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The year 2000 marks the 75th anniversary of the Commonwealth Countries League, established to secure equality of freedoms, status and opportunity between men and women throughout the Commonwealth. The article outlines the League's origins, the work of the education fund, and the Commonwealth Fair, from which it derives its funding. Membership has grown to more than 300 individual members, and together with 38 affiliated or associated organizations, the league links a number of women's organizations throughout the Commonwealth. A principal activity is the Commonwealth Countries League Education Fund, established to enable academically able girls to complete secondary education which might otherwise be prevented by family economic circumstances. The aim is to help 200 girls each year. The original Bring and Buy Party to support the scheme in its early days has developed into the annual Commonwealth Fair. As part of the celebrations the league will hold a conference on 20 May at Marlborough House, London, focusing on aspects of lifelong education.
THE YEAR 2000 MARKS THE 75th anniversary of the Commonwealth Countries League. As part of the celebrations the League will hold a Conference on 20 May at Marlborough House, London, focusing on aspects of lifelong education. This article will outline its origin, the work of the education fund and the Commonwealth Fair which funds the charity.
The birth of the British Commonwealth League
The League emerged from the movement for equal suffrage which grew during the first quarter of this century, when a group of women from many countries who were regularly meeting each other through various organizations and at international conferences and congresses finally got together to found a new organization.1
So it was on Monday 25 May 1925 that 13 distinguished women from Britain, Australia and South Africa assembled and founded a new type of organization, the membership of which would be drawn from the then British Empire and Dominions. Its objective would be to grapple with issues of equal citizenship, educational opportunities and influence; with the explicit understanding that women citizens would be represented in the political sphere at every level in the British Commonwealth of Nations-a task which continues to this day through what is now the Commonwealth. The organization was to work through a programme which would include...