Keynote lecture explaining the Writing Lives Project on Working-Class Autobiography. Presented by Bethany Lacey, Billie-Gina Thomason and Helen Rogers at the 'Women's Lives, Women's Writing' conference, Bath Spa University, 25-26 April 2015. The presentation outlines a collaborative research project involving scholars, students and the public to create an online archive and resource on working-class memoirs. It uses data on the John Burnett Collection of Working Class Autobiography to consider the rise of women's life-writing in Britain since the late 19th century and to compare autobiographical writing by men and women. It introduces research by students at Liverpool John Moores University at www.writinglives.org. Bethany Lacey and Billie-Gina Thomason discuss what they learned about women's history and life writing through their research on Nora Isabel Adnams (born 1901) and Minnie Frisby (born 1877).

1. Researching Working-Class Women's Memoirs
for @Writing__Lives www.writinglives.org
Bethany Lacey, Billie-Gina Thomason & Helen Rogers
Liverpool John Moores University
Keynote: Women’s Lives & Women’s Writing Conference, Bath Spa University, 25 May 2015
Bethany Lacey, Billie-Gina Thomason and Helen Rogers
Liverpool John Moores University

2. Collaborative research & public engagement
to create digital archive & community resource:
• digitized memoirs
• searchable database
• submission platform for new life writing
• biographical entries for the database
• transcribing memoirs
• online resources for family and community history
• links to community writing groups
• open community blog
• teaching and learning resources for schools and
universities
• life writing, oral history and skills-sharing workshops

3. Writing Lives Project: Digital Archive
of Working-Class Autobiography
Create online archive with searchable
database by extending and updating:
John Burnett, David Vincent and David
Mayall (eds) The Autobiography of the
Working Class: An Annotated, Critical
Bibliography 1790-1945, 3 vols. (Brighton:
Harvester, 1984, 1987, 1989)
Project Team
David Vincent (Open University)
David Mayall (Sheffield Hallam University)
Helen Rogers (Liverpool John Moores
University)
John Herson (Liverpool John Moores
University)
Claire Lynch (Brunel University)
Brunel University Special Collections Library

4. Bibliography was a pioneering resource for scholarship on
working-class autobiography
but most studies still focus on published memoirs

5. How will including unpublished memoirs re-shape our
understanding of working-class life-writing?
‘Memoirists are not entirely representative of
their class (whatever that class may be), if
only because they were unusually articulate.
Autobiographies were produced in every one
of the several British working classes, ranging
down to tramps and petty criminals, but a
disproportionate number were written by
skilled workers and especially the self-
employed. Only one in ten nineteenth-century
workers' memoirs were written by women,
and the whole sample is skewed to the
political left: the twentieth-century volume of
the Burnett-Vincent-Mayall bibliography lists
many more Communists than Conservatives.’
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the
British Working Classes
(New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2001), p. 51
.

6. Pilot Database (John Herson & Helen Rogers, LJMU)
based on Burnett Archive of Working Class
Autobiographies
• c. 221 autobiographies
collected by John Burnett –
some published, many in
manuscript form (typed or
handwritten)
• held at Brunel University
• Online searchable database
using entries on 221
memoirs from
Autobiography of the
Working Class (Burnett,
Vincent, Mayall)

7. Example of one of the shorter entries
Alice May Collis, b. 1894
3:0230 COLLIS, Alice M., ‘My First Strike. 1909’ and ‘From
Paper Blankets to Central Heating’, TS, pp.6 (c.1,500 words).
Brunel University Library.
Brief fragments of an autobiography describing the author’s
participation in her first strike in 1909 over wages, which took
place shortly after she commenced work on envelope folding
machines in a London printing firm and which acted as a spur
to her becoming an active member of the National Federation
of Women Workers. The poverty of her childhood years forms
the theme of the second short piece. The author died in 1973
(aged 78) and attempts to locate the full work have proved
unsuccessful.

8. Pilot database using entries for Brunel memoirs
by John Herson & Helen Rogers
Sample search
Female Domestic Servants in Brunel Collection
Surname Forenames Birthdate Birth county Title Ref
Westall Lilian 1893 London The good old days 1:0746
Passiful Annie Elizabeth 1895 Sussex 'Memories of Aunt
Bess'
3:0132
Morris Bronwen 1896 Glamorgan Untitled 2:0541
Pidgeon Alice 1898 Lancs Looking over my
shoulder to
childhood days and
after
2:0619
Lord Annie 1900 My Life 2:0486
Jones Mrs. N. 1900 Cheshire Untitled 2:0444
Phillips Irene 1901 Beds Untitled 2:0612
Bell Rosa 1902 Cumberland R.M. Remembers 2:0059
Martin Grace 1903 Berks From 1906 2:0515
Woolland Mrs. H 1907 Worcs Untitled 2:0853
Ould Louie Emmeline 1907 Cornwall Memories 2:0574
Henderson Katherine 1908 Kent Had I But Known 2:0384
Relph Winifred 1912 Kent Through Rough
Ways
2:0657

