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‘Women Who Rule at the BBC’: Four Elite Women

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Abstract

Several women reached positions of considerable authority in the BBC and this chapter takes as its focus the Corporation’s four highest earning female employees of the interwar years. Three women attained Director-level positions: Hilda Matheson, Director of Talks (1927–1932); Mary Somerville, Director of School Broadcasting (1931–1937) and Isa Benzie, Foreign Director (1933–1938). A fourth woman, Mary Adams, became the first female television producer in 1937. Operating within the Corporation’s male hierarchy, the chapter assesses their impact, the way they negotiated their roles and the discrimination, if any, they faced. It also places their success in the context of other high-flying career women of the period. The chapter also considers the impact of the professionalisation of broadcasting on BBC women’s careers.

Answers, 5 October 1935

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Quoted in Michael Fogarty, A.J. Allen, Isobel Allen, Patricia Walters (1971) Women in Top Jobs: Four Studies in Achievement (London: Allen and Unwin) p. 166.

  2. 2.

    Women in Top Jobs, p. 165.

  3. 3.

    Carol Dyhouse (1995) No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (London: UCL Press) p. 150; Dorothy Evans (1934) Women and the Civil Service (London: Pitman) pp. 151–8. Dorothy Evans identified two female senior civil servants who were on salaries in excess of £1,300 in 1934. The Director of Women Establishments earned an undisclosed salary.

  4. 4.

    Hilda Matheson letters, (hereafter HML), 12 January 1929.

  5. 5.

    The Gazette (the journal of the John Lewis Partnership), 23 January 1932. Sangster and Wood’s salary is undisclosed but Biscoe estimated a Managing Director in advertising earned £1,000 a year. Vyrnwy Biscoe (1932) 300 Careers for Women (London: Lovat Dickson) p. 18.

  6. 6.

    Adrian Bingham (2004) Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Inter-War Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press) pp. 50–2, 63–8.

  7. 7.

    The Star, 19 November 1937.

  8. 8.

    Maxine Berg (1996) A Woman in History: Eileen Power 1889–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 181. This was her salary range in 1932.

  9. 9.

    Berg, A Woman in History, p. 181.

  10. 10.

    Alix Meynell (1984) Public Servant, Private Women: An Autobiography (London: Victor Gollanz) p. 129; Beatrice Gordon Holmes (1944) In Love with Life: A Pioneer Career Woman’s Story (London: Hollis & Carter) pp. 82–4. Holmes was debarred from membership of the London Stock Exchange, which refused entry to women until 1973.

  11. 11.

    For a discussion on the experiences and attributes of elite women see Fogarty, Women in Top Jobs, pp. 14–16, 34, 41. Kanter also investigated the circumstances of women in top jobs. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books) pp. 206–29.

  12. 12.

    Nigel Nicolson (2004) Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters, 1907–1964 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson) p. 92.

  13. 13.

    Harold Nicolson (1932) Public Faces (London: Penguin) p. 80.

  14. 14.

    Meynell, Public Servant, p. 129.

  15. 15.

    Virginia Nicholson provides a colourful overview of many successful women. Virginia Nicholson (2007) Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived without Men after the First World War (London: Viking).

  16. 16.

    Meynell, Public Servant, pp. 76–8.

  17. 17.

    Berg, A Woman in History, p. 55. Power’s father went to prison for fraud and her mother died when she was fourteen.

  18. 18.

    Various Authors (1941) Hilda Matheson (Letchworth: The Hogarth Press), memories of Ruth Butler and Mrs H.A.L. Fisher, pp. 27–31, 39–42; Michael Carney (1999) Stoker: The Biography of Hilda Matheson OBE, 1888–1940 (Llangynog: Michael Carney) pp. 6–9.

  19. 19.

    Mary Somerville, ‘A Tribute from her Friends’, broadcast 31 May 1964, memory of Janet Vaughan.

  20. 20.

    Biographical details from Carney, Stoker.

  21. 21.

    Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Mary Adams, entry 30750 by Sally Adams.

  22. 22.

    Matheson’s ‘Sumner Place Family’ were Marjorie Maxse, the future Conservative MP and Dorothy Spencer.

  23. 23.

    Berg, A Woman in History, p. 141. Vera Brittain (1940) Testament of Friendship (London: Fontana) pp. 113, 274; Meynell, Public Servant, pp. 105, 159. See also Nicholson, Singled Out, pp. 151–7.

  24. 24.

    HML, 2 February 1929.

  25. 25.

