Talk:Ellen Wilkinson

Untitled

Where did she get the surname "Wilkinson" from? john k 00:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Presumably from her father Richard Wilkinson, in the usual fashion. Why is this even the subject of enquiry? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 07:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't she rumoured to be Herbert Morrison's mistress? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.192.0.10 (talk) 08:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The book doesn't mention statements from her on disappointment in her emotional life; I've amended "Neither of Wilkinson's relationships led to marriage, leaving her disappointed in her emotional life" to "Neither of Wilkinson's relationships led to marriage" as there is no citation for the former. Kilburn London (talk) 07:53, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The statement is verified: the source is the referenced review article, independent of the book. It probably ought to be retained as a quotation; at the very least it gives an insight into the controversy over her death. Lachrie (talk) 05:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Expansion

The article is currently the subject of an expansion into a full biography of Wilkinson, based on multiple sources. The first part of the expansion will apear fairly soon; thereafter, progress will be slower, as research continues. I hope to be through by the end of October. Brianboulton (talk) 18:08, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Suicide categories

If her death was not officially ruled a suicide, and probably a majority of informed people do not think it was suicide, then why is the article classified into two suicide categories? -- AnonMoos (talk) 21:05, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Because over-zealous categorisers chose to do so, ignoring the weight of evidence and opinion. I will certainly be looking at the appropriateness of categories, as part of the article's development. Thank you for your interest. Brianboulton (talk) 21:13, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Place of Birth - Chorlton-on-Medlock or Ardwick

Just a very minor worry that the place of birth is listed as Chorlton-on-Medlock (where I am writing from) in the text but Ardwick in the little box with information in. My guess would be Chorlton-on-Medlock - but I don't know about old border changes. (Msrasnw (talk) 10:50, 30 October 2014 (UTC))

The Vernon biography gives the birthplace as 41 Coral Street, Ardwick, Chorlton-on-Medlock. The part of Coral St in which No. 42 stood is now occupied by Balsam Close – see the link in ref 184. I have made the infobox consistent with the text, but it seems that either Ardwick or Chorlton-on-Medlock would be correct. Brianboulton (talk) 17:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Splendid job on the article! (Msrasnw (talk) 19:15, 30 October 2014 (UTC))

Suggestions

With upright

Without upright

Hi Brian, rather than clutter up the FAC page with minor issues, I'll mention a few suggestions here.

Lead

• Link Jarrow March in the lead; e.g. "she led a well-publicised march," or "she led the Jarrow March of the town's unemployed to London ..." (I've capitalized it here because our article does, but I'd prefer Jarrow march.)

Early years

• I know you don't like fixing image sizes, but if you were to remove the upright parameter, they would be a little bigger.
• Better not to repeat date of birth in the first section.
• hyphen and commas here: "rather than espousing working class solidarity his view according to Ellen was" --> rather than espousing working-class solidarity his view, according to Ellen, was
• "At the time, teaching was one of the few careers open to educated working-class girls" --> Teaching was one of the few careers open to educated working-class girls at the time. Or leave out "at the time," because it's understood.

Trade union organiser

• First sentence needs a full stop.
• Could something be tweaked here to avoid repetition? "She helped to organise ... She began to develop ..."
• British Government --> British government

Will continue reading later. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:12, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for these comments/suggestions. The capitalised form "Jarrow March" is the usual form in reference and history books, and I think we should stick to it here. Also, it is my practice in all biographical articles to repeat the birth date in the main text, on the principle that the lead and the main text are independent entities. Many (though not all) featured biographies follow this practice. On all the other points I have followed your suggestions. Brianboulton (talk) 00:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Brian, that's fine. These are just suggestions, so use anything you like and ignore the rest. I'm enjoying reading it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Seeking elective office

• Better without a comma? "The general election resulted in a hung parliament, and a minority Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald."

