Florence Hancock

It is reported that her interest in unions and workers rights was sparked by her father, who took her to see an address by David Lloyd George, future prime minister of the UK, when she was around the age of 10.

[1] However, while her mother died when she was seventeen,[3] and as the oldest girl the role of keeping the house fell to her and her half-sister Laura (who lived with the family at the time), she did not lose her father until the age of twenty.

[4] She started work in Chippenham's Waverley cafe, in the market place, at the age of twelve,[1] then, two years later, took a job for Nestlé in a factory making condensed milk.

In 1913, she was a founding member of a branch of the Workers' Union at the factory, and when the sacking of two other founders led to a strike, she took a prominent role.

The TUC appointed her as their delegate to the International Labour Organization, and she served as the Chief Women's Officer of the TGWU from 1942, moving to London to do so.