    For example, Matheson went to two parties at Somerville’s new house, HML, 2 February 1929, 8 May 1929.

  26. 26.

    BBC/WAC: Mary Somerville Staff File 2: (hereafter MSSF:2), Nicolls to Carpendale, 25 May 1934. There are extensive expense files for Mary Adams, see for example BBC/WAC:S322/39/2: Correspondence, Talks Department.

  27. 27.

    Control Board Minutes often report the payment of subscription fees for Clubs. A few women profited from this. Dorothea Barcroft, Birmingham Children’s Hour Organiser joined the Soroptimist Club in June 1928 and Kathleen Lines the Arts Theatre Club in April 1930. BBC/WAC:R3/3: Control Board Minutes, 26 June 1928, 10 April 1930.

  28. 28.

    Winifred Holtby (1934) Women and a Changing Civilisation (London: Lane and Bodley Head) p. 90.

  29. 29.

    HML, 12 December 1928.

  30. 30.

    Women’s Library:5/WPV/3/1:Women’s Provisional Club (WPC): Executive Committee Minutes, 29 March 1931, 31 May 1932.

  31. 31.

    WPC: Executive Committee Minutes, 14 September 1936, 25 January 1937.

  32. 32.

    BBC/WAC:L2/195/1: Mary Somerville Staff File:1 (hereafter MSSF:1), 1925–35. Undated but between April 1927 and February 1928.

  33. 33.

    Broadcast 4 April 1924.

  34. 34.

    Mary Somerville, ‘How School Broadcasting Grew Up’ in Richard Palmer ed. (1947) School Broadcasting in Britain (London: BBC) p. 9.

  35. 35.

    Reith Diaries, 11 April 1924.

  36. 36.

    The Times, Mary Somerville Obituary, 6 September 1963.

  37. 37.

    MSSF:1, Somerville to Reith, 24 February 1925.

  38. 38.

    MSSF:1, Stobart to Carpendale, 4 March 1925. Somerville’s literary connections included Robert Graves, Robert Bridges, Sir Edmund Gosse and George Moore, Manchester Guardian, 2 September 1963, News Chronicle, 16 January 1936. News Chronicle hinted that to enter broadcasting she gave up a promising literary career, her early short stories being ‘acclaimed by discriminating critics’. Because of ill health Somerville was awarded an aegrotat degree.

  39. 39.

    For a more detailed history of school broadcasting see Asa Briggs (1965) The Golden Age of Wireless: The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press) pp. 185–218; Mary Somerville, ‘How School Broadcasting Grew Up’, pp. 9–16.

  40. 40.

    BBC/WAC:R13/419/1/ Departmental: Talks Division: Talks Department 1923–29, Duties, Talks Section, October 1926.

  41. 41.

    For specific details of the Kent Report see Briggs, Golden Age of Wireless, pp. 190–5.

  42. 42.

    The Carnegie Trust funded the experiment. Kent was chosen partly because of its range of urban, rural and semi-rural schools.

  43. 43.

    Somerville, ‘How School Broadcasting Grew Up’, pp. 12–13.

  44. 44.

    Rough Notes for Co-ordinating Committee Discussion, October 1954, as quoted in Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless, p. 195.

  45. 45.

    ‘Boys and Girls of Other Days’ was broadcast weekly from 17 January 1928.

  46. 46.

    ‘Music and Movement’ was first broadcast 28 September 1934.

  47. 47.

    Good Housekeeping, August 1935.

  48. 48.

    Somerville, ‘How School Broadcasting Grew Up’, p. 12.

  49. 49.

    Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless, p. 195.

  50. 50.

    BBC/WAC:R16/537: School Broadcasting Memos and Reports, Somerville to Local Education Authorities, 22 July 1930.

  51. 51.

    BBC/WAC:R13/216/2: School Broadcasting Department:2.

  52. 52.

    Lambert (1940) Ariel and All his Quality (London: Gollanz) p. 54.

  53. 53.

    BBC/WAC:R49/611/1: Schools Broadcasting, Somerville to Siepmann, 26 August 1933.

  54. 54.

    Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless, pp. 201, 206.

  55. 55.

    Cameron was formerly Director of Education for Oxford.

  56. 56.

    Somerville was shocked when she first became aware of how much larger Cameron’s salary was than hers. Mary Somerville Papers, Letter to Briggs from Rowan Davies, 21 February 1965.

  57. 57.

