Mary Barbour Commemoration
The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-05921, in the name of Anne McTaggart, on Mary Barbour commemoration. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates moves to build a monument in honour of Mary Barbour, Glasgow City Council’s first female councillor; understands that Barbour pioneered the city’s first family-planning clinic and pushed for major welfare changes, including free milk for schoolchildren, pensions for mothers, municipal banks, wash houses, laundries and public baths; understands that the former MP, Maria Fyfe, will chair a formal group involving all Glasgow City councillors local to Govan aimed at raising money for the monument; expresses disappointment that very few women are honoured by monuments in Scotland; considers that this is a fantastic way to celebrate the groundbreaking work that Barbour undertook, including in relation to the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act 1915, which it understands she instigated, and wishes the group every success in fundraising.
12:33
I am genuinely delighted to bring the campaign to recognise Mary Barbour’s achievements and legacy before the Scottish Parliament, and I thank members across the chamber for their cross-party support and for joining me in calling for a statue to be dedicated to the memory of Mrs Barbour.
The impact that Mary Barbour had on the lives of women, children and ordinary families in Govan is undeniable. Too many of us are unaware of the changes that she brought about for people across Glasgow. I hope that members will acknowledge some of those changes in their speeches.
Mary Rough was born into a working-class family in Kilbarchan in 1875. Later, she moved with her family to the village of Elderslie. That was before she married David Barbour and settled in the Govan area of Glasgow, where she worked as a thread twister and carpet printer. As a working-class mother of two children in Govan, she was well aware of the poverty and deprivation faced by ordinary people, particularly women. Those experiences led her to take an active part in Scotland’s first co-operative women’s guild at the Kinning Park Co-operative Society. That guild later became known for producing a generation of leading female politicians and activists, many of whom played a crucial role in the establishment of women’s housing associations throughout Glasgow and in the 1915 rent strike.
It was during that rent strike that Mary became known for her effective local activism and for encouraging the political radicalisation of ordinary working people in Glasgow. Mary recognised the need to organise women into a united resistance that would fight against underhand rent increases being applied by unscrupulous landlords. In her efforts to challenge that injustice, she went on to form the South Govan Housing Association, which would later become known as Mary Barbour’s army.
The housing associations later brought about an end to the protests when, on 17 November 1915, they initiated one of Glasgow’s biggest demonstrations. That mass demonstration, which included shipyard workers who downed tools, was in response to eviction notices being served on 47 local campaigners. The protestors’ march on the courts shocked the establishment so much that rents were frozen at pre-war levels, and eventually led to the Housing, Town Planning, &c Act 1919.
Mary became Glasgow’s first woman councillor in 1920. Throughout her 11 years as a councillor for the Fairfield ward in Govan, she championed the needs of working-class women and children. She was instrumental in the establishment of public washhouses, laundries and baths. She is perhaps most famous as the campaigner who brought about an initiative that supplied fresh milk to schoolchildren free of charge. She also promoted the development of child welfare centres, brought about the establishment of home help for vulnerable people living alone and championed the introduction of a pension scheme for mothers.
Mary broke new ground in 1924 when she became the first woman baillie in the Glasgow Corporation. She used her time as baillie to support calls for birth control for women and chaired the women’s welfare and advisory clinic, Glasgow’s first family planning centre. She retired from politics in 1931, having played a pivotal role in improving the lives of working people, championing in particular the rights of women and children across Glasgow.
The case for a permanent monument to commemorate Mary Barbour’s achievements is compelling. As we move towards sourcing funding for our monument, we must remember the campaign’s significance not only for Govan, Glasgow and Mary Barbour’s legacy but in highlighting the wider absence of memorials to historically significant women. The excellent work of the mapping memorials to women in Scotland project addresses that issue. Developed by women’s history Scotland, the Glasgow Women’s Library and Girlguiding Scotland, the project has helped map out the locations of memorials to women throughout Scotland. The project, which received a message of support from the First Minister last year, is vital in ensuring that the contributions of women throughout history are not overlooked.
