Emma Paterson

Emma Anne Paterson (née Smith; 5 April 1848 – 1 December 1886) was an English feminist and trade unionist.

Life Emma Anne Smith was born in London on 5 April 1848, the daughter of Henry Smith (died 1864), headmaster of a school in St George Hanover Square, and his wife Emma Dockerill.

In 1867 she became assistant secretary of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, gaining trade union experience. In February 1872 she started working for the National Society for Women's Suffrage as their secretary. She resigned the post in 1873, when she married Thomas Paterson (1835–1882), a Scottish cabinet-maker and wood-carver active in the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, who had organized the Workmen's International Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall in 1870. The couple spent a long honeymoon in the United States. The members were largely upper-middle-class men and women interested in social reform, who wanted to educate women in trade unionism and fund the establishment of trade unions.

Legacy A fund, raised in Mrs. Paterson's memory, was employed in securing offices for the association in the buildings of the Workmen's Club and Institute Union in Clerkenwell Road, which were completed in 1893. In 1891 the Women's Protective and Provident League was renamed the Women's Trade Union League. The failure of the trade union movement to embrace women into the movement is a reflection of the time and the role of women in that context. In general the demands of the WTUL were the same as other male unions, however it is notable for asking for maternity provision, co-operative homes for working women, and the vote for all women, not just women who were property owners.