    MSSF:1, Eckersley to Goldsmith, 13 September 1926. Somerville’s salary compared favourably to her male colleagues. In 1927, as Education Assistants, George Dixon earned £200, Derek McCulloch earned £350 and, arriving in 1928, Tony Rendall earned £280.

  58. 58.

    MSSF:1, Confidential Report, February 1929.

  59. 59.

    MSSF:1, Confidential Report, February 1930. Somerville was acknowledged as ‘virtually Schools Director’.

  60. 60.

    Siepmann joined the Adult Education Section in 1927 as an Assistant.

  61. 61.

    MSSF:1, Graves to Eckersley, 6 March 1930.

  62. 62.

    MSSF:1, undated, unsigned but most probably sometime in 1933.

  63. 63.

    In 1933, Siepmann earned £1700 to Somerville’s £950.

  64. 64.

    Radio Pictorial, 4 October 1935.

  65. 65.

    A memo states that Somerville’s husband lived in the Balkans and did not contribute to the household expenses. MSSF:1, Nicolls to Carpendale, 30 July 1934.

  66. 66.

    It is hard to think of many examples. Sarah Lewis, the wife of John Spedan Lewis, continued to work for the John Lewis Partnership, as a Director of Peter Jones and Deputy Director of the Partnership, while raising three young children. Other senior professional women who were mothers and who worked included the haematologist Janet Vaughan and the crystallographer, Kathleen Lonsdale.

  67. 67.

    MSSF:2, Clarke to Pym, with handwritten additions by Rose Troup, 7 June 1939.

  68. 68.

    Asa Briggs (1979) The War of Words, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. 3 (London: Oxford University Press) pp. 105–6, 636–7.

  69. 69.

    BBC/WAC:S61: Special Collections: Autobiographical Sketches of Lance Sieveking, p. 43.

  70. 70.

    BBC/WAC:L1/305/2: Herbert Milliken Staff File, Nicolls conversation with Milliken, 12 June 1934.

  71. 71.

    BBC/WAC:R13/216/1: Schools Broadcasting Department, document headed ‘Schools Department Staff’, 1 June 1933.

  72. 72.

    Berg, A Woman of History, pp. 232–4.

  73. 73.

    Lambert, Ariel in All his Quality, p. 54.

  74. 74.

    Roger Eckersley (1946) The BBC and All That (London: Sampson Low, Marston) pp. 159–60.

  75. 75.

    Reith Diaries, for example 15 February 1927, 22 January 1930, 12 December 1933, 29 May 1936.

  76. 76.

    Lambert, Ariel in All his Quality, p. 54.

  77. 77.

    BBC/WAC:R3/3/10: Control Board Minutes, 7 January 1930.

  78. 78.

    Maurice Gorham (1948) Sound and Fury (London: Percival Marshall) p. 17.

  79. 79.

    Lambert, Ariel in All his Quality, p. 54.

  80. 80.

    The Times, 6 September 1963.

  81. 81.

    HML, 11 June 1929. There is a large historiography on Matheson; see, for example, Carney, Stoker; Various Authors, Hilda Matheson; Briggs, Golden Age of Wireless, especially pp. 124–7, 141–3; Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff (1991) A Social History of British Broadcasting, 1922–1939 (London: Basil Blackwood) particularly pp. 153–62. Matheson is also the focus of Fred Hunter, ‘Hilda Matheson and the BBC, 1926–1940’ in Sybil Oldfield, ed. (1994) This Working Day World: Women’s Lives and Cultures in Britain (London: Taylor & Francis) pp. 169–74 and Charlotte Higgins (2015) This New Noise: The Extraordinary Birth and Troubled Life of the BBC (London: Guardian Books) pp. 17–36. Matheson also features heavily in Victoria Glendinning’s biography of Vita. Victoria Glendinning (1983) Vita: The Life of Vita Sackville-West (London: Penguin).

  82. 82.

    Reith Diaries, 27 May 1924.

  83. 83.

    See, for example, Reith Diaries, 26 March 1926, ‘Saw Miss H Matheson whom I think should be in the BBC somewhere’.

  84. 84.

    Various authors, Hilda Matheson, pp. 15–16.

  85. 85.

    While Stobart retained responsibility for Schools and Adult Education, Matheson became Director of a separate Talks Section.

  86. 86.

    HML, 6 February 1929.

  87. 87.

    See, for example, Hugh Chignell (2011) Public Issue Radio: Talks, News and Current Affairs in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) pp. 11–16.

  88. 88.

    Hilda Matheson (1933) Broadcasting (London: Thornton Butterworth) pp. 14, 16.

