British Women's Temperance Association
The British Women's Temperance Association (BWTA) was founded following a meeting in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1876 featuring American temperance activist "Mother" Eliza Stewart. Margaret Bright Lucas, who toured with Stewart during these meetings, was elected BWTA president in 1878. A follower of American temperance since visiting the country in 1870, where she was warmly received as "John Bright's sister", she also supported peace and anti-prostitution work, and served on the executives of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and the Ladies' National Association. Her main concern being temperance, she remained BWTA president until her death.
The BWTA achieved greater success under her successor, Lady Henry Somerset, but ultimately British temperance was destined to achieve less than its American counterpart. Lady Henry was succeeded by Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle, known as "The Radical Countess" for her opposition to alcohol consumption. Lucas was however, an important link in the Anglo-American women's reform networks as well as being a pioneer in British women's temperance.
The BWTA ran many successful and lively girls' groups, known as Y-branches (for youth). These were often associated with Methodist and other non-conformist churches, and organised all kinds of activities as well as weekly meetings. One of their most successful was a "Masque of Noble Women", which was performed by dozens of branches all over Britain from 1915. A box of costumes was bought and lent out to branches along with copies of the script. Probably modelled on the suffragette "Pageant of Great Women", it featured popular heroines including Florence Nightingale, Queen Victoria, Boadicea and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. [1]
BWTA women often wore white ribbons as a symbol of the Temperance cause, and thus their magazine was named the White Ribbon[2]. In 2004 the organisation was re-named the White Ribbon Association.
References
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ↑ Binns, A (2017). "New Heroines for New Causes: how provincial women promoted a revisionist history through post-suffrage pageants". Women's History Review.
- ↑ "The White Ribbon".