Background
Dollan was born on Springburn Road in Springburn, Glasgow on 16 August 1887 to Anne Wilkinson and Henry Moir, a blacksmith in the locomotive works.
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Agnes Dollan
Edit ProfileEducation
She attended school until the age of eleven and left to work in a factory.
Career
A leader of the Glasgow Rent Strikes, she was the first female Labour candidate to stand for election to Glasgow City Council. She was one of eleven children. She later became a Post Office telephone operator and joined the Women"s Labour League, assisting Mary Reid Macarthur in creating a women"s post office trade union.
She joined the Women"s Social and Political Union, an organisation campaigning to secure the vote for women.
Their only child, James, was born in 1913 and was exempted from religious instruction at school. He became a journalist.
Agnes Dollan became politically active during the Red Clydeside period of Glasgow"s history as an organiser of the 1915 Glasgow Rent Strikes alongside Mary Barbour and Helen Crawfurd. She worked to link the rent strikes movement with peace campaigns, and as Treasurer of Glasgow Women"s Housing Association led the campaign against Glasgow City Council"s rent increases.
Dollan was jailed briefly in 1917 for protesting against high rents.
She became a prominent figure in Glasgow politics and spoke at the 1917 May Day demo in Glasgow Green. After joining the Independent Labour Party around 1915, Agnes Dollan became the first female Labour candidate to stand for election to Glasgow City Council in January 1919. On 13 December 1921 she was elected in a by-election as the councillor to the Springburn.
She successfully stood again for Council in 1922 and held the position until 1928.
She was the first Labour candidate to contest Dumfriesshire in the United Kingdom general election of 1924 however she was unsuccessful. She served on the Labour Party National Executive from 1922 to 1928, and resumed her seat in the 1930s after a period of illness prevented her from participating in political activities.
She fought against the removal of the ILP from the Labour Party, however following the split she was appointed the first president of the Scottish Socialist Party"s women"s council in 1933. Her husband Patrick served as Lord Provost of Glasgow from 1938 to 1941 however when she attended events with him Agnes retained her own identity.
Harry McShane wrote in his autobiography, "Pat Dollan"s wife was very active and, I always thought, better than he was.
I"m convinced he killed her activity."
Alongside Helen Crawfurd and others she established both the Women"s Peace Crusade in 1916 and the Glasgow branch of the Women"s International League in 1915. Both noted speakers, Dollan and Crawfurd traveled around Scotland spreading the word about the League. Dollan later modified her anti-war stance in response to World World War II, stating that "lieutenant was all very well to theorise under normal conditions but we were not living under such conditions today - we were facing a crisis which might mean general mobilisation".
In 1946 she was awarded an Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire for and her war efforts.
Dollan died of heart failure on 16 July 1966 in Glasgow"s Victoria Infirmary.
Membership
She was a member of the Women"s Social and Political Union and the Women"s Labour League. She later became a member of the Moral Re-Armament Movement.
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Born
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Died
July 1, 1966 (aged 78) -
Nationality
Scottish -
Political Party
Independent Labour Party, Labour Party