Our campaign has relied on the hard work of many people, but some deserve a special mention. I take the opportunity to thank Maria Fyfe, who chairs the remember Mary Barbour committee and has worked tirelessly to raise the campaign’s profile—she sends her sincere apologies for her unavoidable absence today; Cathy Jamieson MP; Mary Lockhart, who has worked incredibly hard within the Co-operative movement on the issue; Caroline Wilson of the Glasgow Evening Times, who has shown huge commitment to and passion for the campaign; Sharon Thomas, an artist, who was commissioned to produce a unique portrait of Mary Barbour; Elaine Dougall of Unite the Union; the women’s committee of the Scottish Trades Union Congress; Glasgow Labour women’s forum; and Glasgow city councillors. I thank all of them and the countless others who have joined us along the way.
I hope that the debate will encourage greater awareness of the life and achievements of Mary Barbour. Again, I thank all those who have worked so hard to bring about a permanent and lasting reminder of a true Glasgow heroine.
12:39
I congratulate Anne McTaggart on securing the debate. As participants in it are acutely aware, Glasgow has an honourable tradition of electing gobby women. I think that Mary Barbour is at the root of that tradition, but her contribution to the lives of the people of Glasgow has had insufficient recognition until now.
I am happy to welcome Glasgow City Council’s decision to approve a statue of Mary Barbour, which I hope will find a place in George Square with some of Glasgow’s other notable monuments. As we heard, and as those of us who are from the city know, only three named women are commemorated by statues in Glasgow: Queen Victoria; Dolores Ibárruri—La Pasionaria—who was a prominent Communist leader in the Spanish civil war; and Lady Isabella Elder, who created Elder park in memory of her husband and is the only local woman to make the grade. Until now, Glasgow has rather neglected its famous women, but a statue of Mary Barbour is a starting point for remedying that neglect.
It might seem strange to hear a Conservative leader argue for such recognition for a Labour figure, but I think that Mary Barbour’s achievements were substantial and that it benefits public life in Scotland if we can acknowledge party-political differences while making a neutral assessment of impact and standing. It does no one any favours if we retreat to the sort of schoolyard politics that would try to block a legitimate proposal to celebrate someone who fought for their beliefs and changed the face of the country, for no reason other than that the proposal comes from a political opponent.
That is why I am happy to say that Mary Barbour was no ordinary politician. She was a campaigning force of nature, and forcing a change in the law to stop the exploitation of ordinary people by private landlords during the first world war, thereby protecting vulnerable families from war profiteers, is a significant achievement that deserves to be acknowledged.
As we heard, Mary Barbour did not stop there. She went on to become Glasgow’s first female Labour councillor. She was associated with organisations such as Glasgow Women’s Housing Association, which was established to fight the rent rises that had been cynically brought in while Glasgow’s menfolk were at the front. Mrs Barbour was so involved in the resistance to evictions that her followers became known as Mrs Barbour’s army. It is staggering to think that she was able to attract 20,000 people on to the streets of Glasgow in November 2015, to demonstrate in that cause.
The rent restrictions act, which was passed shortly after that, brought order to a chaotic housing system and protected thousands from unfair eviction. At such a time, it was clearly in everyone’s interest to prevent civil unrest, so Mary Barbour’s actions not only helped ordinary people but contributed to the war effort.
Anne McTaggart talked about Mary Barbour’s other political successes, such as helping to found the women’s peace crusade, being elected to the town council as the first female Labour councillor and becoming the corporation’s first female baillie and one of the city’s first female magistrates.
Mary Barbour campaigned on many issues: municipal banks; washhouses, laundries and baths; free milk for all schoolchildren; child welfare centres and play areas; home helps; and pensions for mothers. Most progressive was her commitment to and chairmanship of the women’s welfare and advisory clinic—Glasgow’s first family planning centre—which showed that she was brave in the face of controversy and was not afraid to be bold and challenging, if she thought that that was the right thing to do.
Mary Barbour loved the city of Glasgow but knew that many of its poorer citizens had never seen beyond its boundaries, so in her later years she helped to set up organised seaside outings for the children of disadvantaged families.
I might have very different politics, but I recognise in Mary Barbour a courageous, compassionate and campaigning woman, who was set on improving her city and the lives of its people. Glasgow celebrates plenty of its famous sons. It is time that we celebrated the accomplishment of our daughters, too.
