Ellen Wilkinson MP 

Article by Zac O’Brien. Edited by Sarah Purssell. Additional Research by Michelle Brien. 

When one thinks of female politicians, the name “Ellen Wilkinson” does not immediately spring to mind for many people. Instead people think of Margaret Thatcher, Mo Mowlam, Jacqui Smith, or even of Nancy Astor who was the first female to sit in the House of Commons. However, though Ellen Wilkinson is unknown to many she played an important role in British politics from her election as a Labour MP for Middlesbrough East in 1923 to her death in 1947. During World War Two she worked in the Ministry of Home Security and before her death she was the Minister of Education in the Attlee government. She was the first woman to hold this cabinet position and during her time at this post she ensured that children received free school milk and free school meals if their family could not afford to pay for it. Along with this she also raised the school leaving age to 15. Yet she will probably always be best known for her time as the MP for Jarrow during the inter war period. Jarrow was a small town in the North East of England that was hit hard by the mass unemployment that swept Britain in the 1930s. She raised the profile of Jarrow by writing the book The Town that was Murdered and by helping organising the Jarrow Crusade which was one of the most famous unemployment marches of the inter war years. It is this period of her life, between 1935 and 1936, that this article will focus on. 

The 1931 general election had catastrophic results for the Labour Party: the party was thrown out of government and was reduced to only 52 MPs. Although Wilkinson lost her seat in the House of Commons in 1931 she returned in 1935 as the MP for Jarrow, a constituency she had taken over since the retirement of R. J. Wilson. This period not only marked a change in the MP for Jarrow but also a change for the employment levels within the town. 

The majority of men in Jarrow were employed by Palmer’s shipyard which closed down, causing unemployment to soar to over 80 percent. Along with mass unemployment Jarrow also had appalling living conditions which resulted in Jarrow having some of the highest death rates for children and adults in the country. Parliament refused to listen to Wilkinson or to help Jarrow. 

Direct action had to be taken if Jarrow was to have any chance of prosperity and the town thought the most effective way of helping the town was to get 200 of the fittest men from Jarrow to march 300 miles south to London to deliver two petitions to Parliament, which begged the government to provide support which would lead to the regeneration of the town. The march took 25 days to complete and commenced on the 5th October 1936. Throughout the march the demonstrators got support from the media and Ellen Wilkinson and the other leaders of the march gave speeches in the towns that the marchers stopped at. Wilkinson and her fellow leaders managed to win the hearts of the nation during the march as, unlike other unemployment and hunger marches at the time which were conducted by the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement [NUWM], the Jarrow Crusade was non-political and non-religious. As it was non political the government allowed the media to broadcast information on it, whereas the NUWM’s marches faced strict censorship due to their Communist nature. 

Although the media gave strong support to the marchers, Wilkinson found that she could not win the support of the Labour Party. During the march the Labour Party Conference took place in Edinburgh and Wilkinson left the crusade so that she could deliver a speech to the party to get support for her protest. Despite giving one of the most electrifying speeches of her life she was unable to win the support of her party. They wanted change to happen because of parliamentary debates as opposed to being caused by marches. However, this poor reception did not stop Wilkinson and she soon left Edinburgh in order to return to the march. By going against the party line Wilkinson showed that she had courage as she decided to stand up for what she believed in as opposed to just agreeing with her party. 

The Jarrow Crusade did not solve the town’s problem of high unemployment. The government refused to give the marchers an audience when they arrived in London and when the petition was discussed in the House of Commons nothing came of it. Employment did not increase in the town until World War Two when Jarrow found it’s place within Britain’s wartime economy. However, despite the march having very little effect at the time it has left a tremendous legacy. It brought fame to Jarrow and because of the media coverage it received and when television programs look back at the ‘Hungry Thirties’ they often use footage of the Jarrow Crusade. The march also made Ellen Wilkinson nationally recognised. Prior to the march she was just one of many backbenchers within the House of Commons but after this she became a household name. This undoubtedly helped her political career as well as raising the profile of women in politics.

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