Women's Aid Federation of England Archive
The Women's Aid Federation of England Archive is still being processed until 2024. Catalogued material will be released in stages and therefore may be currently unavailable. This Collections Guide will continue to be updated at regular intervals.
Introduction
Women's Aid Federation of England is a domestic abuse charity that works as the national coordinating body for local refuges and domestic abuse services in England. They provide information, training, and resources as well as monitoring and researching the experiences of and provisions for women and children suffering abuse. They lobby and campaign for women's rights and legislative changes, both in England and further afield.
Women’s Aid was founded in 1974 as the National Women’s Aid Federation, before splitting into separate federations for Scotland in 1976 and England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1978. Set against the backdrop of the Women’s Liberation Movement, Women’s Aid emerged as a female-led, activist collective working to raise awareness of domestic abuse and gendered violence. Today, the Federation is well-established and respected for its expertise, conducting original research into the experiences of women and children suffering abuse and acting as consultants for government officials, legal figures and academics.
A joint initiative between the University of Leeds, Women's Aid Federation of England, and Feminist Archive North enabled the Archive to be brought to Leeds in 2021. A Wellcome Trust-funded project is currently ongoing to catalogue and make available the Women’s Aid Archive. Its aims are to increase public awareness of the significant work of Women’s Aid and to provide long-term preservation and access to this internationally significant collection.
About the Archive
The Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive is held at the University of Leeds Special Collections and documents the history of the organisation, from its origins as the National Women’s Aid Federation in 1974 through to present day. The Archive is a major resource for understanding the formation, development and running of the organisation, its contribution to health and society, changes in the law, and cultural shifts in attitudes towards domestic abuse. The Archive consists of both analogue and digital records, including paper, photographic, textile, audio-visual, and born-digital records. It covers a range of subject areas with a wealth of research potential.
The Archive includes the following series:
Internal Administration
This series contains documents that relate to the running of Women’s Aid as an organisation, including meeting minutes, training papers, and financial documents. The records chart the decisions that shaped the development of Women's Aid, and how these were communicated and coordinated throughout its national network.
Conferences and Events
Women’s Aid have run annual national conferences since their formation in 1974. As well as holding talks and workshops around topical issues, these conferences were the home of the organisation’s Annual General Meetings. Documents in this series also represent one-off conferences and events held by Women’s Aid.
Women’s Aid Helpline
Establishing a National Domestic Abuse Helpline was a pivotal moment in the history of Women’s Aid and the wider domestic abuse movement. Formed in 1988, the Helpline is still run today in partnership with Refuge. The files in this series show the administration, organisation and planning involved in running the Helpline services.
Publications and Ephemera
This series covers a range of written material from Women's Aid: from annual reports and magazines to a stretch of newsletters and mailings that range from 1974 to present day. It also includes a collection of digitised posters, postcards, and other ephemera that were created to promote campaigns or raise awareness of issues relating to domestic violence.
Press and Publicity
This series relates to matters of press and publicity within Women's Aid, including working folders from the Press and Publicity Group, communication with newspapers and journalists, coverage of Women's Aid campaigns, relationships with broadcasting organisations and material relating to the Women's Aid website.
Projects, Campaigns and Research
Women’s Aid is highly respected for its expertise, original research, and groundbreaking campaigns relating to domestic abuse. This series contains research and working documents, alongside their final outputs, to give a unique insight into the work that shaped public perceptions and campaigned for legislative change.
Refuge Management and Development
Work represented in this series focuses on both refuge management (creating induction packs, policy templates, administration training) and refuge development (outreach work, rural development, funding issues), as well as the organisation of membership and affiliation to Women's Aid.
Local Women’s Aid Groups
In this series, documents reflect Women’s Aid’s communication with its national network of refuges and women’s services. Papers are organised geographically, and demonstrate how Women’s Aid worked as a coordinating body to provide support, resources and funding for these groups.
Other Federated Groups
Women’s Aid has been split into separate federations for Scotland since 1976 and England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 1978. This series contains documents relating to each federation, the correspondence between them and documents relating to the All Federations meetings.
External Organisations
Split into ‘national’ and ‘international’, this series charts the wide network of domestic abuse services that communicated and interacted with Women’s Aid. The series highlights the worldwide domestic abuse movement, and the network of influence that Women’s Aid as an organisation holds within it.
Press Cuttings
This vast and unique collection of newspaper clippings, collected by Women’s Aid themselves, covers 35 years of news coverage on both domestic abuse and Women’s Aid as an organisation. Each collection of newspaper clippings is accompanied by a searchable index and provides a wealth of insight into how domestic abuse has been perceived through the decades.
Women’s Aid Library
The Women’s Aid Library was the organisation’s own reference library and can also work as a reference resource for researchers to use alongside the main Archive. It includes reports, conference packs, and training materials and covers topics including housing, health, training, and minoritised groups within the domestic abuse movement. A searchable index can be found at series level, that lists all the themes and individual publications found in the Library.
Searching the Collection
Use the dedicated search bar at the top of this page to search exclusively through the Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive. Material from the Archive can also be found via searching the general Special Collections catalogue, using appropriate keywords such as “Women’s Aid Archive”. By using the Advanced Search option, you can include the classmark “MS 2265” to narrow your search to items from this specific collection.
To help get started, researchers may find it useful to watch videos on how to use the catalogue to access material in Special Collections. The videos explain how to search material via the catalogue, use a collections hierarchy, and find digital collections.
How to Access the Material
Researchers can access material from the Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive in a number of different ways:
- for consultation in person in the Brotherton Research Centre
- for consultation virtually with a member of the Brotherton Research Centre team
- by ordering images for personal research or publication through the Brotherton Research Centre’s digitisation service.
Please see the Plan a Visit page for more information about these options.
Material from the Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive can also be used to support teaching within the University. Please see the Teaching Support page for more information on how to reserve material for teaching or group study sessions.
Further Information
For further help or information, please contact the Brotherton Research Centre team at specialcollections@library.leeds.ac.uk
Sensitive Content in the Archive
The Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive records the history of a domestic abuse charity. Because of this, material within the Archive is likely to touch on subjects and issues that some may find sensitive, distressing, or possibly traumatic. These subject areas could include domestic violence, rape, child abuse, and femicide. Researchers may come into contact with graphic advertising campaigns, first-hand testimonies, or news stories detailing specific events. There could also be historic language used in the records that some may find sensitive or offensive.
Read our Cultural Collections Sensitivity Policy.
If researchers have been personally affected by the issues raised in the Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive, or know people who have been, there are a number of places that offer support:
- Women’s Aid website, with access to live chat features
- Email Women’s Aid through helpline@womensaid.org.uk
- Women’s Aid Survivors’ Forum
- Women’s Aid Survivor’s Handbook
- Women’s Aid Domestic Abuse Directory helps find local support near you
- Women’s Aid ‘Useful Links’ page, with information on a range of issues including children, alcohol and drugs, housing, immigration, disability, mental health, and legal advice
- If you need someone to talk to:
- National Domestic Abuse Helpline – 0808 2000 247
- The Mix, free information and support for under 25s in the UK – 0808 808 4994
- National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline – 0800 999 5428
- Samaritans, 24/7 service – 116 123
- The Men’s Advice Line, for male domestic abuse survivors – 0808 801 0327