On Thursday night (22 November) I went along to the Paisley Philosophical Institution monthly meeting to hear Lil Brookes talk about ‘The Ladies A, B & C’ a project and film that she worked on with women in the Disability Resource Centre in Paisley.
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Lil is a social historian and artist who runs her own small and successful business Gatekeeper Art. Before becoming her own boss (her lifelong dream) Lil worked for many years in vocational education as a training officer including some time as Education & Outreach Officer for West Dunbartonshire Museums based at Clydebank Museum.
More recently she’s been working in community outreach with adults with mental health issues, older adults, and adults with physical and learning disabilities. Lil uses heritage as the means to interact with these ‘hard to reach’ groups, working in partnership with museums, libraries and a variety of community/ charity groups to build ways of using resources with the outcome of developing ways of learning from our shared heritage or enhancing well-being. Lil wears ‘many hats’ in her work as a business person; project manager; artist and social historian, all firmly rooted within a community based practice.
I’ve known Lil for a wee while now, and have consistently been impressed with the approaches she uses in her work as well as her dedication in making sessions interactive, interesting and empowering for the women working with her. Lil uses heritage resources such as archive materials and historical artifacts to facilitate women in the groups she works with to do their own research and find out about women’s history in the areas in which they live.
Lil’s talk focused on how she researched, developed and delivered the ‘The Ladies A, B & C‘ community heritage project which aimed to ‘raise the profile of some of the ‘forgotten’ women of the Victorian and Edwardian era in the Paisley and Renfrewshire area and shine a light on their contribution to the shaping of our shared local heritage’. As Lil stated:
In the year of the centenary of some women getting the right to vote this women’s heritage project was a celebration for a group of today’s women in Paisley and Renfrewshire of Jane Arthur, Mary Barbour, Margaret Glen Coats, Elisabeth Hodge Coats and Bertha Kerr Coats…the Ladies A, B & C.
The projects Lil Coordinates are truly ‘hands on’ history, with Lil using a range of sensory participation for all members of the group – what she calls ‘sensing history’. For example when the women of the group were learning about Jane Arthur everyone engaged in a blindfolded taste test of a variety of soft drinks – dandelion and burdock, ginger beer, lemonade and aerated water – to explore the reasons for the popularity of the temperance movement in Paisley, of which Arthur was a prominent campaigner. When learning about women’s demand for the vote and Mary Barbour’s role in the Rent Strikes at Glasgow Museum Resource Centre the group were able to touch and feel artifacts such as banners, pamphlets and the group members with sight loss particularly enjoyed being able to handle a silk scarf owned by a suffrage campaigner.
Jane Arthur (Mitchell Library, 920.04BAI) ©Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
I went along to Lil’s talk knowing a fair bit about Mary Barbour, but knew very little about any of the other women. Jane Arthur as well as being a temperance campaigner was the first woman to be elected to a School Board in Scotland. In 1873 she was elected ahead of the well-known male candidates, winning by around 3,000 votes. She supported a variety of reforms including equal educational opportunity for girls and access to higher education for women (there’s still a bursary at the University of Glasgow named after her). She also served on the boards of the Paisley Ladies Sanitary Association, the Dorcas Society, Paisley Infirmary, Invalid Convalescent Home in West Kilbride, and the Paisley Model Lodging House for men. Her role in the temperance movement was motivated by a desire to end domestic violence against women.
The Coats women, known in their lifetimes by their husbands forenames as many women were, were also involved in all sorts of campaigns for reforms. Margaret Glen Coats was Jane Arthur’s sister and she was also a member of the Paisley Ladies Sanitary Association which provided tickets for free baths at the local public bath house. It also paid for women to go round cleaning the houses of the poor to guard against infection in the 1860s. The range of pamphlets produced by this Association were particularly interesting with such titles as ‘The Health of Mother’ and ‘Managing a Baby’ with others focusing on married life and money management. Elizabeth Hodge Coats was involved in establishing the Paisley branch of the Scotch Girls Friendly Society which built a home in 1900 for girls who had migrated from the highlands or Ireland to work in the thread mills in Paisley. Finally, Bertha Kerr Coats, who herself was born into a wealthy thread family in Paisley, and was an heiress who went to finishing school, became interested in welfare reforms for children and a variety of organisations and charities for relieving poverty after her son was killed during the First World War. (You’ll notice there are no links for the Coats women, we know lots about the Coats men, but not much online about the women!!)
Therefore, as well as talking about the lives of women in the past, discussions of inequality, poverty, charity, philanthropy and temperance enabled women from the Disability Resource Group to reflect on issues on their own communities and families too.
‘The Ladies A, B & C’ project resulted in a co-produced film (also in cooperation with Media Monty, the National Library of Scotland, Renfrewshire Council and Glasgow Museums) which ensured that the members of the group weren’t just learning about history but were also making history themselves. You can watch the whole film here:
Lil’s talk gave me a great deal to think about in terms of co-production and community practice and the ways in which heritage and ‘sensing history’ (to borrow her term) can bring history alive to empower people and improve their well-being.
Lil’s new project with the women from the Disability Resource Centre is called ‘The Matron, The Parish & Pauper Girls‘ all about women’s experiences of 19th Century Social Welfare. This time she’s working with school groups too. I’m looking forward to seeing what the groups find out and obviously seeing the film at the end!!
If you’d like to find out more about Gatekeeper Art and what Lil’s up to see:
Facebook: Facebook/Gatekeeper Art
Twitter: @gatekeeper_art
Valerie Wright (University of Glasgow)