  89. 89.

    See, for example, Todd Avery (2006) Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922–1938 (Aldershot: Ashgate) pp. 45–50, 95–102.

  90. 90.

    For an analysis of the significance of the News Section see Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting pp. 113–16; Hunter, Hilda Matheson, p. 171.

  91. 91.

    Various authors, Hilda Matheson, pp. 22–6; HML, 3 September 1929.

  92. 92.

    See, for example, Matheson, Broadcasting, pp. 71–7.

  93. 93.

    The talk was with Hugh Walpole.

  94. 94.

    The most intensive period of letter-writing was between 20 December 1928 and 1 March 1929, when Vita was in Berlin.

  95. 95.

    HML, 3 January 1929.

  96. 96.

    Eckersley, The BBC and All That, p. 100. The dog, a spaniel called Torquhil, had been a gift from Vita.

  97. 97.

    HML, 28 January 1929.

  98. 98.

    She also wrote effusively about another personal appointee, Joseph Ackerley. ‘Lionel and Joe are dears’, ‘Lionel and Joe have been very sweet to me’, HML, 14 January, 21 January 1929. Ackerley would go on to be Literary Editor of The Listener; Fielden to be Controller of Broadcasting in India.

  99. 99.

    Lionel Fielden (1960) The Natural Bent (London: Andre Deutsch) p. 114.

  100. 100.

    Lambert, Ariel in All his Quality, p. 25.

  101. 101.

    Lambert, p. 63.

  102. 102.

    Sieveking, Autobiographical Sketches, p. 49. Sieveking left the Talks Department in 1928 to join the Research Department.

  103. 103.

    Matheson, Broadcasting, pp. 51–2.

  104. 104.

    For example, HML, 6 January 1929, 16 January 1929, 5 January 1929.

  105. 105.

    HML, 21 December 1928.

  106. 106.

    HML, 3 January 1929.

  107. 107.

    Eckersley, The BBC and All That, pp. 156, 124.

  108. 108.

    Matheson, Broadcasting, p. 93.

  109. 109.

    The De-Rating Act was intended to encourage agriculture and industry, by freeing them from a portion of the rates.

  110. 110.

    HML, 5 January 1929, 15 January 1929.

  111. 111.

    HML, 22 January 1929.

  112. 112.

    For example, she decried her ‘damned thin-skinnedness’, HML, 6 January 1929.

  113. 113.

    HML, 20 February 1929.

  114. 114.

    Eckersley, The BBC and All That, p. 137.

  115. 115.

    HML, 20 June 1929. Reith commented in his diary, ‘Saw Eckersley and Miss Matheson about her work and there is trouble brewing there’, Reith Diaries, 20 June 1929.

  116. 116.

    HML, 22 June 1929.

  117. 117.

    HML, 28 June 1929.

  118. 118.

    HML, 10 February 1929, 28 June 1929, 3 July 1929.

  119. 119.

    Matheson was Director of Talks (General); Siepmann, Director of Adult Education (Talks); Mary Somerville, Director of Schools (Talks).

  120. 120.

    Evelyn Irons was the Woman’s Page Editor of the Daily Mail. She had come to interview Vita on 6 March 1931. Glendinning, Vita, pp. 238–9.

  121. 121.

    Reith Diaries, ‘Miss Matheson has joined us and is doing well’, 29 October 1926. On 1 March 1927, Reith recorded a lunch with Miss Matheson and Ernest Barker; on 13 October 1928, he went to Peaslake in Surrey with Miss Matheson to meet her family.

  122. 122.

    Reith Diaries, 4 March 1930.

  123. 123.

    Michael Carney drew extensively on Harold Nicolson’s diaries for his understanding of Matheson’s resignation from the BBC. Carney, Stoker, pp. 71–4.

  124. 124.

    Reith Diaries, November 1931 (no date) Reith recorded receiving Matheson’s resignation: ‘It is her own fault that things have got to this pass, but she was quite mad about it’.

  125. 125.

    Manchester Guardian, 4 December 1931.

  126. 126.

    Evening News, 3 December 1931.

  127. 127.

    News Chronicle, 3 December 1931.

  128. 128.

    Rosabeth Moss Kanter identified this as a factor that negatively affected women managers in the 1970s. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, p. 214.

  129. 129.

    Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless, p. 141.

  130. 130.

    HML, 20 December 1928, 27 December 1928.

  131. 131.

    Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, p. 155.

  132. 132.

    Fielden, The Natural Bent, pp. 115–16.

