The British Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) emerged in the late 1960s, shaped by the radical political upheavals of the time—particularly the 1968 student protests, anti-colonial and civil rights struggles, and the global rise of second-wave feminism. Within the UK, the WLM developed as a decentralised, grassroots movement that brought together a wide range of feminist perspectives: radical, socialist, liberal, lesbian, and Black and Asian feminist traditions. Though ideologically diverse, the movement was united by a shared critique of systemic gender inequality and a drive to radically transform British society.
A central organising structure of the WLM was the National Women’s Liberation Conferences, held annually from 1970. These conferences were foundational to developing collective strategy and articulating demands. The first four demands—agreed at early conferences (1970–71)—focused on:
The sixth demand marked a critical moment, recognising sexuality as a political issue and affirming lesbian visibility within the movement. The national conferences also reflected wider tensions within the WLM, particularly around race, class, and heteronormativity—and served as spaces for both solidarity and struggle.
The relationship between the WLM and the British Left, particularly the Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), was complex and often ambivalent. Many socialist feminists had roots in left-wing organisations and sought to challenge patriarchal structures within them. Feminist critiques of both parties highlighted the marginalisation of women’s issues within class-based politics, particularly the failure to integrate gender and reproductive justice into broader labour and socialist agendas.
Within the CPGB, feminist members such as Jean McCrindle, Jean Gardiner, and Mary Davis pushed the party to engage with women’s liberation as central to socialist transformation. The Women’s Department of the CPGB played an important role in examining material relating to women’s rights for dispersal to the wider party, producing the Communist Party’s women’s journal LINK, and participating in feminist, party and trade union campaigns. However, tensions persisted between party orthodoxy and emerging feminist theory, leading many women to work both inside and outside party structures.
In the Labour Party, feminists fought for institutional change through internal committees and policy reform. The Labour Women’s Conference, Women’s Advisory Committees, and key figures such as Barbara Castle, Jo Richardson, Judith Hart, and Betty Lockwood helped bring feminist demands into party policy—on issues including childcare, equal pay, abortion rights, and maternity leave. However, progress was often slow, and Labour’s mainstream structures were frequently criticised for sidelining feminist concerns. Some feminists chose to engage through pressure groups, like the National Abortion Campaign, while others pursued change through community activism.
The Greater London Council (GLC) under Ken Livingstone (1981-1986) became a rare institutional space where socialist and feminist politics aligned more closely. Feminists like Hilary Wainwright helped shape economic and social policy through the Popular Planning Unit, demonstrating how feminist principles could be integrated into state planning.
Black and Asian feminists organised both within and independently of these party and organisational structures. Groups such as the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and Southall Black Sisters were critical of both the Left and mainstream feminism, which often failed to address racism and colonial legacies. These activists foregrounded the intersections of race, gender, class, and immigration in feminist politics, producing groundbreaking work like Heart of the Race (1985) by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe. Black and Asian feminists developed their own cultural and intellectual platforms—establishing magazines, booklets, and independent publishing houses like Sheba Feminist Press which published works by and for women of colour. These platforms were essential for amplifying underrepresented voices and building an autonomous feminist publishing culture grounded in anti-racist, anti-imperialist politics.
The WLM’s influence extended into broader labour struggles—such as the Night Cleaners Campaign, the Grunwick strike and the work of Women Against Pit Closures, Lesbians Against Pit Closures and Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) —as feminists brought skills, strategies, and critiques from the WLM into trade union action and community organising.
By the end of the 1980s, while the WLM as a unified movement had fragmented, its impact was transformative. Feminists reshaped British law, education, media, political discourse, academia, publishing and institutional structures. The WLM redefined the relationship between gender and politics in the UK and laid the groundwork for future intersectional feminist activism.
The Labour History & Archives Study Centre (LHARC) holds a wide range of materials relevant to researching the Women’s Liberation Movement in the UK (1968–1989), with particular strength in the personal papers of feminist activists associated with the Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). These include the archives of figures such as Hilary Wainwright, whose papers document her role in the Greater London Council and the Popular Planning Unit; Judith Hart MP, who co-chaired the Women’s National Commission; and Jo Richardson MP, a long-standing advocate for women’s rights within Labour. The Centre also holds the papers of Jean McCrindle, a CPGB activist active in socialist feminist and miners’ support networks. Alongside these grassroots campaigns, the Centre also preserves the official records of party-based women’s organising, including the full run of the Labour Party’s National Women’s Advisory Committee papers, and extensive documentation from the Communist Party of Great Britain’s Women’s Department and related committees—offering a comprehensive view of feminist political activity both inside and outside formal structures.
