A Liverpool Exemplar - Elizabeth Macadam

Elizabeth reading with Eleanor Rathbone

 

Elizabeth Macadam was born on 10 October 1871, in the village of Chryston outside Gasgow to Revd. Thomas Macadam, a minister in the Free Church of Scotland and Elizabeth Whyt. However she would later become closely associated with Liverpool and its University through her activities in the field of social work. She spent part of her childhood in Canada with her father serving as a minister in Ontario. Following the death of her mother and the retirement of her father, Elizabeth and her sister Margaret returned to Scotland as young women. Then in the late nineteenth century, she spent time in Germany where she worked in a kindergarten.

The Victoria Women’s Settlement

In 1898 she was awarded a Pfeiffer scholarship and trained in social work at the Women's University Settlement in Southwark, London where, during her four years there, she helped run an evening school for approximately one hundred adolescent boys and girls. She was then given the chance to run her own settlement, Liverpool's Victoria Women’s Settlement, situated in Netherfield Road in the working class area of Everton, which had been opened in 1898 under the auspices of the Liverpool Union of Women Workers as a residential home for women engaged in social work. Here she served as the warden between 1902 and 1910 working alongside the secretary, Eleanor Rathbone, with whom she would subsequently become close friends. Its aim was to bring the two social elements commonly designated as 'rich' and 'poor' into some sort of natural and friendly relationship with each other, so that each might get to know and understand a little of the other. Elizabeth was a strong advocate for the professional development of social work and under her stewardship the settlement thrived, thanks in part to the increased emphasis she placed on the professionalization of social work and the need for formal training. In 1904 it began a training programme for social workers which included lectures on poverty, child welfare, and civic administration. These courses were complemented by opportunities for practical work experience with municipal and voluntary associations. The training of the settlement's workers was undertaken in association with the Liverpool University School of Social Science and of Training for Social Work, established in January 1905. Liverpool became the first British city after London to start a school of this kind in connection with its university and in 1910 took over the running of this programme. Elizabeth was the first lecturer on the methods and practice of social work and by 1914 more than 100 students were enrolled on the course. In 1916, at the request of the Ministry of Munitions, she helped to devise training courses for welfare workers. 

'The 1918 Club', a lunch club for women was set up in 1918 by Elizabeth and her great friend and companion Eleanor Rathbone, thought to be the longest established gathering place for women in Liverpool. Up to this point such clubs had been the preserve of men, with women being expected to meet each other at home where they could talk about sewing or church-based activities. However the two friends thought this could help preserve many of the friendships made during the war-period and many of the alliances forged through the suffrage campaign, and also to form new contacts amongst professional working women and social welfare workers.

In 1919, after she had left Liverpool permanently for London, both the Victoria Settlement and the School of Social Science continued. In 1928 the first student to take an Honours Degree in Social Science graduated; this was Margaret Simey. 

In London, Elizabeth and Eleanor Rathbone bought a house together as Elizabeth became secretary of the newly established Joint University Council for Social Studies. In the same year, she became president of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC), also becoming an NUSEC officer involved in editing its paper, the Woman's Leader. The two friends continued to share the house until Eleanor Rathbone's sudden death in January 1946 after which Elizabeth returned to Edinburgh where she spent the rest of her life before dying of cancer on the 25th of October 1948.

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/11/a-liverpool-exemplar-sir-james-allanson.html