Women's Institute
The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being the first speaker in 1897.
The WI movement began at Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, in 1897 when Adelaide Hoodless addressed a meeting for the wives of members of the Farmers' Institute.
[3] The organisation had two aims: to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War.
The first Women's Rural Institute started in Scotland on 26 June 1917, and Madge Watt travelled up from London to speak to a meeting at Longniddry.
In 1925, Pollie Hirst Simpson was appointed the WI's first national agricultural adviser,[6] and by 1926, the Women's Institutes were fully independent and rapidly became a prominent part of rural life.
One of their features was an independence from political parties or institutions, or church or chapel, which encouraged activism by non-establishment women, which helps to explain[citation needed] why the WI has been extremely reluctant to support anything that can be construed as war work, despite their wartime formation.
Each individual WI is a separate charitable organisation, run by and for its own members with a constitution agreed at national level but the possibility of local bye-laws.
The National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) is the overall body of the WI in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, with headquarters in London.
[9] The WI campaigns on a wide range of issues affecting women, based on resolutions agreed at each year's national Annual Meeting.
Its first resolution, passed in 1918, called for "sufficient supply of convenient and sanitary houses, being of vital importance to women in the country".
[11] 1954's resolution to "‘preserve the countryside against desecration by litter" lead to the formation of the Keep Britain Tidy group, which became a registered charity in 1960.
In July 2020, the NFWI announced that Denman College would be closing permanently due to longstanding financial difficulties exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Leslie, an amateur musician from Llansantffraid, Shropshire, acted as an advisor,[25] and held a one-day school for village conductors in London in early 1924.
He asked his friend Sir Walford Davies to write an arrangement of Hubert Parry's setting of "Jerusalem", for WI choirs.
Leslie suggested that Walford Davies' special arrangement for choir and string orchestra should be performed at the Annual General Meeting of NFWI held in the Queen's Hall, London in 1924.
As part of the 95th anniversary celebration, a "modern" version of "Jerusalem" was recorded by The Harmonies, selected from entrants from the "WI Search for a Star" competition.