The collections provide rich insight into the political activities of socialist feminists, who played a central role in the creation of feminist print culture—including magazines like Red Rag, Spare Rib, and Scarlet Women.
The Feminist Webs collection, while documenting youth and community work in the North West during the 1990s and 2000s, includes many formative feminist texts from the 1970s and 1980s that shaped its ethos—such as Our Bodies, Ourselves (1976) and Heart of the Race (1985), the latter written by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe, and rooted in the work of Black feminist organisations like OWAAD and Southall Black Sisters. Together, these collections trace the deep and varied contributions of socialist, Black, and Labour-aligned feminists to the broader WLM.
The Labour History & Archives Study Centre (LHARC) holds material documenting feminist and LGBTQ+ involvement in the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, particularly through the archives of Women Against Pit Closures. These include campaign leaflets, minutes from organising meetings, newsletters, photographs, posters, and correspondence that show the scope of women’s local and national organising during the strike. References to Lesbians Against Pit Closures can also be found within these materials, including mentions in press coverage and internal documents that highlight lesbian feminist participation. In addition, the Centre holds documents relating to Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), including flyers, statements, and newsletters that record their collaboration with striking communities and with Women Against Pit Closures groups. These collections provide a record of how feminist and queer activists contributed to strike support work, with materials that illustrate the practical, political, and cultural dimensions of their involvement.
Use Discover at The National Archives to search PHM’s archive catalogues further.
Other collections that might support research in this area are:
Name: The papers of Hilary Wainwright (1949-)
Collection overview:
The papers reflect Wainwright’s political work and interests including; interviews and research into the changing direction of the Labour Party in 1980s; material from Wainwright’s involvement with the striking miners, including the organisations Women Against Pit Closures and Miners and Families Christmas Appeal; papers on the Popular Planning Unit of the Greater London Council (GLC); reports and leaflets on women and the Labour Party, socialism and feminism including material relating to the 1980, Beyond the Fragments conference; research papers on a study of the Lucas Aerospace open door project including material from the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee; papers researching the impact of rationalisation on the workforce of Vickers; miscellaneous material relating to Wainwright’s involvement with various socialist organisations including student political activity in the 1960s, correspondence of the Socialist Society, the Socialist Conference and the Broad Left Organising Committee. There is also material on trades councils, trade unionism, Thatcherism, unemployment etc.
Hilary Wainwright has published widely, the key texts associated with these papers are as follows:
Labour a Tale of Two Parties (Hogarth Press/Chatto Windus, London, 1987)
A Taste of Power. The Politics of Local Economics, co-edited with Maureen MacIntosh, (Verso books, London, October 1987)
The Lucas Plan. A New Trades Unionism in the Making?, co-authored with David Elliott (Shocken Books, 1981)
Beyond the Fragments. Feminism and the Making of Socialism, co-authored with Sheila Rowbotham and Lynne Segal, (Merlin Press, 1980).
The Workers Report of Vickers, Co-authored with Huw Benyon, (Pluto Press, 1978).
Ref: GB 394 WAIN
Name: Labour Party Chief Woman Officers’ Papers
Collection overview:
This rich collection includes the minutes of the Standing Joint Committee on Industrial Women’s Organisations from 1916 and the Labour Women’s Advisory Committee from 1916 to 1966. You can obtain subsequent minutes of these committees from the Labour Party National Executive Committee minutes. There is correspondence and memoranda of the various women’s officers from 1919 to 1960. Subsequent unlisted correspondence of the woman officers, Joyce (later Baroness) Gould (b.1932) and Betty (later Baroness) Lockwood (b. 1924), mainly relates to women’s conference resolutions in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Labour History Archives and Study Centre also holds the entire run of the monthly journal Labour Woman from 1911 to 1971 and women’s conference reports from 1927 to 1990.