12:44
I congratulate my friend and colleague Anne McTaggart on securing the debate, and I congratulate my friend and former colleague Maria Fyfe on the initiative that she is pursuing, with her usual determination and drive, which I am sure will result in a statue to Mary Barbour being erected, I hope in good time for the centenary of the rent strike for which Mary is perhaps best known.
Mary Barbour, together with her contemporaries Agnes Dollan, Jessie Stevens and Helen Crawfurd, made an impact on my city and our country that can be felt to this day. Without them, municipal housing—or social housing, as we now call it—might never have come to pass. Indeed, one of their key demands was that there should be a system of municipal housing to prevent the exploitation of working people in the housing market, so generations have them to thank for the housing that resulted from their campaigning. Those women would, quite frankly, turn in their graves if echoes of the bedroom tax were ever to reach them.
Before the first world war, rents in Glasgow were low, but with the arrival of war and the need to staff the munitions factories on the Clyde, unscrupulous landlords thought that they could raise rents with impunity. However, they had not reckoned on Mrs Barbour and the women of Govan. In a short period, strikes and protests had spread throughout the city, with estimates of the number of households that took action of anything up to 30,000. In the end, as we have heard, they forced the Government to rush through the rent restriction act.
Mary Barbour’s legacy can be seen in legislation and social change and, as we have heard, in the many causes that she championed as the first woman councillor in Glasgow. However, that is not all that she and her generation achieved. When I first joined the Labour Party, I was enthralled by stories told by two of the older members of our local branch: Margaret Young and Jenny Auld, who were children when Mrs Barbour was active.
Margaret Young could remember the rent strikes in Partick, where she grew up, and she spoke vividly of her mother’s involvement in them. She also remembered being sent up closes to deliver Independent Labour Party literature at election time, as it was not unknown for ILP activists who ventured into certain streets in Partick to be physically attacked, whereas children were regarded as safe.
Jenny Auld grew up in Lanarkshire and was in service as a young woman. She defied her employer by leaving the big house to go out to use her first vote in an election for the Labour candidate. When she returned to her place of work, knowing that she had lost her job, she found that, in addition, all her belongings had been thrown from a window into the muddy street. That generation of women were inspired by Mary Barbour and grew up as the inheritors of her socialist principles, her steel and her resolve.
As has been noted, there are only three statues of women in Glasgow, and although I would be the first to say that the wit and wisdom of the late Bud Neil deserve to be commemorated, is it not ironic that we got a statue of Lobby Dosser, a fictional cartoon character, 30 years before we are likely to have one of Mary Barbour?
There is an episode of that excellent political drama, “The West Wing”, in which President Bartlett is surprised that the First Lady went all the way to Pennsylvania to dedicate a statue to Nellie Bly, the real-life pioneering investigative journalist. However, after Mrs Bartlett has upbraided the President, the episode ends with him dedicating his Saturday morning radio address to the recognition of influential women by their country. He tells his listeners that it is not good enough that there are only 50 statues in America that are dedicated to influential women and that he will try to do something about it. “The West Wing” scriptwriters were right when they had President Bartlett say that women such as Nellie Bly
“open a door to the world for all our daughters”.
Mary Barbour opened that door to so many of the women who came after her and improved the lot of her fellow Glaswegians in doing so. She deserves to be remembered.
12:48
I congratulate Anne McTaggart on securing the debate. I am reminded of the debate on science that we had on Tuesday, and the comments in that debate about encouraging more women to be involved in science. It is apt that today we are debating the very positive and strong impact that women have in their communities and beyond, in wider society.
I echo Patricia Ferguson’s comment about the bedroom tax. It is also very apt that the debate is taking place at a time when we are talking about the bedroom tax. Perhaps aspirations will go further. Who knows what will happen with regard to the bedroom tax and what all of us will do against it?
I was born and brought up in Govan and I grew up with the story of Mary Barbour. My relatives worked in the Fairfield shipyard and stayed in the Fairfield community, as it was called. I recollect my great auntie Bessie, who was a great storyteller, passing down through the generations the story of Mary Barbour and the other ladies, who were ordinary housewives, and the children who were involved in the rent strike. It was a fantastic story that was certainly an inspiration to us all.