9. Rise in women’s life writing?
Birthdates/gender of Brunel Authors
18
50
32
0
48 48
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
<1870 1871-1900 1901+
Males (n=100)
Females (n=96)

10. Burnett Collection:
overwhelmingly unpublished memoirs
How do these differ from published works?
26
74
9
37
62
6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Manuscript Typescript/WP Printed
Males
Females

11. Titled/Untitled
89
70
21
36
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Males Females
With Title
Untitled

12. Birthplaces
(Chart may reflect nature of collection rather than
geographic spread of working-class autobiography)
London, 35, 20%
Lancs, 24, 14%
Durham, 11, 6%
Yorks, 8, 5%
Herts, 6, 4%Sussex, 5, 3%Gloucs, 5, 3%Glamorgan, 5,
3%
Hants, 5, 3%
Devon, 4, 2%
Kent, 4, 2%
Derbys, 4, 2%
35 other places,
57, 33%

13. Occupational status of authors
based on ‘main occupation’
21
9
22
14
6
7
13
1
14
10
19
9
1
0
12
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
Males % (n=93)
Females% (n=65)

14. Authors’ interests
17
22
11
18
9
3 4
22
8
5 1
11 11
2
9
2 1
8
13
2
11
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
Males
Females

15. Education
1
54
13 10 12 11
0
56
25
7 4
12
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Males
Females

16. Life Coverage
Are unpublished memoirs more likely to focus on early life?
(Childhood/Young Adulthood/Adulthood/Whole Life)
74
61
52
33
93
46
33
15
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Ch YA AD WL
Males
Females

17. Politics
Unpublished memoirs: first-hand accounts of
‘unorganised’ working class
73
3 4 3 4
23
12 12 0
103
0 0 0 2 3 1 2 1
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Males
Females

18. Autobiographers known to have produced
other kinds of writing
5 5
3
5 5 5
22
0
1 1
5
0 0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Books etc:
non-fiction
Books etc:
fiction
Diaries Journalism Poetry Political
writing
Trade
manuals etc
Males
Females

19. Student Collaboration
3rd year undergraduate English module, LJMU
Creating Online Presence, Resources & Author Blogs
@Writing__Lives www.writinglives.org

20. Building readers & users:
Summarising, contextualising, interpreting manuscripts
Skargon, Charles V. From Boy to
Man the Hard Way (c. 100,000
words) 2:712
Dale, Elisabeth Untitled (c. 18,000
words) 2:199

21. ‘Storying’ ordinary writing
& making accessible
Norah’s diaries. . . are ordinary
diaries, private diaries, not written to
be read, presented in a style which is
disjointed and telegraphic. . . . [T]hey
are written like Tweets.
1st September 1939. Hitler declared
war on Poland. Had to dye curtains.
Everyone got wind-up. Ma went to
help evacuation kids in. Not many
came. Balloon barrage over Derby.
Went to Helen’s with Pop. Everyone
must have dark curtains. Sunny, cold.
. . .
To draw on Jennifer Sinor’s wonderful
book, The Extraordinary Work of
Ordinary Writing, the diaries have
needed storying.
Alison Twells, ‘Storying Norah’s Diaries’, 6 June 2013
http://norahsdiaries.wordpress.com/

22. Nora Isabel Adnams (B: 1901)
MY MEMOIRS OF DR. BARNARDO’S HOME, BARKINGSIDE, ESSEX
1904 to June 1911
Researched by Bethany Lacey
http://www.writinglives.org/category/noraisabeladnams

23. Nora’s Family
 Nora’s separation
from her parents
 Family reliant on
father for income
 Sisters are sent to
wash house aged
14

24. Nora’s Childhood
 Time at
Barnardo’s
 House ‘Mothers’
and Teachers
 Girls’ friendship
and solidarity
 Canada

25. Nora’s Writing Style
 Written for her
own children and
husband
 Humorous and
honest
 Political and
reflective

26. Nora Today
 Importance of
sharing these
stories
 Finding Nora’s
relatives
 Discovering my
own family history

27. Minnie Frisby, born 1877
http://www.writinglives.org/category/minnie-frisby
researched by Billie-Gina Thomason
Frisby, Minnie. ‘Memories’, Burnett Archive of
Working Class Autobiography, University of
Brunel Library, Special Collection, 1:250

28. War and
Memory
Politics Work Habits and
Culture
Reading and
Writing
Education Family Purpose
Introduction

29. I have been bedridden now nearly 5
years and although crippled with
arthritis and limbs and arms practically
useless, my mind is very active and by
musing and living in the happy past, I
am able to forget much of the very
painful present.
Sunday School Teacher
Music Country living
Educated
Fashionable
Death

31. Minnie’s Will

33. Reaching out on Social Media

34. Evaluation

35. For collaborative student research & social media see
www.bloggingbeyondtheclassroom.org
@blogging_beyond