Anne Loughlin

Who was Anne Loughlin?

Dame Anne Loughlin, DBE was a British labour activist and organiser.

Loughlin was born in Leeds, England. Her father, Thomas, was a boot and shoe operative of Irish descent. When Anne was 12 her mother died, and she had to care for her four sisters. When she was 16 her father died, and Anne became the family breadwinner, starting work in a Leeds clothing factory for 3 pence an hour.

In 1915, aged 21, she became a full-time organiser for the National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers – the union to which she was to devote her whole career. The following year, she took charge of a strike of 6,000 clothing workers in Hebden Bridge. She showed a talent for journalism, and a recognition of the sorts of things that would make young women read the union paper, The Garment Worker. She penned a series of articles in the late 1920s entitled The Woman Worker at Home, in which she instructed 'bachelor girls' on diet, exercise and make-up. However, clothing workers, especially in London, were confronted with increased use of lower-paid workers; earnings remained low, and there was a growing discontent among the workforce in general.