The 'troublous question of the married women teachers': The Aberdare dismissals of 1908

Abstract

In February 1908, the Aberdare Education Committee resolved to dismiss all married women teachers in its Council schools. This article analyses the protest campaign which followed and its impact on the National Union of Teachers, the local labour movement and the women teachers involved. It was a 'fight' which divided the local community, the socialist movement and the teachers themselves at a time of social and political change, and one which reverberated beyond Aberdare and beyond that summer of strife. It is argued that the tensions which came to the fore are significant in understanding teacher and gender politics in Wales and Britain in the early twentieth century.