'Everyone's poor relation': the poverty and isolation of a working-class woman local politician in interwar Britain

This article highlights the complexity of factors that may be seen to have adversely affected the career of a working-class woman municipal councillor in interwar Britain. It examines the effect that poverty had on the political position of Alice Arnold, Labour councillor in Coventry from 1919 until 1955, and in addition considers whether, despite her popularity with the electorate, her isolation within the Labour Party and on Coventry City Council was also the result of gender, social status and radical politics. Whilst many Labour councillors moved away from the poverty of their upbringing, either through employment or marriage, Arnold, who was single, carried hers with her throughout her life. I argue that a consequence of this, along with her unflinching socialist stance, made Party and Council colleagues unable to 'place' her. The feeling that she was 'everyone's poor relation' was widespread enough to have been preserved in historical accounts of her life that repeatedly refer to her as a poor, eccentric woman, whilst her political achievements have been forgotten.