Commemoration of Coventry’s First Woman Mayor.

The Mayor of Coventry, Councillor Mal Mutton and Unite the Union’s West Midland Regional Secretary, Annmarie Kilcline, unveiled a blue plaque to commemorate the life of Coventry’s first women Mayor, Alice Arnold.

Arnold was a socialist, trade unionist and community champion who had been born in Coventry’s workhouse in 1881. She was working by the age of 11 and by the turn of the twentieth century she was already active in socialist politics as a member of the Marxist, Social Democratic Federation.

During the First World War she was a trade union advocate for the women working in the munitions factories in Coventry and by the end of the war was a paid women’s organiser for the Workers Union.

The Union sponsored Alice Arnold when she stood as a councillor in 1919. She was successful in this election and was one of Coventry’s first women councillors. She became an alderman in 1931.

The depression, disenchantment with the TUC’s role in the General Strike and high unemployment in Coventry led to a fall in union membership and the Workers Union struggled to survive.

It merged with the Transport Union in the early 1930’s. But, following the merger, Arnold was forced out of her Coventry based union job, despite representation on her behalf by fellow trade unionist to the Transport Union’s boss Ernest Bevin.

Arnold remained an active councillor, being regarded as a champion of working people. Her strong republican views appeared to have denied her the Mayoral position in the abdication year of 1936, but the following year she was elected Coventry’s first women mayor.

From 1938 her health was failing, but despite health problems she continued to serve the people of Coventry. Her outspoken approach, her commitment to socialism and her opposition to local Labour policies eventually led to the local Labour Party removing the whip from her in 1945.

She died in 1955.

The blue plaque was initiated by the Alice Arnold Unite Community Coventry and Warwickshire branch and Coventry City Council paid for its manufacture.

There were some 30 people to see the plaque unveiled outside the house she occupied during the time she was mayor. Annmarie Kilcline, Unite the Union’s regional secretary said ‘Alice Arnold was born into poverty and became a devoted trade unionist, was dedicated to the pursuit of peace and was a lifelong socialist. A life well lived’.