Born Mary Howard Ashworth; also known as: Mrs William P Jewill-Rogers
Sector: Support Services
In the late 19th century, the bicycle came to symbolize the much-feared liberated New Woman, free-wheeling her way around town and countryside in a divided skirt and flexible corset. On 21st May 1897 in Cambridge, while dons voted on whether to admit women admitted as full members of the University, rioting students dangled an effigy over the crowds on Trinity Street. It was of a woman on a bicycle, wearing a white blouse, blue bloomers and striped stockings.
However, given its impact on women’s economic and social liberation, they should perhaps have been demonising the typewriter. By the mid-1880s the Remington was a common sight in offices, part of the late 19th century transformation of the office that also saw the advent of the telephone, the Dictaphone, adding machines, carbon paper, paper clips and filing cabinets. The need to modernise the office was driven by an explosion in paperwork as companies cleared more cheques, wrote more insurance policies and served more customers. In 1881 the postal order was introduced. In 1882 around 8m were issued; in 1914 the number was 159m. The number of administrative roles grew quickly and the percentage of those jobs fulfilled by women rose particularly fast: 1,446 women described themselves as clerks rose in the 1871 census; by 1911 it was nearly 125,000.
A few entrepreneurial women realised that clacking meant cash and set up their own typing businesses. One of the first was Mary Howard Ashworth, known as May.
A young entrepreneur
A vicar’s daughter, May was born in Holme Cultram in Cumberland, the eldest of seven children. Her father died was she 11 but left enough money for his widow to bring up her family. May moved to London with her widowed mother and trained at Pitman’s. In 1888, at the age of 25, she set up her own secretarial agency, Ashworth & Co, in two rooms on the top floor of 28 Victoria Street. The area around Westminster was a popular choice for these sorts of enterprises. Cecil Gradwell and her partner, Octavia Richardson established the Westminster School of Business Training for Women at 5 Victoria Road in September 1893 and Nancy Bailey had her indexing business a 10-minute walk away towards Westminster Abbey.
By 1891, May had opened a second branch of ‘Miss Ashworth’s Typewriting and Shorthand Offices’ in the City, at St. George’s House on Eastcheap, later moving to 4 Abchurch Yard. She aimed her services at ‘Literary and Business Men’ promising to copy ‘every description of English and Foreign MSS.. with utmost speed and accuracy’, making any number of copies from ten to 5,000.
Courting controversy
The game-changer came in 1895 when her company was appointed the official typewriting agency for MPs in the House of Commons. MPs had been pushing for this for some time, but had been fobbed off by the Commissioner of Works, Herbert Gladstone. However, eventually he agreed to put a contract out to tender.
Levels of pay for typists was an ongoing concern. Women across all sectors were generally paid less than men for comparable jobs but typing was a new job, almost exclusively done by women, with no established pricing framework. Small businesses were popping up all over the place, seeking work; clients were in a strong negotiating position. Typists faced being financial casualties in an industry price war.
In May 1889 a group of typing service providers, nearly all women, had got together to discuss setting minimum standard rates for typing up manuscripts. In August there was a follow-up a meeting in the offices of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women at 22 Berners Street. It was chaired by Clementina Black, who that year founded the Women’s Trade Union Association. Among the attendees was Eleanor Marx-Aveling, a founding member of the Socialist League, who had supported strikes by women in the Bryant & May match factory. The Typists’ Society was formally convened and by 1891, the Society had 44 members. Typists started to mobilise to form a workers union but it was not until 1903 that the Association of Shorthand Writers and Typists was established.
May’s House of Commons contract win proved controversial as it was alleged that she had won by offering a 20% reduction on the standard rate card. She was accused of doing exactly what she had committed not to do – undercutting the competition and starting a race to the bottom with typists the ones to suffer. She took to the press to address the accusations. The typists would be working on site and therefore rent, rates, heating and electricity were covered; her bid was not the lowest and the rates she paid her own staff would be in line with the market or, if anything, slightly higher.
