24 Facts About Julia Varley

Julia Varley, OBE was an English trade unionist and suffragette.

Julia Varley's maternal grandfather, Joseph B Alderson, was among those protesting during the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and was a Chartist during the 1830s, and it was perhaps from him that she inherited her social conscience and desire to campaign for the rights of ordinary working people.

Julia Varley talked to workers about the importance of joining a union.

Julia Varley was the first woman to join the Bradford Trades Council in 1900, and went on to serve on the Council for seven years.

Julia Varley served on the Board of the Poor Law Guardians of Bradford between 1904 and 1907.

Julia Varley joined the Women's Social and Political Union, with whom in February 1907 she was involved in a raid on the floor of the House of Commons.

Julia Varley refused to pay a fine for disturbance and obstruction and was sentenced to 14 days in Holloway Prison.

Julia Varley served a second sentence for a similar action and was released on April 20,1907.

In 1909 Julia Varley moved to Birmingham and established a branch of the National Federation of Women Workers at the Cadbury factory at Bournville.

Julia Varley was involved in the Cradley Heath women chainmakers' strike of 1910, led by Mary Macarthur, and the Black Country strike of 1913, and later sat on the General Council of the Trade Union Congress.

From 1912 to 1929 Julia Varley was an organiser for the Workers' Union.

Until 1915 Julia Varley was the only female organiser in the Workers' Union, actively working for the Union as an organiser throughout World War I, even though she endured a serious operation on her throat in 1917.

Julia Varley disagreed with many of the male members of the Birmingham Trades Council when the government introduced conscription, joining the breakaway Birmingham Trade Union Industrial Council.

In 1918 Julia Varley joined five other women who were sent to France to investigate rumours that WAACs serving there during WWI had behaved in an immoral way.

In 1920 in Birmingham Julia Varley founded a Domestic Servants' Union to take on the plight of the 1.25 million female domestic servants.

Julia Varley set up a social club for these women in Birmingham which the Daily Chronicle referred to as a "servants' paradise".

Julia Varley was a member of a 1923 Ministry of Labour enquiry into the problem of the 'servant shortage'.

Julia Varley worked with the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women, and in 1925 travelled to Canada to meet women who had settled there.

Julia Varley was Women Workers member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, and Chief Women's Officer of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Julia Varley was appointed OBE in 1931 for Public Service.

In 1928 and 1937 Julia Varley underwent surgery on her eyes and eventually went blind.

Julia Varley was the principal speaker of the delegation in her role on the Women's Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the International Committee of Trade Union Women.

Julia Varley retired in 1938 but continued to live in Birmingham, but because of her failing health and blindness she went to live with her widowed sister Jessie Wooller in Bradford in Yorkshire.

Julia Varley died in November 1952 aged 81 at 32 Hampden Street in Bradford and was buried in Undercliffe Cemetery.