I remember, a number of years ago, when my aunt and my mother were elderly, taking them along to the Pearce Institute in Govan to listen to Alice Sheridan give a talk for the Govan reminiscence society about the rent strike and the strong women who were involved in it, not just in Govan but in Partick. The story goes on and on.
The motion is correct to say that we have nothing to commemorate these inspirational women. A monument or a statue—whatever it may be—is a must. As Ruth Davidson said, regardless of politics, we should all stand together to commemorate and celebrate the strong women in our society.
The theme of strong and inspirational women runs through the debate. I know that Mary Barbour and the Independent Labour Party have inspired other members, but if members will indulge me, I will say who in my party my inspiration came from. Wendy Wood was my inspiration. She was probably not the most popular person, as she incurred the wrath of both Westminster and her own party, which was called the Scottish National Movement at the time. I am not saying that I am deliberately like Wendy Wood, but I admire her stance on many things.
I will mention two wee snippets of Wendy’s life. She had two spells in prison. Her first was in Saughton prison in Edinburgh after she attempted to disrupt a meeting of the Blackshirts at the Mound in Edinburgh and was arrested for a breach of the peace. Her second spell in prison came because she demonstrated against the conditions in women’s prisons in Scotland, and she was imprisoned for that. Once she left prison, she set to work on the prison commissioners and eventually got a letter saying that Duke Street prison was to be demolished and a new women’s prison was to be built at Greenock.
I was inspired by Wendy Wood as well as by Mary Barbour and what I was told by my aunt. We have had great women in our society, but do we honour them properly? I do not think so. At this point, I depart from what Ruth Davidson said as she called for a monument or statue in George Square. As I am a Govanite, I think that members will expect me to look for some form of monument in Govan. It does not have to be in Elder park, but it should be somewhere in the area where the whole thing started. For me, that would be an appropriate commemoration. It will be up to Maria Fyfe and others in the working party to decide where it will go, but as a Govanite I would like to see something in the Govan area to commemorate Mary Barbour and those many other women.
12:53
Good afternoon, Presiding Officer. I am really privileged to take part in this debate and I thank Anne McTaggart for bringing it to the chamber.
Mary Barbour was born in 1875. She was one of seven children and her father was a carpet weaver. The year 1896 saw her marry David Barbour and settle in the Govan burgh of Glasgow. She joined and became an active member of the Kinning Park co-operative guild, which was the first to be established in Scotland. That, in itself, is impressive.
Mary joined the Independent Labour Party and the socialist Sunday school, and the Glasgow rent increases during the first world war brought her to the forefront of local political activity. The Glasgow Women’s Housing Association was born in 1914 in Govan, which is also my birthplace—like Sandra White, I was born in Govan. It is a very special place. I thought that I would add that for good measure.
It is important that we recognise the incredible appreciation that we should have for women not only now but who in that era faced up to huge challenges.
As a working-class housewife with two children and a husband, Mary Barbour was well qualified to be engaged in many of the activities that soon spread to the whole of the Clydebank area. In 1915, in one of the largest demonstrations in Glasgow’s political history, thousands of women marched through the streets of Glasgow along with thousands of shipyard engineers. As a result of that, the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act 1915 heralded a change in housing systems for the city of Glasgow, and the same progress was made throughout the United Kingdom thereafter. Maria Fyfe, whom Anne McTaggart and Patricia Ferguson mentioned, was also a hero to me and I learned a lot from the challenges that she faced as a woman.
Mary Barbour was the first woman councillor for the Labour Party elected to represent Govan on the then Glasgow town council. During her term as a Labour councillor, she fought for a range of policies and pushed for things such as wash houses, launderettes, public baths, free milk for school children—I am old enough to have benefited from that—child welfare centres, play areas, pensions for mothers, home helps and local banks. Between 1924 and 1927, she served as the Glasgow Corporation’s first woman baillie. I can relate to that, as my wife, Haleema Malik, was one of the first Pakistani women to be elected to Glasgow City Council and she also served as a baillie of the city. I recall the challenges that she faced—and, believe you me, they were some challenges. If my wife can have to face those challenges in this day and age, I cannot imagine the challenges that Mary Barbour had to face. I have a lot of respect for the lady for achieving as much as she did.
