Today sees the launch of a long-overdue biography of a truly remarkable woman, Enid Stacy, written by her niece, Angela Tuckett.
Welcoming its publication the distinguished historian, Sheila Rowbotham, said: ‘Enid Stacy was a tireless propagandist for socialism and women’s freedom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thanks to the Working Class Movement Library, Angela Tuckett’s pioneering biography which she was unable to complete in her lifetime is now available in a book with beautiful photographs from the Library’s collection’.
Enid campaigned for socialism for all – men, women and children. She was a founder member of the Independent Labour Party, a champion of full equality for women, a campaigner for all children to have the same educational and developmental opportunities, and a brave critic of the Boer War when ‘war fever’ was at its height.
She shared platforms with her now more famous contemporaries Keir Hardie, Eleanor Marx and Tom Mann. Enid toured the country speaking in halls large and small, as well as on platforms outdoors or from a Clarion Van – an inspiring orator, who according to Mann, ‘could speak to thousands in the open air as though she was talking to each in their own home’.
She was an amazing woman and the Working Class Movement Library is proud to publish her biography. Angela Tuckett was also a remarkable woman – author, historian, diarist, song writer, theatrical producer (with sister Joan), solicitor, political activist, lecturer, feminist, qualified pilot and international hockey player. After her husband’s death in 1979, Angela started seriously to research the life of her aunt with the encouragement of Eddie and Ruth Frow, founders of the Working Class Movement Library. However, after rejections by publishers of her early draft, she put it on one side and never returned to it.
It was the wish of Ruth and Ruth that one day the biography of Enid Stacy would see the light of day. After a lot of hard work Angela’s draft has been edited to a publishable standard. Everyone at the Library is delighted with the result.
Copies of Our Enid are available from the Library at a special introductory price of £5. They can also be bought online at www.wcml.org.uk/bookshop.
