Scope and content
The material reflects the emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement from the 1970s
onwards, covering all issues raised by and responded to by second wave feminism in
this locality. The collections are unique to Nottingham which had a significant WLM
membership. They show where ideas began and how feminist politics were put into practice.
There is evidence of the role local women played in establishing a women’s centre
for the city (one of the oldest in the country), material demonstrating the pro-active
stance women in the region took in respect of peace campaigns, and the role undertaken
to support miners and their wives in the 1984-1985 strike. The archive also demonstrates
the strategic operational role that the Nottingham Women’s Liberation Group held in
the Movement’s national conferences, the National Abortion Campaign and the Childcare
Campaign, and evidences involvement in the Labour and Trade Union movement, for example
in relation to the campaign for Equal Opportunities and the Women’s Working Charter.
The collection covers a variety of topics including family, health, employment, social
policy issues, women’s aid, militarism and peace, the politics of the Women’s Liberation
movement, lesbianism and the arts.
Record creators history
The archive and special collection:
The idea for the collection was instigated by Val Wood and Tina Pamplin. The Heritage
Lottery funded Women’s Liberation and After in Nottingham (WoLAN) project, which was
completed in 2015, had gathered oral histories concerning, primarily, the establishment
of Nottingham’s Women’s Centreiv. Val and Tina wanted to build on this to collect
the life stories of the women involved in other campaigns/actions in Nottingham and
the wider East Midlands region. They were aware that time was running out to document
the achievements and hard work of these women as some were succumbing to age-related
ill health. They also wanted to find a permanent home for the papers, photographs,
and memorabilia collected by the women involved. It was important to them that students,
academics and researchers could access this material. They approached the University
of Nottingham in 2018 knowing that Manuscripts and Special Collectionsv already held
the papers of activists such as Fred Westacott and socialist and MEP, Ken Coates.
Val had previously volunteered with Manuscripts helping to catalogue collections and
research the significance of women in the University Archives.
Nottingham Feminist Archive Group:
In 2018, Margaret Davies, Barbara Hewitt and Lee Harrison, who had all been active
in the Women’s Liberation Movement, joined Val and Tina in conducting oral history
interviews and they successfully obtained funding from the National Lottery Heritage
Fund in 2021 to have the interviews professionally transcribed (the Voices of Women
Activists oral history project). Later Jayne Muir and Linda Shaw (a retired archivist)
were recruited, and the women formed the Nottingham Feminist Archive Group.
Co-curation of the collections:
A project board had been established in June 2019 for the purposes of applying for
a scoping grant from the National Archives, with representatives from the University
and the Women’s Centre. The grant paid for a consultant, Katy Thornton, to assess
the archive materials gathered by the Group and the feminist magazines from the 1970s
and 1980s held by Nottingham’s Women’s Centre, which included rare survivals of newsletters
and zines produced by local groups. Members of the Nottingham Feminist Archive Group
set about building on the Women’s Centre’s extensive Women’s Library by helping to
develop, preserve and facilitate access to these feminist magazines. They negotiated
for the duplicate copies to be gifted to the University to form the basis of the new
Feminist Publications Collection (FPC). The Group volunteered their time at the University
from January 2022, working with Manuscripts staff to arrange the archive material,
researching its context, and explaining its significance
Promotion of the collections:
The Nottingham Feminist Archive Group also advocated on behalf of the collections,
holdings stalls at various events, including a local history event in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire,
to promote the project and to gather further stories/material for the archive. They
presented at the Nottingham Trent University conference 'Grassroots Activism om History
and Memory' and at the University of Nottingham’s Volunteer Awards. They have signposted
researchers to the collections here and at the Women’s Centre, Nottinghamshire Archives,
Nottingham Black Archives and Sparrow’s Nest. As well as co-curating the collections,
the Group have helped advise on the content for the 2024 Lakeside Arts exhibition
‘Dear sisters: anarchists’ archives’.
Manuscripts and Special Collections are indebted to the Feminist Archive Group for
their efforts in creating and curating this collection, especially to Val Wood for
research into the context and campaigns, Tina Pamplin for advocating and active collecting,
Margaret Davies for managing the oral history interviews, Barbara Hewitt and Lee Harrison
for conducting interviews and listing the collections, Jayne Muir for researching
the history of the Group and listing the collections, and Linda Shaw for advising
on the formation of the collection and the preservation of the materials at the Women's
Centre.
Archival history
The bulk of the collection was accumulated over a number of years by individuals and
organisations as women activists from the 1960s and 1970s have downsized and/or cleared
properties. Many of the donations were prompted by the process of being interviewed
for the project. This material was transferred to Manuscripts and Special Collections
in 2021. Further donations have since been made, some directly and some via members
of the Group. The duplicate magazines from the Women’s Centre were donated in December
2022. The interviews, transcripts and summaries were transferred in September 2023.
We continue to collect materials for the collection and welcome further donations/interviews.
Our aspiration is for the collection to document a wide range of women’s activism
from across the East Midlands, in keeping with the East Midlands focus of Manuscripts
and Special Collections’ Acquisition Policy.
System of arrangement
Feminist publications have been transferred to the Feminist Publications Collection
(FPC). Published material not wanted for FPC has been retained in the archive to provide
information about the context in which the women worked/studied/lived.
The archive material has been arranged into the following series:
FME/1: Materials collected by the Nottingham Feminist Archive Group including donations
of duplicate material from other organisations including Feminist Archive North and
Nottingham’s Women’s Centre. This includes ephemera, research materials, papers from
conferences and archive material with an unknown provenance; primarily 1970s-1990s.
FME/2: Photographs of women involved in activism including interviewees and donors
of materials. Includes photographs from the period as well as photographs taken more
recently; primarily 1970s-2020s.
FME/3: Archives of individual women; primarily 1970s-1990s. Catalogue records have
also been created for women who haven’t donated material but for whom research materials
have been collated.
FME/4: Recorded oral history interviews with women activists carried out by members
of the Nottingham Feminist Archive Group, accompanied by interview transcriptions
and summaries; 2019-2023.
FME/5: Ephemera relating to later campaigns/events.
Note that cataloguing is still in progress for some sections of the collection.
Conditions governing access
The bulk of the collection is accessible to all readers. However, access to some items
is restricted under current Data Protection legislation. Please see our Access Policy
or contact us for further advice.
Conditions governing reproduction
Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult.
Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought
in writing on our Permission to Publish form (see the Reprographics Services part
of our website or email [email protected])
Reprographic copies can be supplied for educational and private study purposes only,
depending on access status and the condition of the documents.
Other finding aids
This description is the only finding aid available for the collection. Copyright in
the description belongs to The University of Nottingham.
Related material
Women's Library, Nottingham Women's Centre
Archive of Nottingham's Women's Centre at Nottinghamshire Archives (DD/NWC)
Feminist Publications Collection (FPC)
Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland: Leicester Women’s Aid and
associated groups records (DE9867 and DE9961) and Leicester Women’s Liberation Movement
Newsletter (LP-12-L)
Blue Mountain Womens Group at Nottinghamshire Archives (DD/BMWG)
CD of recordings and transcription of interviews for dissertation 'Nottinghamshire
Women in the Miners' Strike 1984-85' conducted by Victoria Shepherd, 2013 (MS 1035)
Extent
32 boxes, 5 bundles in map cabinet drawers, 10.82GB (140 digital files)
Record creator
Nottingham Feminist Archive Group
Content provider
The University of Nottingham