In opposition, 1924–29

• Punctuation issue: "Labour's representation in the House of Commons fell to 152, against the Conservatives' 415;[58] Wilkinson was the only woman elected in the Labour ranks;[n 4] she won Middlesbrough East with a majority of 927 over her Conservative opponent."
• "bright red hair hair"
• "she attended the Founding Congress of the League Against Imperialism in Brussels where she met ..": comma before where

Jarrow March

• There are a few inconsistencies (I think in other sections too) in the addition of commas after short introductory clauses; e.g. "On 31 October the marchers," "On 4 November, Wilkinson presented ..."
• "The marchers returned to Jarrow by train, to find that their unemployment benefit reduced as they had been 'unavailable for work' had any vacancies arisen." --> "to find that their unemployment benefit had been reduced" or "to find their unemployment benefit reduced"; and I would use "because" rather than "as".
• Missing quotation marks: "Jarrow's plight", she wrote, is not a local problem. It is the symptom of a national evil".

International and domestic concerns

• "In the House of Commons on 6 October": needs a year; from the context it's probably 1938, but it's not completely clear.
• recently-signed; I believe there's no hyphen after adverbs
• This quote needs more dots, quotation marks, and a tweak ("natural interests of the country" to "national interests"):

• "Time after time", she told the Commons, we have had the prime minister ... putting the narrow interests of his class and of the rich, before the natural interests of the country". -->
• "Time after time", she told the Commons, "we have had the prime minister ... putting the narrow interests of his class ... and of the rich, before the national interests." [1]

Second World War

• Link Morrison shelters; "reinforced steel table" --> tables

Appraisal and legacy

• Needa a comma after "buildings": "A blue plaque records the site of Wilkinson's birthplace,[186] and another, in the main quadrangle of the old university buildings records Wilkinson's attendance there from 1910–13."

Images

• I think all the images would look better without the "upright" parameter, particularly where the details are interesting, such as the Tube image.

Early years

Missed this first time round: "his wife Ellen, née Wood"; I think this should be "his wife, Ellen, née Wood".

This is a very enjoyable read, Brian.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Again, I am very grateful for these suggestions, and have acted on them all. On the question of commas after brief introductory clauses, it's my usual practice not to use them – thus I would say: "On 8 October 1924 MacDonald's Labour government resigned", not "On 8 October 1924, MacDonald's Labour government resigned". In a few cases the sentence construction requires otherwise, and occasionally I am perhaps careless. I will check the text for any remaining inconsistencies. Brianboulton (talk) 11:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Postwar career heading

I saw this was just promoted to FA status and noticed that the level 3 heading Postwar career is indented if the browser window is too wide. It's not a big deal, but I was wondering if there was any way to fix that. Adding a blank line in the wikicode doesn't help; it just makes things worse. And I don't think making the image smaller would help, either. Floating the image to the right does the trick, but that upsets the nice alternation between having images on the left and right that the article has right now. Any ideas? AmericanLemming (talk) 16:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Maintaining alternation of images is not in my view a determining point. With the very wide range of screen sizes now in use to access WP pages, it's nearly impossible to find a layout that satisfies all displays, and it may be that your adjustment here, while resolving one problem, will create another for someone else. But let's see if anyone raises this as an issue. Brianboulton (talk) 23:18, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief

There's now an article about the NJCSR. It seems too much to say that Wilkinson set it up. She belonged to the Parliamentary Committee for Spain;[2] and she visited with other MPs in early 1937 (when the NJCSR already existed). I don't know precisely when the Parliamentary Committee was itself set up. The officers of the NJCSR are known ([3] and elsewhere); Wilkinson was on the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, [4] but I've not seen anything to connect her very directly with the NJCSR. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:18, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Couple of comments

Is the "Old Vic Theatre School" mentioned in the 'Illness and death' section the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School? It sounds like it, so might be worth linking. Also, there is an article for the by-election prompted by Wilkinson's death: Jarrow by-election, 1947. Might be worth linking that (in a footnote) and that Labour held the seat (the MP box down the bottom of the article links the by-election article, but gives no indication of the party of her successor)?

