards Mary Somerville and maternity is illustrated in a letter from Hilda Matheson to Vita Sackville-West in May 1929. Somerville, newly on maternity leave, had become seriously ill with tubercular pleurisy and there was concern about how this might affect the imminent baby. Matheson, who had just learned of her friend and colleague’s illness, wrote, “It will be sad if all the plans for making her a spectacular

28 MWP:1, Goldsmith to Reith, November 27th 1928

29 R/1/1:Board of Governors Minutes 1927–1930, December 12th 1928

vindication of the success of keeping on your job and baby don’t come off – poor Maisie.”³⁰

It can therefore be seen that, prior to the implementation of its marriage bar in 1932, the BBC was positive it its approach towards the employment of married female staff. This was confirmed in 1928 when the Corporation introduced maternity leave. While most women elected to resign on marriage, those who chose to remain on the staff were not penalised in any way; in fact there was often sadness and frustration that valued women, such as Miss May and Miss Johnson, opted to leave. To assess how progressive the early BBC was in its attitude towards married women, we need to understand the broader context of marriage bars in the inter-war years, to which this chapter now moves.