As we celebrate the centenary of votes for women we explore the contribution made to public life by Helen Aitchison, the first female Northumberland County Councillor.
A short newspaper article in The Shields Daily News of 14 November 1930 records the death of local resident, Dr. Tom Aitchison, of Willington Quay. Dr. Aitchison was a local G.P. and Poor Law doctor to the Willington Quay district of the larger Tynemouth Poor Law Board. The article is significant in that it makes reference to Dr. Aitchison’s sister, Helen, with whom he shared a home. The article reports that Helen Aitchison ‘has taken an active part in public work and was the first women member of Northumberland County Council. She was also a member of Tynemouth Board of Guardians’. This short newspaper article reveals the important contribution that Helen Aitchison made to the history of Northumberland County Council.
Helen Aitchison was born at Wallsend in 1857, the seventh of nine children born to James Aitchison and his wife Thomasina. Both parents were Scottish – James Aitchison was a GP and member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Thomasina was a member of a prominent family from Lauder, Berwickshire. It is not certain when James and his wife came to Northumberland but the family were living in Walker in 1845 when their first child Margaret was born. James Aitchison was prominent in public life in Wallsend. In 1866 Wallsend Local Board of Health was formed. Dr. Aitchison won a seat on the Board and in 1874 he was appointed Medical Officer for Wallsend, a position he held until his death in 1884 when he was succeeded by his son, Dr. Henry Hyslop Aitchison, brother of Helen. Henry also became a Northumberland County Councillor and Alderman.
Helen Aitchison was one of nine siblings – five boys and four girls. Four of the boys trained as doctors and were prominent in public service. Helen followed this tradition by becoming an elected member of Tynemouth Board of Guardians. Serving on a Board of Guardians was open to women from 1875 but it was not until The Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils) Act of 1907 that some female ratepayers were given the right to be elected to District and County Councils. By 1914 fifty women were serving on Borough and County Councils in England and Wales. Helen Aitchison was elected as the first female Northumberland County Councillor in 1920. She was elected for the ward of Willington on 13 August 1920, a seat that she held for two terms, being re-elected to the same ward on 3 March 1925 and continued to serve on the Council until March 1928.
Miss Aitchison’s experience with Tynemouth Board of Guardians was put to good use. In 1920 she began serving on the Maternity, Child Welfare and Midwives’ Committee, and Unemployed Workmen Act 1907 Committee and went on to serve on the Care of the Mentally Defective Committee, the County Lunatic Asylum Committee of Visitors and the Public Assistance Committee. She continued to serve on some of these committees as an “added member” after she stepped down from the Council.
The Public Assistance Committee took on many of the duties of the Boards of Guardians after they were abolished in 1929. In 1930 Miss Aitchison and the three other female members of Public Assistance Committee formed a Ladies Rescue and After Care Sub-Committee the purpose of which was to “consider all questions arising out of the admission of unmarried mothers to poor law institutions … and the placing out and after-care arrangements of children chargeable in the various Children’s Homes in the county”. She was also a founding member – added member – of the Boarding-Out Sub-committee which was established in 1930 to be responsible for children’s homes and looked after children. She continued to serve as an added member until shortly before her death. Helen Aitchison died at her home, 29 Philipson Street, Willington on 6 September 1936 aged 78 years.