It must have been the Bristol Old Vic school since there isn't another. I have added the link. I don't think it's necessary to extend the article to include the result of the ensuing by-election; her linked successor is named in the table at the end. Brianboulton (talk) 10:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

One slight mystery (possibly a slight inaccuracy): the article says "She succeeded to the chair when the incumbent, George Ridley, died in January 1945". The box down the bottom says she was Chair 1944–1945, and the George Ridley article says he died in January 1944. The article text should be corrected to 1944 (I'll do that now).

This was obviously an error. Thanks for spotting it. Brianboulton (talk) 10:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Another slight date concern: "Wilkinson campaigned for the equalisation of the voting franchise speaking at demonstrations in Hyde Park on 3 July 1926 and 30 June 1928". The 1926 date I can understand, but the vote for that bill took place in 29 March 1928 (as stated in the very next sentence). Are we sure the demonstration took place on 30 June 1928? Presumably was more celebrating the passing of the bill than campaigning for it at that point. Carcharoth (talk) 02:15, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I didn't recognise my prose in that unpunctuated sentence, and sure enough I find it's a later add-on. The source doesn't say that the later event was a victory celebration – it seems that both rallies were part of a general campaign for equal women's rights. Wilkinson was very active in this cause, and I don't know why these particular dates were highlighted. Anyway I have trimmed the sentence to a more general statement, and removed the speciific dates. Brianboulton (talk) 10:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Infobox expansion

During this article's recent appearance as TFA the infobox was greatly expanded. I am sure this was done with good intentions, but the result was an overblown box that went well beyond WP policy concerning the use of infoboxes, which are intended to assist readers by providing "a quick and convenient summary of the key facts about a subject" (per WP:INFOBOX). While perceptions of "key facts" may vary from subject to subject, in biographical articles they may reasonably be considered those which gives an "at-a-glance" summary of the subject's life and career, to be easily absorbed by the casual or impatient reader. Cramming the box with every available detail defeats this worthy object.

For a politician, the key details might be, apart from personal identification: details of governmental offices held, details of senior party offices (e.g. party chairman), details of elections to national legislative bodies. Sometimes there may be other important details that warrant inclusion as "key". What is clearly not "key" information is the mind-numbingly tedious "preceded by" and "succeeded by" fields entered for every office, major or minor. This information is largely irrelevant, useless and distracting – how important, for eaxmple, is it to know who preceded or succeeded Ms Wilkinson in the junior ministerial office of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Pensions? It is unfortunate that the infobox template for political biographies has been interpreted over-literally by some editors, leading ultimately to the quite monstrous boxes such as that which adorns the Winston Churchill article.

I have not restored the Wilkinson box to its modest pre-TFA dimensions, but I have trimmed out some of the inessential detail. I've also separated the purely party office of Labour Party chair from the list of government offices. If editors wish to argue that key career details are missing from the box, please make the case here.

Finally, thanks are due to the many editors who watched the article during its TFA, fought the vandals, and in many cases made useful small improvements. Brianboulton (talk) 00:53, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Quote

Maybe somebody could turn up a classic quote about her that I vaguely remember, how after a Spanish Civil War atrocity, she put a weaseling British official (the British ambassador to Spain?) in his place magnificently, similar to Queen Elizabeth I confronting the French ambassador after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Having difficulty finding it with Google... AnonMoos (talk) 01:25, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Wait, I did manage to turn up a version of this on Google, but probably not the version I remember (I'm quite sure I've never read Clement Attlee's autobiography before). There's probably another version of this anecdote (in a form that may be more suitable for inclusion on this article) out there somewhere, but it's probably not publicly accessible on the Internet (or I'm not clever enough to find it)... AnonMoos (talk) 01:37, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

There was a reception at Madrid. Among others, a British consular officer was introduced to Ellen Wilkinson. She, rightly or wrongly, believed that he was very pro-Franco. She drew herself up to her full height (which was not great) and, looking at him with blazing eyes, repeated his name twice. She then made a very deep curtsy and turned away. It was most impressive, suggesting Queen Elizabeth receiving the French Ambassador after the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve.[5][6]

Nickname "Red Ellen"

It could be more clearly explained that it was due to her left politics as well as her hair color. (Not sure what "uncompromising politics" really has to do with the color red...) AnonMoos (talk) 01:43, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

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