Gertrude Tuckwell

Who was Gertrude Tuckwell?

Gertrude M. Tuckwell was a British trade unionist, social worker and author.

Born in Oxford in 1861, and daughter of the self-proclaimed "radical parson" William Tuckwell, she was home-schooled in her family's Christian Socialist tradition and trained to be a teacher. She moved to London in 1885 and became secretary to her aunt, writer, suffragette and trade unionist Emilia Dilke. She got involved in the Women's Trade Union League in 1891, becoming President in 1905. In 1908 she became president of the National Federation of Women Workers. Tuckwell was one of the first women to be a Justice of the Peace. In 1930 she was inducted into the Order of the Companions of Honour.

Tuckwell is famous for writing the work "The State and its Children", a telling of the juvenile crime and punishment of 18th century England.

Gertrude Mary Tuckwell spent the last twenty years of her life at Little Woodlands, Wormley, Surrey.