Barbara Castle has long been hailed as the politician who delivered equal pay for women but she was not the first to bring it about. In 1944 Conservative MP, Thelma Cazalet-Keir, proposed an amendment to the Education Bill, demanding equal pay for women teachers. Cazalet-Keir first won her parliamentary seat t in 1931 and was the first woman MP to take a seat from a female incumbent, winning over Labour MP Leah Manning. A long-standing feminist, inspired by her feminist mother, she would likely have much preferred to win her seat from a male MP and assist in increasing the numbers of women.
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister at the time, took against Cazelet-Keir’s amendment (despite it being proposed by a fellow Conservative) and decided to make it a vote of confidence in his Government. He even attended in person to try and ensure its defeat. But, in the only time his Government lost a vote, the amendment was passed by one and became an integral part of the Act, which became famous as the ‘Butler Education Act’. In the end it worked against Churchill more than he would have wanted and it contributed to the view of his Government as reactionary, maybe even contributing to his 1945 defeat.
This was not Cazelet-Keir’s first foray into fighting for women’s rights, as she had already worked alongside two other Conservative MPs, Irene Ward and Mavis Tate, to initiate the wartime Woman Power Committee, which was established to advise the Ministry of Labour on the question of employing women in industry. Discontent had built up around how the war was directed predominantly by men and many women were growing restless at both the incompetence and inappropriateness of the situation. Already at the forefront of campaigns for greater equal opportunities for women in the workforce they established the committee to ensure the effective mobilisation of women in the war effort.
She lost her seat in the 1945 Labour landslide but remained active in public life, not as an establishment figure, but continuing her activism and feminist campaigning. She was made President of the Fawcett Society in 1964 as well as becoming an advocate for the Women’s Engineering Society which campaigned for better representation of women in a traditionally male dominated sector. She may not be a household name but her place in history as an MP who really made a difference to the lives of other women is secure.