A distinctive service: Ruth Uzzell, the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and the place of women in interwar rural trade unionism

This article analyses the contribution that Ruth Uzzell made to the National Union of Agricultural Workers in the interwar years. Born into a rural working-class family, Uzzell advanced up the hierarchy of the NUAW and sat on its Executive Committee for 22 years. She was a formidable campaigner and public speaker, travelling the country defending the rights of agricultural workers to decent pay and conditions but her name has largely been forgotten to history. The article assesses her position as the only woman in a leadership position of a male-dominated trade union. Who were her inspirations? How did she manage a family life and a life of union activism? What barriers did she face as a woman in the NUAW and how did she overcome these? The article considers how ‘distinctive’ her service was and what it tells us about the place of women in interwar rural trade unionism as a whole.