Elizabeth Wilson’s tea cosy
On Friday 14 October 2022 I visited Geneva to collect a tea cosy belonging to a Huddersfield housewife. How did this homely object end up starring in an international museum?
Elizabeth Wilson (1909–2000) was a humanitarian, housewife and peace campaigner from Huddersfield, Yorkshire. In 2022 she was celebrated by The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in the ‘Who Cares?’ exhibition (31 May to 9 October 2022), which focused on the part played by women in fundraising, delivering aid and campaigning for change. Items loaned by The University of Manchester Library from the Elizabeth Wilson collection included a beautiful red silk, hand-crafted tea cosy and a selection of evocative images documenting Wilson’s humanitarian activities.
As you can see above Elizabeth’s tea cosy was given star treatment and displayed in a custom-built Perspex box. On the wall behind the case a selection of images from Elizabeth’s slide collection were enlarged and mounted.
Elizabeth was a talented photographer who had an eye for capturing people and conveying place. Below you can see more clearly some of the featured slides. You can also access digital copies of the slides loaned to the museum here
The UK’s First Fair Trade object?
Why was the tea cosy selected for display? According to Bertrand Taithe, Professor of Cultural History at the University of Manchester, Elizabeth’s red silk teapot warmer represents one of the earliest examples of handcrafted goods sold at fair prices to directly support overseas communities. As the label inside the tea cosy shows, the product was distributed by the Lutheran World Federation which supported humanitarian activities in Hong Kong. These tea and coffee pot warmers were created by Chinese refugees in Hong Kong during the 1960s and sold to UK customers via a mail order catalogue.
Hudfam
The charity Oxfam is a household name, but did you know there was a parallel organisation in the North of England? The Huddersfield and District Committee for Famine Relief, or Hudfam for short, was established during World War II in response to famines in India and Greece. One of its a founders was Elizabeth Wilson (1909–2000). For many years Hudfam operated as a sister branch of Oxfam, running its own shop whose profits funded various overseas relief projects in India and elsewhere. Elizabeth later worked for Oxfam and played a pivotal role in introducing the concept ‘fair trade’ handicrafts as a mechanism for raising aid money.
In August 2021 notebooks, slides, correspondence, press clippings and a silk coffee pot warmer and a silk teapot cosy belonging to Elizabeth Wilson were deposited at the University of Manchester Library. It was the founding collection of the Library’s new Humanitarian Archive launched in October 2021 and the auspicious start of a partnership with the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) and The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.
Elizabeth Wilson’s humanitarian work was just one chapter in her long and fascinating life. One of my favourite stories documented in her archive concerns Wilson’s short imprisonment for CND activism. Refusing to pay the fine that would have ensure her release, Elizabeth complained heartily throughout her short sojourn. I imagine the prison authorities were quite pleased when her time was up. Elizabeth’s daughter, Erica Wilson, was also involved in the Peace Movement.
Discussion Points
- How have women contributed to relief work and humanitarianism? and has their role changed over time?
- What motivated Elizabeth Wilson?
- Do ethical considerations concern consumers today? which ones?
Additional Resources
West Yorkshire Archive Service: Kirklees, holds archives related to Elizabeth Wilson including the records of The Huddersfield and District Committee for Famine Relief. Ref KC1030
- Huddersfield’s humanitarian past
- Adam J Millar, Huddersfield’s Humanitarians: A history of the aims and origins of the Huddersfield and District Famine Relief Committee, MA Thesis
- Article based on the archives of the Huddersfield and District Committee for Famine Relief and the papers of Elizabeth Wilson. Bertrand Taithe, Demotic humanitarians: historical perspectives on the global reach of local initiatives, 1940–2017
- Below you can hear Bertrand Taithe, Professor of Cultural History explain how Elizabeth Wilson was both ‘ordinary and exceptional’. He also discusses the significance of the handcrafted silk coffee and tea pot warmers sold to raise money — these objects were quite possibly the UK’s first ‘fair trade’ products!