  133. 133.

    For a discussion on Siepmann’s tenure as Talks Director see Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, pp. 154–61.

  134. 134.

    Michael Carney holds this view, Carney, Stoker, p. 79.

  135. 135.

    Fielden, The Natural Bent, p. 117.

  136. 136.

    See Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, pp. 153–9.

  137. 137.

    For a discussion on Matheson’s career after the BBC, see Carney, Stoker, pp. 85–137.

  138. 138.

    See Jane Wellesley (2008) Wellington: A Journey through My Family (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson) pp. 289–90.

  139. 139.

    BBC/WAC:L1/1049/2: Isa Benzie Staff File 2 (hereafter IBSF:2), Atkinson to Goldsmith, 29 November 1927, note from Carpendale.

  140. 140.

    Reith Diaries, 22 January 1924.

  141. 141.

    IBSF:2, Colonel Benzie to Reith, 6 June 1927.

  142. 142.

    IBSF:2, Reith to Colonel Benzie, 8 June 1927.

  143. 143.

    IBSF:2, Wade to Carpendale, 28 October 1928. It was turned down on the grounds that secretaries were expected to deputise when their principals were on leave.

  144. 144.

    IBSF:2, Atkinson to? (unclear), 6 March 1929.

  145. 145.

    IBSF:2, Confidential Report, 1930.

  146. 146.

    IBSF:2, Confidential Report 1933.

  147. 147.

    IBSF:2, Atkinson to Goldsmith, 6 February 1933.

  148. 148.

    BBC Standing Instructions: Foreign Department.

  149. 149.

    Morning Post, 18 May 1936.

  150. 150.

    Wireless Magazine, May 1936.

  151. 151.

    Ariel, April 1937.

  152. 152.

    BBC/WAC:R13/206:Foreign Department, Benzie to Beadle (Empire and Foreign Executive), 27 August 1935.

  153. 153.

    Richard Marriot joined Janet Quigley as an Assistant. Benzie had a personal secretary and also the full-time use of a short-hand typist in the General Office.

  154. 154.

    BBC/WAC:R13/206, Benzie to Beadle, 27 August 1935.

  155. 155.

    Beadle to Nicolls, 4 September 1935.

  156. 156.

    Following the 1933 Production/Administration split all departments had an Executive, who acted as the liaison between Production and Administration.

  157. 157.

    Ariel, April 1937. These included Benzie’s ‘personal clerk’ Norah Wadsley and two further departmental secretaries.

  158. 158.

    Cecil Graves as Empire Service Director; Lindsay Wellington as Director of Programme Planning and Basil Nicolls as Director of Internal Administration.

  159. 159.

    See, for example, BBC/WAC:R3/3/11: Control Board Minutes, 14 January 1936, 17 June 1936, 7 September 1936.

  160. 160.

    Control Board Minutes, 14 January 1936.

  161. 161.

    IBSF: 1, Acting Administrative Assistant (Talks) to Administrative Officer (Talks), 7 December 1945.

  162. 162.

    ISBF:1, Confidential Reports 1934, 1935, 1936. In 1936, the ten other department heads in the division earned at least £1000, with Val Gielgud earning £1,550 in Drama and John Coatman £1,600 in News. Mary Somerville earned £1,200.

  163. 163.

    IBSF:1, Pym to Benzie, 2 June 1937.

  164. 164.

    IBSF:2, Un-named memo to Nicolls/Pym, 7 June 1937.

  165. 165.

    Reith was unimpressed by Morley. Meeting him for the first time he described him as ‘a dilettante sort of youth, presumably brainy’. Reith Diaries, 5 May 1938. The marriage was not a success.

  166. 166.

    Daily Sketch, 3 September 1937; Daily Express, 3 September 1937; Radio Pictorial, 17 September 1937.

  167. 167.

    The Times, 5 January 1938.

  168. 168.

    Marriot’s salary was raised from £400 to £650.

  169. 169.

    See, for example, Morning Post, 6 September 1934; Answers, 5 October 1935; Manchester Guardian, 3 March 1936; Express and Star, 4 September 1936.

  170. 170.

    Paul Donovan (1997) All our Todays: Forty Years of Radio 4’s ‘Today’ Programme (London: Jonathan Cape) pp. 7–10, 18–19.

  171. 171.

    BBC/WAC:S322/17/2: Mary Adams: Heredity, Lambert to Adams, 3 August 1927.

  172. 172.

    Lambert to Adams, 6 October 1927.

  173. 173.