Given the fact that Mary Barbour passed away on 2 April 1958, she deserves more respect from the city than we have given her to date, and I have absolutely no hesitation in supporting the bid for a memorial to her. I commend Anne McTaggart’s motion and personally appeal to Glasgow City Council to consider what it suggests, as that is a wonderful idea. I thank Anne McTaggart for bringing the debate to the chamber today.
12:57
I thank Anne McTaggart for giving the Parliament the opportunity to put on record our appreciation of the contribution that Mary Barbour and the generation that she came from made to Scottish society. We must recognise that without the efforts of people such as Mary Barbour, we would not be sitting in this place today. Not only did Mary Barbour’s generation ensure that women got the vote; they proved that women could play an active and useful role in politics. Without the lead that was taken by Mary Barbour and her generation, not only working women but working men would not have made the advances that they made.
Mary Barbour and the people around her at the time were a product of their generation. They were impelled to political activity because of the injustice and unfairness that surrounded them in society. It is right that we mark the contribution that those pioneers made, as we have so much to be thankful for. Not only do we have the opportunity to engage in democratic politics in places such as the Scottish Parliament and Glasgow City Council; we owe our education, our health service, decent housing conditions and—more significant—the fact that workers are now treated fairly in factories and offices to the efforts of that generation, who struggled so much.
I put on record the contribution of not only Mary Barbour and people from Govan and Glasgow, but of Renfrewshire, because Mary was a product of Renfrewshire, which I represent. Like Hanzala Malik and Sandra White, I was born in Govan, but Mary’s formative years—as Anne McTaggart said—were spent in Kilbarchan and Elderslie in Renfrewshire. She married David Barbour, who came from Johnstone.
Kilbarchan was a hotbed of political radicalism. It was the home of radical, educated weavers who fought for democratic rights and workers rights. They were hugely political and that clearly influenced Mary.
Mary moved to Elderslie and worked in Stoddard’s carpet factory there. That, too, was a community with strong industrial and trade union roots.
Members can imagine what it meant when she moved from the political environment in which she grew up to the hotbed of political radicalism in Govan, where the injustice and poverty were stark. She had the confidence of her upbringing to be able to take that a step further.
I am delighted that Maria Fyfe and others in Glasgow are doing much to mark Mary Barbour’s contribution to society, but I also pay tribute to my colleagues Councillor Derek Bibby and Councillor Chris Gilmour in Renfrewshire Council, who want Kilbarchan to mark the contribution that Mary Barbour made to Scottish society. She was a product of Kilbarchan and made her mark in Govan, but the whole of Scotland benefited from her activities.
The worst thing that we could do is to say that all we need to do to commemorate Mary Barbour is to stick up a statue and the job will be done. Actually, the significant thing is what she stood for. She stood against injustice and exploitation.
Where injustice and exploitation exist, the need for Mary Barbours of today is greater than ever. When we have injustices such as the bedroom tax, as Patricia Ferguson and others have said, the present generation of Mary Barbours needs to come forward and stand against them.
When there are tragedies such as the one in Bangladesh in which women and child workers are killed because of poor working conditions, we can say that Mary Barbour’s work is not finished. The best tribute that we can pay to her is not only to mark her contribution with a statue but to say that her work goes on and will not finish until we see fairness and justice throughout the world.
13:03
I, too, thank Anne McTaggart for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is always important to recognise the pioneering women who took vital steps in politics on behalf of all of us who have followed since. It is right that the debate stretches outwith Glasgow and Govan to other parts of Scotland.
I imagine that when Mary Barbour became the first female councillor in Glasgow in 1920, she thought that gender equality in public and political life would have been secured by 2013. However, almost 100 years later, that is not yet the case. The gender balance in this Parliament is considerably better than that at Westminster, and we are making headway with public appointments, but there is still a lot more for us to do.
