This biography is republished from The London School of Economics and Political Science and was written by Inderbir Bhullar. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 10 September 1860, United Kingdom
Died: 3 August 1948
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
Charles Booth had wanted the work undertaken by women in London to be documented; Clara Collet was the woman to whom Booth turned for help.
Collet was an educational trailblazer from her earliest days having attended the North London Collegiate School for Girls, an influential and important school which treated girls’ education seriously and taught topics usually only reserved for boys. She later went on to study at University College, London and graduated in 1888 at a time when women were very much in the minority at such institutions.
Soon after she graduated Collet began working on the women’s work survey and, as part of the role, she stayed in the East End of London for three months. Her work was published in the first and second volumes of 1889 for which she also contributed two publications about girls’ secondary education and tailoring work carried out by women in the West End.
Booth’s publication is a wonderful patchwork of different perspectives and Collet’s investigation particularly into the situation of women in work in London’s east, is terrifically revealing, full of statistics – particularly regarding pay – yet explained and clarified with a thoughtful and very human perspective. Frequent mention is made of Collet’s presence in the East End intersecting with the horrific ripper attacks, however she was also in the area during a much more empowering moment for women; mere months before Collet’s arrival, the female match workers had famously taken direct action against their employers at Bryant and May and won a famous victory. Collet mentioned these workers and their newly formed trade union as part of her assessment of match workers “the prolonged strike in July 1888 resulted in the formation of a union, the largest union composed entirely of women and girls in England.”
Clara would move into new areas of work and investigation in years to come, however the work and type of social enquiry which they undertook as part of the Booth survey would prove both useful and influential in later years.