    Lambert to Adams, 16 December 1927, 19 December 1927. For a discussion on the politics of birth control in the interwar years see Jane Lewis (1990) The Politics of Motherhood: Child and Maternal Welfare in England 1900–1939 (London: Croom Helm) pp. 196–214.

  174. 174.

    BBC/WAC:L2/5/3 Mary Adams Staff File:3 (hereafter MASF:3), 30 January 1930.

  175. 175.

    BBC/WAC:L2/5/1: Mary Adams Staff File:1 (hereafter MASF:1), Goldsmith to Siepmann, 24 February 1931.

  176. 176.

    For a discussion on Adams as a science producer see Allan Jones (2012) ‘Mary Adams and the Producer’s Role in Early BBC Science Broadcasts’, Public Understanding of Science, 21, 968–83.

  177. 177.

    Lambert, Ariel and All his Quality, p. 75.

  178. 178.

    MASF:1 Annual Report, February 1931, January 1932.

  179. 179.

    For a discussion on left-wing bias in Talks see Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, pp. 155–60.

  180. 180.

    The broadcast, on 2 November 1935, pitted E. Arnot Robinson against Nancy Astor.

  181. 181.

    MASF:1 Annual Report, January 1934.

  182. 182.

    For example, in May 1936 Adams claimed for 20 separate engagements. These included lunching Miss Buckley and Mr Rowntree (on the young architects group); consulting Sir Norman Angell (on the Peace series); sherry to Dr and Mrs Silk and Mr Roote (Prague journalists) and dining with Margery Fry (contact on Autumn programme), BBC/WAC:S322/39/2 Mary Adams Correspondence, Expenses May 1936.

  183. 183.

    For more on the series and Ferrie’s contribution see Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting, pp. 290–1.

  184. 184.

    BBC/WAC:910FER: William Ferrie, letters from Adams to Ferrie.

  185. 185.

    MASF:1, Nicolls to Graves, 30 April 1936.

  186. 186.

    It looks probable that Colonel Dawnay, the Controller (Programmes), had instituted this.

  187. 187.

    Although requested by Administration several times, no specifics of the procedure were given, the suggestion being that it was of a female nature.

  188. 188.

    MASF:1, Nicolls to Carpendale, 19 July 1935.

  189. 189.

    See, for example, MASF:1 Siepmann to Dawnay, 21 June 1935 , Rose-Troup to Dawnay, 25 July 1935.

  190. 190.

    MASF:1, Nicolls to Dawnay, 19 August 1935.

  191. 191.

    MASF:1, Rose-Troup to Graves, 7 February 1936.

  192. 192.

    MASF:1, Reith to Graves and Nicolls, 21 April 1936.

  193. 193.

    MASF:1, 20 April 1936 unclear who written by/to.

  194. 194.

    MASF:1, Reith to Carpendale and Graves, 21 April 1936.

  195. 195.

    MASF:1, Mary Adams to Reith, 28 September 1936.

  196. 196.

    MASF:1, Reith to Mary Adams, 5 October 1936.

  197. 197.

    MASF:1, Reith to Carpendale and Graves, 21 April 1936.

  198. 198.

    MASF:1, Carpendale to Adams, 3 December 1936.

  199. 199.

    Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless, pp. 148–9.

  200. 200.

    MASF:1, Pym to Nicolls, 1 January 1937. Her father had died that week and she had just weaned the baby.

  201. 201.

    For the early history of BBC television see Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless, pp. 519–622. See also Gordon Ross (1961) Television Jubilee: The Story of 25 Years of BBC Television (London: W.H. Allen).

  202. 202.

    MASF:1, Confidential Report First Quarter 1938. In January 1937, Morley and Crozier, both Assistant Producers, earned £260; More O’Ferrall, a Producer like Adams, earned £400.

  203. 203.

    Radio Times, 7 October 1938.

  204. 204.

    Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Mary Adams.

  205. 205.

    Higgins, This New Noise, pp. 78–83.

  206. 206.

    Berg, A Woman in History, pp. 180, 258–9.

  207. 207.

    Berg, p. 8, 12.

  208. 208.

    Daily Express, 1 October 1936. ‘Yesterday was the last day for applications for the £1,200 post of Talks Director at the BBC. Just over 1,000 people applied for it, among them several women. I think it unlikely that the post will be given to a woman’.

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Murphy, K. (2016). ‘Women Who Rule at the BBC’: Four Elite Women. In: Behind the Wireless. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49173-2_6

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-49172-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-49173-2

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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