Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.33.2
Object Name
passport
Place
Heywood, Manchester, Russia, Soviet Union
People
Lydia Ann Aspinall
Events
1925 Women's Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia trip
Description
A dark blue British passport from 1925.
This passport belonged to the trade unionist Lydia Aspinall and was used during her trip to the Soviet Union in 1925 as part of a delegation of women trade unionists investigating women's work and roles in Soviet Russia. The passport contains stamps from each border she crossed to travel to Russia. At the time of the trip, women were typically included as dependents on their husbands passports - the layout and wording of the passport shows spaces for photographs of the passport holder and 'wife'. As Lydia Aspinall was the sole user of this passport, she has been placed in the main slot, not the 'wife' slot.
Lydia Ann Aspinall (3/9/1875-17/3/1955) was born in Stalybridge, and lived in Heywood where she became a textile worker, a trade union activist for weavers unions including the Heywood Weavers Association and the Weavers, Winders and Reelers Association, and later a magistrate. As part of the delegation to Russia she travelled the country observing working practices to see what they could learn from the communist regime to improve workers wellbeing in their own work places in Britain. On their return they published a report titled 'Soviet Russia, An Investigation by British Women Trade Unionists April-July 1925'. A copy of the report is also held in PHM's Lydia Aspinall Collection.
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