Ref: GB 394 CWO
Name: Women Workers pamphlet collections
Collection overview:
-1970
Includes;
Women Awake – the experience of conscious raising – Sue Bruley
Women Fightback – Kath Ennis (Women’s Voice)
Women – The Longest Revolution (1969) – Juliet Mitchell
A Diary for Women (1973) – Hackney/Kennington WL group
Anarchism: The Feminist Connection – Peggy Kornegger (1975)
Feminist History in the East End – A Walk (1979) – Rights of Women group
1970-
Includes;
Women’s Liberation and the New Politics – Sheila Rowbotham (1969) x 2
Feminism as Anarchism by Lynne Farrow
Anarcho-feminism from Siren and Black Rose
Women and the Struggle for Socialism (1985) – Norah Carlin
Women’s Bureau ‘71 – Labour Canada
Women in Britain (1984) British Government – Foreign and Commonwealth office
Getting Together – a directory of women’s groups and organisations in Birmingham
Annee Internationale de la Femme (1975)
Raging Womyn – in reply to breaching the peace – Womyn’s Land Fund
Sex Roles in Transition – Rita Liljestrom (1975)
International Women’s Year (1975) – compendium of programmes printed by the government of India
Women in the Co-operative Movement (1972) – Co-operative Union Ltd
Women’s Work in 19th-century London – a study of the years 1820-50 (1983) – Sally Alexander
UNESCO and International Women’s Year (1975)
Women in Trade Unions: An Exhibition (1980) TUC
Women, trade unions and political parties (1987) – Cynthia Cockburn
Women’s Festival – Labour Party programme (1982)
1975 International Women’s Year – Half of Humanity – International Planned Parenthood Federation
Ref: (Box 217/218 – 331.4 Women Workers – 1970/ Women Workers 1970-)
Name: Labour Party NEC Sub committees c.1915-1995
Collection overview:
This collection spans organisation minutes and papers (1931-1998) of NEC subcommittees, which contain records of decision-making processes regarding women and the Labour Party. Much of this material will be helpful and give essential context to understanding socialist feminist in the UK and it’s relationship to the Labour Party. The National Women’s Advisory Committee’s minutes from 1959-1982, as well as conference memos and documents, are also found here. A small amount of materials from the Women’s Rights Study Group from 1981-1982 can be found here, as can a much larger collection of NEC Women’s committee materials from 1986-2008.
Ref: LP/NEC/SUB
Name: Nina Temple corresp and papers rel to work for the Party
Collection overview:
This collection of correspondence and papers centres on Temple’s role of the last General Secretary of the CPGB. After the disbanding of the CPGB in 1991, Temple assumed a leading role within the Democratic Left, the body that now acquired the assets of the old Communist Party. This body was in turn abandoned in favour of `network politics’, with the assets being managed by a property and asset company, in which Temple and several score other persons played the dominant role. This material covers the period of her political activity from 1975-1993.
For more on her role within the Democratic Left, see:
Ref: CP/LON passim
Name: The 1984-1985 Miners’ Strike newspaper collection
Collection overview:
The newspapers in this collection provide an insight into the key events and chronology of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike. Besides newspapers the collection includes a small amount of cartoons, postcards, posters, pamphlets and photocopies of material on miners’ wives. Local branches of the NUM and other organisations, which supported the striking miners, produced the newspapers in this collection.
The collection includes copies of :
The Durham Striker
Women’s Fightback
Labour Weekly
The News Line
The Miner
NUM Minutes of meetings of the National Executive Committee, 1984-1985
Ref: GB 394 MS84/LAB
Name: Morning Star circulation and sales figures, statistics and correspondence relating to finances, committee…
Collection overview:
The Morning Star is a left-wing British daily newspaper focused on social, political, and trade union issues, originally founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB. The paper describes its editorial stance as in line with Britain’s Road to Socialism, the programme of the Communist Party of Britain. This collection contains circulation and sales figures, statistics and corresp rel to finances, committee minutes, MS notes and papers rel to running the paper (1957-90).
Ref: CP/LON/STAR
Name: Daily Worker: editorial board minutes
Collection overview:
Harry Pollitt was general secretary (1929–39, 1941–56) and chairman (1956–60) of the CPGB. In 1929, he recruited Tom Wintringham to help establish a new CPGB newspaper. In 1930, The Daily Worker (later to become the Morning Star) was launched. The material in this collection covers the period 1940-1980.
Ref: CP/LON/STAR
Name: Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) archives
Collection overview:
The LHARC is the home of the CPGB’s archives. Within this large archive are particular boxes and files that will be of interest to those researching British socialist feminism in the 20th century.