There is little doubt that Mary Barbour’s passion and success in driving forward policies to improve the lives of many of the poorest people in our society helped to shape the country in which we live today. Although we have come a long way since she was active, we can still draw on her for inspiration to deliver our aim of creating a fairer and more equal country.
The Scottish Government’s commitment to reducing inequalities is echoed in the national performance framework’s solidarity and cohesion targets as well as in our commitment to the principle of universal entitlement, which I firmly believe maintains the sense of togetherness that should be the cornerstone of any society as of the society of which Mary Barbour was proud.
For example, through our “Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland”, we express our commitment to focus on the need to tackle the long-term drivers of poverty through early intervention and prevention to break the cycles of poor outcomes. That is something of which Mary would approve.
Despite everything that we are trying to do, our social policies continue to be undermined by the welfare reforms that are being introduced at Westminster. A few members have mentioned that. I wonder what Mary Barbour would have thought of something as unfair as the bedroom tax. Could she have envisaged that, 100 years on, something like that would happen?
Over the five years to 2015, Scotland will have £4.5 billion taken from hard workers on low incomes, families, people with a disability and social housing tenants—precisely the people whom society should be helping, not harming, and protecting, not pillaging. Those are the people about whom Mary cared so passionately as she worked so hard to improve their lives.
Whether we are discussing the changes to tax credits that were introduced by the UK Government last year, which have been hitting the budget of more than 100,000 working families in Scotland, or the fundamental changes to child benefit, there is no longer a universal bond from one generation to the next—there is just a muddle of unfairness. The sad reality is that reducing the value of tax credits and child benefit will result in a lower income for those with caring responsibilities, the vast majority of whom are women. A hundred years ago, that was very much the sort of situation that Mary Barbour fought to improve.
Like Mary Barbour, the Government remains dedicated to supporting those who care for children, through measures such as increasing the amount and flexible delivery of free early learning and childcare from 475 hours to a minimum of 600 hours a year. That action will improve outcomes for children and will support women in Scotland into work.
Issues hindering women’s access to and participation in employment are a key priority for us. Working closely with the STUC, we held the first ever Scottish women’s employment summit in 2012 to consider the issues and to identify actions to tackle them. Such measures will provide tangible benefits for women and families across Scotland.
Like Mary Barbour, I recognise the vital role of social housing in providing people with an affordable home and a platform for getting on in life, and in delivering a community that people want to live in. We have heard about Mary Barbour’s community spirit and her working for her community to keep it together. To me, that is a significant part of what she did.
Mary fought very hard for the hardest hit. I wonder what she would think about the one-size-fits-all bedroom tax. It does not matter about someone’s age or disability, the availability of smaller houses or the economic conditions—the poorest will be hit the hardest.
The UK Government’s reforms call into question the role of housing support in a civilized country. Access to decent housing is a fundamental need and right, which Mary Barbour recognised 100 years ago. I am sure that she would be pleased about what the Scottish Government is doing to try to address that.
The challenge facing the social housing sector in particular is the reason why we have given money to social landlords to help them to advise their tenants. However, many impacts of the UK Government’s welfare reforms go beyond what we currently have powers over in our own country. It saddens me that the reforms that the Government chose to introduce go against the vision that people such as Mary Barbour had for this country.
I passionately believe that the best solution can be found by the Scottish people having control over such matters. We must ensure that no one is held back because of discrimination or disadvantage. Until then, the Scottish Government will continue to act and intervene where we have the powers to do so.
Mary Barbour was indeed an inspirational woman, and a monument is a fitting tribute to her.
I am delighted that the Government and its ministers are so firmly behind Mary Barbour as an inspirational figure. Would they therefore be willing to make a contribution towards the commemoration of Mary Barbour?
That is something that I will take back and look at. I cannot comment on that at this stage but, as I have said, she was certainly an inspirational woman, and a monument is a fitting tribute to her. I have no connections with Govan or Kilbarchan—perhaps we could stretch it down to Ayrshire—but I wish Maria Fyfe and her group every success in their fundraising efforts.
I am glad that I will not have any say in where any monument—if that is agreed to—is placed, but it would be a very fitting tribute to a woman who has done so much for Glasgow and for women in Scotland.
13:10
Meeting suspended.
14:30
On resuming—