Townswomen's Guilds, Tomlinson House, 1st Floor, 329 Tyburn Road, Birmingham, B24 8HJ

Townswomen's Guilds is the national umbrella body for more than 1,100 local Guilds across the United Kingdom. The movement, which provides mutual support and an opportunity for community service and campaigning to improve the livelihoods of women, was established by Suffragists Eva Hubback and Margery Corbett Ashby, in order to mobilise newly enfranchised urban women. The organisation emerged out of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, of which Hubback had been Parliamentary Secretary, and spread rapidly: after the initial group was established in Hayward's Heath, there were 26 by the end of 1929, and 146 by 1932. In that year, the body underwent a metamorphosis, dropping political propaganda, and focusing on the education of women as citizens. Corbett Ashby became the new body's first President. Sources: www.townswomen.org.uk; contact with NGO, March 2007.

National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (until 1932); National Union of Guilds for Citizenship (1932-3); National Union of Townswomen's Guilds