In particular:
Ref: CP
Name: Feminist Webs records: including educational resources, training materials, campaign materials and promotional ephemera
Collection overview:
This extensive collection contains material from Feminist Webs, a NW-based organisation that focused on feminist work with young girls, women and LGBTQIA+ youth in the area. Many of the people involved in Feminist Webs had been engaged in earlier WLM activity, and therefore the collection is a mix of materials relating to 1990s youth work in the NW and contextual and historical materials relating to the history of feminist work. For socialist feminism within the collection, there are boxes which have been donated from women and/or hold material from people such as Jean Spence and Pam Flynn, which contain foundational texts, essays and research material regarding socialist feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. Here are some details at box level for ease of researching:
Box 1 contains material covering:
Jean Spence’s role in the 1984-85 miner’s strike materials
Greenham Common activism (1980s)
Anti-nuclear activism (1970s and 1980s)
Women and environmentalism activism (1970s and 1980s)
Box 2 contains material covering:
Racism in Britain and motherhood (1970s-1990s)
Box 3 contains material covering:
Women’s health (1970s-1990s)
Women’s education (1970s-1990s)
Box 4 contains the publication:
Women’s Liberation and Revolution: A Bibliography by Sheila Rowbotham 2nd edition 1973
Box 5 contains the publication:
Wages for Housework by Giuliana Pompeii
Box 9a contains the publications:
Towards an Anti-Racist Feminism by Jenny Bourne 1984
Our Bodies Ourselves: A health book by and for women, Boston Women’s Health Collective, British edition by Angela Phillips and Jill Rakusen 1978
Black British Feminism: A Reader edited by Heidi Safia Mirza 1997
Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism by Bell Hooks 1982
Women’s Rigths: Changing Attitudes 1900-2000
The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain by beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe 1985
Greenham Common: Women at the Wire edited by Barbara Harford and Sarah Hopkins 1984
Beyond the Fragments by Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright 1979
Women in revolutionary Russia by Cathy Porter 1987
Box 20b contains the publications:
Spare Rib (various editions)
Tyranny of structurelessness – Jo Freeman
Box 21a contains the publications:
WIRES (81-83)
Scarlet Woman (various editions)
Socialist Women newsletter (various editions)
Red Rag (various editions)
Sappho (various editions)
Box 21d contains the publications:
Scarlet Woman (various editions)
Ref: FWEB
Name: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM)
Collection overview:
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) originated from a collection made at the 1984 Pride March for the striking miners. Shortly afterwards a meeting was held at the University of London Union with speakers from the South Wales National Union of Miners (NUM), this led to the formation of LGSM. LGSM was a single-issue group, which sought to support the miners and their communities in their fight against Thatcherism. Members of LGSM were from across the gay community, from Trotskyists, communists and anarchists to Labour Party members and liberals. The organisation lasted only for the duration of the 1984-5 miners’ strike. The organisation held weekly meetings at Gay’s the Word bookshop to organise publicity and collections. During its two years of operation, LGSM raised twenty thousand pounds, from collections, jumble sales, merchandise and sponsored bike rides such as pedal against pit closures. A Pits & Perverts benefits gig headlined by Bronski Beat held in Camden, London raised five thousand pounds. The success of the LGSM was illustrated by the 1985 Pride march, which was headed by a NUM banner, followed by a large contingent of men, women and children from Dulais.
This collection covers the activity of LGSM from 1984-1987.
Ref: GB 394 LGSM
Name: Lesbians Against Pit Closures
Collection overview:
Lesbians Against Pit Closures (LPAC) formed a few months after Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners was established. This was partly because many women in the group felt intimidated by the gay men who formed the bulk of the membership.
The collection comprises minutes, correspondence, press releases, fliers, accounts and financial records, ephemera and labour movement song sheets. Some of the material here regards the LGSM travelling exhibition which celebrated the success of the movement. Photographs were displayed, and a video chronicling the work was lent to Trade Unions, community groups and local branches of the National Union of Miners.
Ref: LGSM
Name: Judith Hart: correspondence and papers
Collection overview:
Judith Hart was co-chairman of the Women’s National Commission (appointed by the government) from 1969 to 1970. Within the Labour Party she was a member of the National Executive Committee from 1969 to 1983, serving as vice-chairman in 1980–81, and as chairman in 1981–82. Hart was in the cabinet in active roles and the Labour shadow cabinet between 1959-1979; particularly in roles managing overseas development. This material covers her political activity between the years 1948-1989.
Relating to this collection of personal papers and correspondence, the following files may be of particular interest to those interested in socialist feminism:
Ref: GB 394 HART
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