Real Lives: Cecily Cook
Historian feature
Cecily Cook – leader of working class pacifists in the Second World War
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily basis. Sometimes we might even play a part in the big events, although our names are not recorded, while on other occasions we are witnesses to events and times which we would now consider remarkable. Sometimes our regular lives are the perfect illustration of how people live at any given time – but all our lives matter and we want to celebrate some of those lives here. If you have any people that you think might also fit this category and would like to write about them, please do contact: martin.hoare@history.org.uk
Steve Illingworth introduces a working-class woman who became General Secretary of the Women’s Co-operative Guild in 1940 and, while steering the movement successfully through the war years, managed to maintain its pacifist position in the face of societal pressure to implement a pro-war stance. Nevertheless, under her leadership, the humanitarian influence of the Guild was felt both at home and abroad.
Cecily Cook became General Secretary of the Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG) in the early months of the Second World War, retaining this position throughout the war and beyond. The WCG had been formed in the 1880s as a women’s branch of the Co-operative Movement, founded forty years earlier in Rochdale to promote the principle of self-help among working class communities to supply affordable food and other essentials. By the twentieth century the Co-operative Movement had become a national and even international organisation. The WCG often called itself the ‘Trade Union for Mothers’, with its main concern being to ensure the continuing supply, quality and affordability of products in the Co-operative stores. By 1939 the WCG had over 80,000 members in Britain, mainly working class women...
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