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Helena Maria Swanwick Collected Papers, 1907-1938
Collection: CDG-B Great Britain
Contact Information
Swarthmore College Peace Collection
500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1399
U.S.A.
Telephone: (610) 328-8557 (Curator)
Fax: (610) 328-8544
Email: wchmiel1@swarthmore.edu (Curator)
URL: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/
Descriptive Summary
Repository
The Swarthmore College Peace Collection is not the official repository for these papers/records.
Creator
Swanwick, Helena Maria (1864 - 1939)
Title
Helena Maria Swanwick Collected Papers
Inclusive Dates
1907-1938
Call Number
CDG-B Great Britain
Language of Materials
Materials in English
Extent
8 linear inches [papers only]
Abstract
Helena Maria Sickert was born in Germany and moved to England early on. She was an author, journalist, and lecturer involved in peace activism, feminism, and social justice. She became chair of the British Section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and was a British delegate to the League of Nations. Her dream was that
women, if they used their power, could make an end to war. Her books included The
Small Town Garden, The Future of the Women's Movement, Some Points of English Law, Women in the Socialist
State, Builder of Peace [a history of the Union of
Democratic Control], I Have Been Young, Collective
Insecurity, and The Roots of Peace. She was made a Companion of Honour in 1931.
Administrative Information
Restrictions to Access
None
Usage Restrictions
None
Alternate Form of Material
None
Acquisitions Information
Unknown
Processing Information
Processed by SCPC staff; checklist revised by
Anne Yoder, January 1998; this finding aid created by Eleanor Fulvio, August 2010
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the Helena Maria Swanwick Collected Papers (CDG-B Great Britain), Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Copyright Notice
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law
Online Catalog Headings
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online library/archival catalogs.
See tripod record
Related Collections
Union of Democratic Control Records (CDG-B Great Britain)
Book Collection for Builders
of Peace and Collective Insecurity
Historical Background
Helena Maria was born in Munich, Germany in
1864, the only daughter of Oswald and Maria Sickert, and sister to
the painter, Walter Richard Sickert. The family moved to England when
she was four years old. She was educated at Notting Hill High School
and Girton College, Cambridge, obtaining her Moral Science Tripos in
1885, and later her ad eundem Master of Arts Degree at Dublin. She
married Frederick Tertius Swanwick in 1888 (he died in
1931).
Swanwick's resume included being a lecturer
in psychology, economics and sociology; a teacher in girls' clubs;
first Editor of Common Cause magazine (organ of the
constitutionalist suffragists); Editor of
Foreign Affairs magazine (1924-1928); Honorable Secretary of
the Manchester Women's Suffrage Association; Executive Member of the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies; Honorable Secretary of
the Committee of Organized Women (1914-1915), which provided work and
relief for women unemployed because of the war; first Chair of the
Richmond Day Nursery (1914-1916); Vice President of the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom, Geneva; Chair of the
British Section of the Women's International League for Peace and
Freedom; Executive Member of the Union of Democratic Control (started
by Ramsey MacDonald in 1914); Vice President of the Richmond (Surrey)
Labour Party; and Member of the Committee of Inquiry Into Sexual
Morality. Swanwick helped pioneer the League of Nations Society,
representated Great Britain at the International Conference of Women,
and was appointed by Ramsey MacDonald to be a member of the British
government delegation to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva in
1924 and in 1929.
Swanwick was a well-known journalist and lecturer on feminism, social justice, and peace. Her dream was that women, if they used their power, could make an end to war. She contributed articles to the Manchester Guardian and the Observor and to other journals. Her books included The Small Town Garden, The Future of the Women's Movement, Some Points of English Law, Women in the Socialist State, Builder of Peace [a history of the Union of Democratic Control], I Have Been Young, Collective Insecurity, and The Roots of Peace. Her many years of distinguished public work and efforts for international cooperation were officially acknowledged when J. Ramsay MacDonald was successful in having her made a Companion of Honour in 1931.
Swanwick died in Maidenhead, England in Nov.
1939.
Collection Overview
The Swanwick Collection consists of a small
amount of personal material, correspondence, and writings.
Correspondents include: Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Hon. Ramsey
MacDonald, Lord Ponsonby, Edward Smith (London Peace Council), Carl
Heath (Friends Service Council), Gilbert Murray, Commander Stephen
King-Hall, Edith Pye and Dorothy Detzer (Women's International League
for Peace and Freedom), John P. Fletcher (Society of Friends),
Bertrand Russell, and Lord Clifford Allen.