14 Facts About Clara Collet

Clara Collet was a British economist and civil servant.

Clara Collet was one of the first women graduates from the University of London and was pivotal in many reforms which greatly improved working conditions and pay for women during the early part of the twentieth century.

Clara Collet is noted for the collection of statistical and descriptive evidence on the life of working women and poor people in London and elsewhere in England.

In October 1885 Clara Collet moved to College Hall, on Gordon Square, and started to study for a master's degree in Moral and Political Philosophy, which included psychology and economics.

Clara Collet was working on a chapter on women's work in Booth's survey Life and Labour of the People of London.

Webb and Clara Collet had a mutual friend, Eleanor Marx, and Clara Collet had in 1887 attended the Toynbee Hall conference on women's work and wages, which had been attended by Booth.

Clara Collet was formally employed by Booth in late 1888 and took over Green's study of women's work in the East End of London and contributed to Graham Balfour's study of Battersea Street.

Clara Collet remained close to Booth and her former colleagues.

Clara Collet joined the Civil Service and worked with the Board of Trade to introduce many reforms, including the introduction of the Old Age Pension and labour exchanges.

Clara Collet retired from the civil service in 1920 and became an active member of the Royal Economic Society and the Royal Statistical Society.

Clara Collet's family became acquainted with Karl Marx and Clara became especially friendly with his daughter Eleanor Marx.

Clara Collet was a friend of George Gissing during the last ten years of his life, and she offered to act as guardian to his two sons when it became clear his second wife, Edith, would find it hard to cope financially after his death.

For Charles Booth's survey Life and Labour of the People of London Clara Collet authored Secondary Education; Girls, West End Tailoring, Women's Work and Report on the Money Wages of Indoor Domestic Servants.

Clara Collet remained interested in the study of women's work for the rest of her life and published articles on the economic position of women.