English Chess Forum

Whilst researching a piece on Stuart Milner-Barry I learnt that when he married Lady Thelma in 1947 she had to immediately resign her role at the Treasury.

Apparently this was due to "Civil Service rules of the day".

Could someone explain this please?

Many employers at that time had rules regarding husband and wife working together.
Simply, if there was a married couple one of them had to resign. It would normally be expected that this would be the woman.

Indeed until October 1946 the Civil Service banned ALL married women and married women abroad until the early 70s.

It was one way of keeping unemployment figures down!!

Thanks Alex. I assumed that this was the case.

I wonder whose bright idea it was to create such a stupid rule?

John Upham wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 17, 2021 1:20 pm

Thanks Alex. I assumed that this was the case.

I wonder whose bright idea it was to create such a stupid rule?

As Alex said, it also applied to other employers. It probably has its roots in the marriage bar which persisted in some cases until the 1960s.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 17, 2021 1:20 pm

Thanks Alex. I assumed that this was the case.

I wonder whose bright idea it was to create such a stupid rule?

Please bear in mind that by the prevailing standards of the times it was lifting of the rule that would have been considered stupid.

Here is a probably inaccurate history, which I shall not attempt to substantiate:

1. The campaign for adult male suffrage in the UK began in the 1830s. It was some decades later before it was seriously suggested that the franchise might be extended to women.

2. At about the same time the pioneering women doctors Sophia Jez-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett (Anderson) were allowed to study at Medical Schools, but could not receive degrees. The latter went abroad in order to do so.

3. Until the first Married Women's Property Act became law in 1870, married women were effectively treated as the property of their husbands.

4. When the suffragist and suffragette movements did spring up, they were opposed by women who argued that the role of women in society was to run a home, not to concern themselves with the governance of the country.

5. The rule requiring women to resign from the Civil Service on marriage was only finally abolished in 1972.

6. When I went up to Cambridge University in 1973, women formed no more than about 20% of the undergraduate population. The campaign to change this state of affairs was already well underway and largely achieved its objectives with the following ten years. However, at the beginning there were plenty of people who argued that the situation should not change. The contention was that women's education was often wasted, as soon after graduating they would get married and have babies.

7. Until the Sex Discrimination Act became law in 1975, a married woman required the consent of her husband in order to open a bank account.

I learnt about the last one only a few days ago. I can scarcely believe it and it may indeed be an urban myth.

When did all this start? Apparently at the time of the Norman Conquest (in England).

I have read that in the later Saxon era, from about AD800 onwards, women were treated reasonably equally, but that that all changed from AD1066.

This chap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Church_(poet) worked in the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (when it was a Customs Laboratory) and wrote a novel called "The Porch", (1937 I think, but set earlier) loosely based on work there. Two of his characters have an affair, because if they get married the woman will have to leave. I was surprised as well, but someone explained that married women were not permitted.

When the rule was made, it would have been unthinkable for married women to work, as they would have been bringing up children etc. and families were supposed to survive on one pay packet! More recently, both worked either to survive, or to afford cars, holidays and luxuries...

I think it might well have applied to teachers as well? I believe at one stage teachers had to resign if they were pregnant.

The Civil Service wasn't alone. I think the rule also applied to teachers and post office workers, and even (I believe) to nurses. I remember my aunt drove a lorry during the war but was out of a job soon after VE Day when the men started to come home. She was married and joined the Civil Service as a Secretary in the early-sixties. There was something going on about 'established' and 'non'established' Civil Servants, and she may have joined as 'non-established', which didn't come with the same rights to pensions and other benefits.

Alex McFarlane wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 17, 2021 1:10 pm

Many employers at that time had rules regarding husband and wife working together.

Yes. I'm a bit hazy now about the details, but when I was still living in the UK I heard about about one woman denied a promotion because it would have brought her into the same part of the organisation as her husband. Pretty crap outcome, considering she was actually well into the process of divorcing him.