Section

The material in this section had originally been grouped by Lady Allen in a number of files, such as PW 18, in relation to the planning and writing of her autobiography. On examination it appeared that reorganisation, principally into a chronological series, would be the most appropriate arrangement. The bulk of the material falls into the period of the Second World War, when Lady Allen was most active in campaigning for nursery school provision. It is not always possible to be certain that each fascicle of notes in fact relates to the talk whose title appears on the top sheet: pagination is not always complete or consistent, the texts of some talks may have been reused, perhaps in part, on other occasions, and some disorder may have been introduced when the papers were used by Lady Allen for her autobiography.

Open

For a major article related to this topic, which does not, however, mention Lady Allen, see D Riley, '"The Free Mothers": pronatalism and working women in industry at the end of the last war in Britain', in 'History Workshop', no.11 (Spring 1981), pp.58-118.