The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
The mood at home in Dundee
Dr Kenneth Baxter, University of Dundee, looks at the political mood in the city and the role of women during the critical years of the Second World War
When war broke out in 1939, the twomember Dundee parliamentary constituency was represented by Florence Horsbrugh (Conservative) and Dingle Foot (Liberal), who had served as the city’s MPs since 1931. Both were figures of national importance, and would gain further prominence during the war. Horsbrugh, who was probably the most significant Conservative female Member of Parliament until Margaret Thatcher, was a rising star of the House of Commons. She had recently been made a junior minister in the Ministry of Health, becoming only the fourth woman to hold ministerial office in the UK and the second Conservative to achieve this rank after the former Perthshire MP the Duchess of Atholl. In her capacity as a minister, she was involved in preparing the medical profession for dealing with probable civilian casualties and organising the evacuation of around 1.5 million women and children. During the war her many ministerial responsibilities saw her travel hundreds of miles across Britain and some of the work she did during this period helped pave the way for the post-war Labour Government’s establishment of the National Health Service. In 1945 her stature was recognised with her appointment as one of four assistant delegates to the San Francisco conference which set up the United
Nations. Dingle Foot had also served as a minister in Churchill’s Wartime Coalition Government and, like Horsbrugh, went to the San Francisco Conference, meaning Dundee was among the best represented places in the world at the founding of the UN. However, both Horsbrugh and Foot returned to face a challenging election in July 1945. Although there were some assumptions the Conservatives would do well nationally as Churchill was “the man who had won the war” this ignored the fact the party looked tired after nearly 14 years in office and that many felt its foreign policies had failed to prevent the war in the first place. Equally the Liberal Party was badly divided on many issues and it was now clear it had no realistic hopes of being a governing party again. Thus it was no real surprise that Labour’s Tom Cook and John Strachey easily captured Dundee seats and, for the first time, Dundee had two Labour MPs. However, this was not the end of Horsbrugh’s or Foot’s political careers. Horsbrugh would return to the Commons for Manchester Moss Side in 1950 and went on to be the first female Conservative cabinet minister. Foot had a more interesting career path joining his youngest brother Michael in the Labour Party and becoming MP for Ipswich in 1957. He eventually returned to government office under Harold Wilson. That Churchill was now Conservative leader probably hurt Horsbrugh in Dundee. Churchill was still viewed by suspicion with many Dundonians across the political spectrum. Some Conservatives could not forget the fact that he had first come to Dundee as a radical Liberal, while many on the left saw him as antisocialist reactionary. More damagingly, many also felt Churchill guilty of a wartime insult to Dundee. In October 1943 veteran councillor Robert Blackwood had formally proposed to a meeting of Dundee Council that, as had happened with past prime ministers, Churchill should be offered the freedom of the city. This proposal proved very divisive and Labour’s AJ Bayne immediately moved an
amendment against it. While many objections made by Labour councillors argued for delay on the grounds that holding a big civic event in wartime was a questionable use of resources (and of the prime minister’s time), there was a clear undercurrent of long-standing grievances re-emerging. Councillor Harry Hird said he did not think Churchill was worthy of the honour, while Labour leader Archie Powrie stated he had told many people the proudest day of his political life was “the day they threw Churchill out of Dundee”. Ultimately the resolution to offer the freedom of Dundee passed by one vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Churchill declined, but this was seen as a very public snub. Ironically, lord provost chairing this debate was (Sir) Garnet Wilson, a pre-eminent figure in the local Liberal Party. When the Liberals had been split in 1922, Wilson had been instrumental in running an Aquithite Liberal candidate against Churchill and his running mate DJ MacDonald who supported the Lloyd George faction of the party. This played a part in Churchill’s dramatic defeat in Dundee in that year, a fact veteran Labour councillor Peter Gillespie playfully reminded Wilson of during the lively council debate in 1943. However, Garnet Wilson deserves to be remembered as a key figure in Dundee during the war. He had become lord provost in November 1940 when (Sir) John Phin resigned to concentrate on his role as civil defence district commissioner. Wilson was in some ways an unusual choice for he was believed at the time to have been the first person ever to assume the highest civic office in a Scottish city without having first served as a bailie. However Wilson’s appointment was an inspired move. As well as extensive experience in municipal politics, he had served on both the old Dundee Education Authority and Newport Council before becoming a councillor in Dundee in 1929, he was a “weel-kent face” via his involvement with the highly successful local department store GL Wilson’s (which had been founded by his father). While Dundee, almost uniquely for a UK industrial city, largely avoided bombing, this did not mean the city’s civic leaders had an easy time of things and as in other urban areas issues like air raid precautions and the impact of rationing still had to be dealt with. Wilson proved to be a popular wartime leader and handled the many challenges the city faced well. In his memoirs, The Making Of A Lord Provost, he speaks of having to tackle concerns about young Dundee women being recruited by the Ministry of Labour to work in the Midlands of England. The Minister of Labour was the veteran trade unionist Ernest Bevin and Wilson, Foot and Horsbrugh met with him to ask for this practice to stop. By Wilson’s admission their case was weak, but they succeeded, partly – Wilson believed – due to his being able to tell Bevin that his old trade union comrade Peter Gillespie had instructed him to “tell Ernie Bevin I was asking for him”, which lightened the mood of the meeting. Wilson considered unemployment to be the issue that overshadowed “all else in the wartime planning of the city’s life”. The city had experienced severe levels of unemployment in the interwar period and while this was somewhat mitigated by the war, it was still an issue that needed to be dealt with, in both the short and the long term. Wilson and many of his colleagues on the council believed that Dundee industry needed to diversify. To this end he and other councillors made efforts to bring wartime industries to Dundee and develop light engineering in the city. One result of this was the conversion of the Ashton Jute Works to make jerrycans. A training centre was set up which allowed women to learn engineering skills. Scottish Secretary (and former Dundee MP) Tom Johnston stressed the importance of such centres when he visited it in 1941 and noted that after the war it would be of great benefit to men and women to have training which allowed them to do multiple jobs. Partly via his friendship with Dingle Foot, Wilson was instrumental in getting Dundee added to the Distribution of Industries Bill which offered inducements for new industries to come to the city in the post-war period, with NCR being key among them. Prior to 1945 the Labour Party had only once briefly, and very narrowly, controlled Dundee Council (19361937). The dominant political force of the interwar years was the Moderates – a group made up of councillors elected with the support of the Municipal Electors Association (and its successor the Dundee Ratepayers Association) and whose members were largely Liberals and Conservatives. However, the new era seemed to herald a new politics in Dundee. Just as the general election saw a landslide victory for the Labour Party at a national level, the first post-war local election in November 1945 saw the local Labour Party sweep into municipal power in Dundee. Some 20 of the 36 elected council seats were being contested and Labour candidates won 14 of them to give the party a total of 23 councillors. For the first time ever Dundee had four female councillors with new councillors Agnes Holway (Labour) and Marjorie Meredith (Moderate) joining Labour’s Lily Miller (who had been elected as Dundee’s first female councillor in 1935) and Lila Clunas (who had been co-opted onto the council to fill a vacancy during the war). Garnet Wilson remained as lord provost as his second term did not end until 1946, but the key figure on the council was now Archie Powrie, who became the city’s first Labour lord provost 12 months later.