As the debate raged, five secretaries were installed in a room in St. Stephen’s Hall, overseen by an office manager and demand from MPs slowly increased. Since most of the work was given via dictation, very high speeds where needed for both typing and shorthand. Mary had ended up setting up her own typing and secretarial school to ensure she had a ready supply of typists trained to her exacting standards. Many went to become personal secretaries to MPs or found their way into business.
May’s words of wisdom
In 1898, May, described as ‘a womanly woman in every respect’, whatever that meant, gave an interview from her new offices, spread across the first floor of the Victoria Street buildings. She freely shared her views on women in the workplace, their potential and the challenges they faced. Her advice on effective working remains remarkably relevant.
May didn’t have access to the thousands of books, podcasts, TED talks and columns telling her how to be more productive, so she was drawing entirely on her own experience. Her philosophy was akin to the modern-day mantra ‘manage your energy, not your time’. I have paraphrased her language and given my own examples as hers were mainly sewing-related – I am sure she would have loved ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’ – while retaining the essence of her advice.
First, work out your own ‘golden hour’ and do the work that requires most brainpower then, whenever that is. Save routine admin tasks or the cleaning for you when you are mentally exhausted. If you love reading but are always too tired to concentrate by the time you get into bed, trying changing it up: read a few pages straight after dinner instead of immediately clearing up and do that just before you go to bed instead.
Second, break up tasks where necessary: don’t feel you have to get all the way to the end in one go. You might need an undistracted clear stretch to write an article for Linked In but you can search for an image to go with it while you are watching ‘Virgin River’ (new series coming to Netflix on 7th September).
Finally, don’t stress if it feels like you are never getting to the bottom of your to-do pile. If you are getting anxious, turn it over so you tackle the stuff at the bottom that’s been sitting there longest. Take into account the value of time: don’t spend an hour trying to fix or make something that would cost a couple of pounds to replace or buy (unless you love doing it).
She felt women were most likely to have a successful career if they could manage their out-of-work commitments by not taking on a disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities, an issue for unmarried women in the Victorian era who were likely to be living in at home, and getting married siblings to contribute to the cost of a trained nurse if a parent was ill rather than missing work. She counselled against combining work and marriage.
Married life and final years
Two years later, at the age of 37, she married 24-year old William Jewill-Rogers. It sounds like a rather lovely wedding: she wore a white satin gown overlaid with chiffon, the skirt caught up with clusters of orange blossoms. A coronet of orange blossoms held her veil in place. Two of her sisters were bridesmaids. The staff at her Victoria Street office gave her a crown Derby coffee set and her pupils a silver sugar basin and sifter.
Marriage gave her a new burst of youth (on paper at least). She stated her age on the marriage registry as 34 and on the 1911 census as 41 (when she was 48). She ignored her own advice and carried on working. William is listed with no occupation on the marriage registry but she made him a partner in her business. On both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, he is recorded as the owner of the business and an employer (though he seems to have spent most of his time playing golf), while no occupation is listed for May.
William joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916 and although he survived the War, their marriage didn’t. May filed for divorce in 1919, took back control of the business and carried on running it. By 1925, 250 MPs were using the service, supported by a staff of 14. When she died in 1928, her estate was valued at over £500k (equivalent). She left bequests to former employees and the rest of her estate to charity, managed by her sisters. They decided to make a bequest to the Professional Classes Aid Council to ‘be earmarked and applied train for the assistance of women applicants only’, a fitting final act on behalf of a woman who managed to infiltrate the House of Commons two decades before the first woman MP was elected.
Sources include:
The Queen 17/8/1889; St James Gazette 23/2/1891; The Queen 11/5/1895; 25/5/1895; Wigton Advertiser 18/1/1896; The Queen 12/9/1896; Dundee Courier 22/4/1898; Woman’s Signal 22/12/1898; Gentlewoman 22/12/1900; Kensington News and West London Times 27/4/1928; Western Daily Press 8/11/1939
Women Who Meant Business 