Margeret Bondfield: 1924

Participating in a Male dominant environment:

SEXISM AND MISOGYNY IN VICTORIAN SHOPWORK – exposed by Margaret Bondfield aka ‘Grace Dare’

From the 1850s thousands of young women were flocking into shopwork, as an alternative to the drudgery of factory work or work as domestic servants. By the 1890s, there were a quarter of a million shopgirls in Britain. But they soon discovered that the reality was far harsher than they had imagined. 

The teenage Margaret Bondfield worked as a shop assistant in Brighton and London. She was shocked to the core by her experiences. She found the living conditions appalling, the hours exhausting, and the rigid hierarchy difficult to deal with. The moral challenges confronting a young woman in a busy town were frightening. 

In 1891 Margaret had become a secret member of the National Union of Shop Assistants. This was an affiliation forbidden by her employers. In 1896 she went undercover, working in different shops all over the country. Under the name Grace Dare she began penning a series of bold articles with the aim of stirring up the world of shop-keeping, by exposing the exploitative conditions of shopwork. Bondfield's main objective, however, was to capture some of the dire working and living conditions and the flagrant abuses of 'paternalist' proprietors.

Male Hierarchy and Harassment 

Most shops were owned and managed by men. In larger stores senior male floorwalkers patrolled departments, imposing discipline and fines on junior staff members.

Margaret was horrified by the routine harassment that shopworkers experienced. During Brighton's Race Week, her lodgings became a magnet for local lads trying to pay late-night visits. She remembers that they 'knocked at our ground-floor windows and tried to pull them down'. Not being 'that kind of girl', she and the other occupants managed, often after a struggle, to slam and bolt the windows. The experience frightened Margaret deeply. 

Occasionally, similar stories made it into the newspapers. Under the headline 'Disgraceful Affair at Cardiff', The Drapers Record revelled in the tale of 'two gentlemen of good position' who broke into the female lodgings of Howells department store late one night, where thirty women were asleep. Some shopgirls were so frightened that they locked themselves in their bedrooms, while others alerted the authorities. On being arrested the men claimed that they thought the lodging house a brothel.

Shopworkers had little recourse but to live with the situation as employers refused to allow their staff to join the newly formed trade unions.

Even if a shopgirl could muster the courage to sign up to a union, she faced further challenges. Most unions, even the new ones, were run by men for men. The earliest organisations had been set up to fight for a family wage for male breadwinners. It was difficult for the unions to justify the promotion of female workers' rights when the majority of their membership feared that women would undercut men's wages. On top of this, they were increasingly concerned that women might muscle in on their skills.

Working and Living Conditions

Most shops were owned and managed by men. In larger stores senior male floorwalkers patrolled departments, imposing discipline and fines on junior staff members.

Margaret was horrified by the routine harassment that shopworkers experienced. During Brighton's Race Week, her lodgings became a magnet for local lads trying to pay late-night visits. She remembers that they 'knocked at our ground-floor windows and tried to pull them down'. Not being 'that kind of girl', she and the other occupants managed, often after a struggle, to slam and bolt the windows. The experience frightened Margaret deeply. 

Shop assistants were housed in cramped conditions above the shop. Margaret commented that this meant “sleeping in bare, dingy, stuffy, dormitories, intolerably hot in summer, miserably cold in winter, never being alone even when washing. No place to keep ones things, except in a box under the bed. Nights spent with a poor consumptive girl who just coughed and coughed” Petty fines were imposed for being untidy, being late or leaving the gaslight on.

Living-in suppressed shopworkers individuality, having no home, no choice about their clothing, or food, or their hours of work with the worry of instant dismissal if they complained or broke the rules. 

Margaret proved to be the perfect spy. As Grace Dare, she documented squalor and exploitation behind the counter.  As well as providing first-hand evidence for a 1898 Women's Industrial Council report. Her revelations were published in the union journal, The Shop Assistant, and were also reworked by the popular Daily Chronicle newspaper in a series promising to reveal the true 'life of shops.’ The final report influenced Parliament to pass the 1899 Seats for Shop Assistants Act and the 1904 Shop Hours Act.

With sincere thanks to Sue Heward for research undertaken from archives held at Chard Museum