Mill girl Julia Varley devoted life to Trade Union movement

Today we focus on the world of industry by singling out Bradford’s first prominent female trade unionist who build a national reputation.

Julia Varley (1871-1952) was a passionate campaigner for women’s rights who dedicated her life to trade unionism. After the end of World War One, women over 30 earned the vote and could stand for election to Parliament; this incentivised the Trades Union Council to follow suit in allowing women into its highest echelons. From the Workers’ Union Julia Varley was elected in 1921 as one of two delegates for the new Women’s Section in the TUC General Council.

There could have been no more suitable candidate to break through this barrier. She never married and devoted her life to trade union activity. Her career came in two stages - one based in her home city of Bradford and the other in Birmingham.

* Growing up in Bradford: Born to millworkers, the eldest of seven siblings, in a back-to-back in Horton, Varley learnt as a child that her great-grandfather had been a protestor at the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819 and that her grandfather had been active in the Chartist riots of the 1840s. When she was 12, she inevitably started work in a local textile mill, as a ‘half-timer’ going to school but also working as a sweeper. A ‘full-timer’ when 14, she joined the General Union of Textile Workers and soon took on a role of full-time organiser and branch secretary. On her mother’s death she had to give up full-time mill work to care for her siblings, but this did not stop her union work, remarkable at a time when few women were members of unions, let alone active in them.

In 1891 she witnessed at first hand the bitter strike at Manningham Mills. She later became the first woman elected to the Bradford Trades Council.

When 24, she deliberately lived for six weeks as a tramp, walking from Leeds to Liverpool to find out for herself what it was really like to live on Poor Law handouts. This must have been invaluable experience when, from 1901 to 1907, Varley became one of the few women to be elected a Guardian of the Bradford Poor Law Union.

It is no surprise that Varley was also a prominent suffragette. On one famous occasion in 1907 suffragettes tried to break into the Houses of Parliament. She was imprisoned for 14 days, one of seven from the Bradford area in a group of 57 so punished.

* Moving to Birmingham: From 1909 Varley moved to Birmingham as a trade union organiser, principally for the WU. Here she established a reputation for helping workers win many disputes over many years. For example, she played a leading role in the women chain-makers’ strike of 1910. A £4,000 strike fund enabled 2,450 workers to strike for 10 weeks before employers agreed to better pay.

Blue plaque in Birmingham commemorating Julia Varley (Image: Submitted)

The same year, working alongside the National Union of Operative Bakers, Varley secured Birmingham bakers a minimum wage of 26 shillings a week for a 54-hour working week. Previously, they worked 70 to 100 hours a week for 22 to 26 shillings.

In 1912 she became one of the first women officers of a mixed-sex trade union in the UK, helping WU membership soar from 5,000 to 65,000 between 1909 and 1914. A year later, Varley organised the families of 5,000 striking clay workers in Cornwall. Although the strike collapsed amid police brutality, in January 1914 one of Cornwall’s largest clay companies agreed to recognise the union and establish fair pay. Other clay firms soon join them.

* Sitting on the TUC General Council: After elevation to the TUC General Council, Varley’s reputation became national and international. When the WU amalgamated with the TGWU, she was appointed its Chief Women’s Officer. Her campaigning led to an OBE for Public Service in the 1931 King George V birthday honours. It also led to a good friendship with the Duke of York (later King George VI) whom she got to know when she was a member of the executive committee of the Industrial Welfare Society. They corresponded occasionally with each other.

Julia in later life (Image: Submitted)

From 1926 to 1935 she attended various International Labour Organization conferences in Geneva, Rome, and Vienna. For example, in September 1935 Julia was part of a large international delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva on the subject of women’s claims for equality all over the world. She was principal speaker of the delegation in her role on the Women’s Committee of the TUC and the International Committee of Trade Union Women. In summary, Julia Varley achieved a high position in one of the country’s largest unions, and with it a prominent place in public life, which she enjoyed.

* Returning to Bradford: Varley retired in 1936 but continued to live in the Birmingham area. Her failing health and blindness forced her to return to live with her two sisters in Bradford, where in November 1952 she died at the age of 81, to be buried in Undercliffe Cemetery.

Today Julia Varley is remembered with a blue plaque outside her home in Bourneville in her adopted city of Birmingham. She will also be remembered with a similar plaque in Bradford, the city where she grew up, plans being delayed by the pandemic. It is right that both cities should remember her in this way. By the standards of her time, Varley led a remarkable life devoted to the well-being of her fellow workers - a role model to women everywhere.

* Martin Greenwood’s book Every Day Bradford provides a story for each day of the year about people, places and events from Bradford’s history. Available online and at bookshops including Waterstones and Salts Mill.