Showing 35 results

Based at Wesley House, 4 Wild Court, the London Women’s Centre was a thriving hub for women’s orgs for around three decades. The Centre was home to numerous women’s and feminist groups, including the National Abortion Campaign, Asian Women’s Network, Microsyster, English Collective of Prostitutes, Women’s Network for Palestine, Camden Women’s Bus, London Fat Women's Group, Lesbian Archive and Information Centre, Women's Information and Resource Exchange (WIRES), Women's Resource Centre, and many more.

From 1984-1996, the LWC housed Lesbian Archive & Information Centre, whose collections now live here at GWL. The Lesbian Archive makes up around one-third of our total archive holdings, and the LAIC library – up on the mezzanine level of our home in Bridgeton – comprises feminist and lesbian feminist literature, many of which titles are increasingly rare and hard to come by.

Facing increasing pressure from their main funder, Camden Council, to turn away from their explicitly feminist focus and instead become a more commercial venture, the LWC rebranded themselves as a music and events venue The Wheel in the mid 1990s. The rebrand was ultimately unsuccessful and Wesley House closed around 2000 (date unconfirmed).

Rosemary Joy Manning was born in Weymouth, Dorset, 9 December 1911. She attended boarding school in Devon and later studied at the Royal Holloway College from 1930 to 1933, graduating with a 2nd class honours degree in Classics.
Manning first worked in a department store on Oxford street and then as a secretary. Unhappy with her work she suffered a nervous breakdown and was treated at the Maudsley Hospital, following this Manning was offered a teaching job by her former headmistress where she stayed as a teacher for a further 35 years and in 1950 she moved to Hampstead, London to take over a long-established girls’ preparatory school as headmistress.
In 1957 Manning released Green Smoke, her first in the series of Dragon children’s books she would become well known for. In 1962 she released The Chinese Garden, following a failed suicide attempt. The book was later known as her greatest novel and an important piece of lesbian literature. After retiring, she publicly came out as a lesbian in a televised interview in 1980. She died on the 5th April 1988.

Marion Boyars Publishers is an independent publishing company located in London, England renowned for publishing adventurous and occasionally controversial fiction and nonfiction especially in translation within the humanities and social sciences.
Marion Boyars Publishers was formed in 1975, but had previously been formed in the sixties under the name Calder and Boyers being run jointly with John Calder. When Marion Boyars died in 1999, her daughter Catheryn Kilgarriff took over and currently is managing director of the company.

off our backs was a radical feminist print news journal by, for, and about women, published from 1970 to 2008. From 2008 onward OOB changed its remit, becoming a nonprofit organisation run by a collective where decisions are made by consensus.

The Older Lesbian Network (OLN) meets socially in London, with other regional groups meeting and self-organising in Birmingham, Nottingham, Southampton and elsewhere. The OLN was established in 1984, and from the late 1980s onward, they held frequent meetings at Camden Lesbian Centre, 54-56 Phoenix Road.

ONYX was a social and discussion group for Black lesbians and lesbians of colour. By its own definition, it encompassed '[a]ll lesbians descended (through one or both parents) from Africa, Asia (i.e. the Middle East to China, including the Pacific Nations) and Latin America, and lesbians descended from the original inhabitants of Australasia, North America and the islands of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean'. The group met once or twice monthly, first at London Friend at 86 Caledonian Road (c.1989-1991) and later at Camden Lesbian Centre & Black Lesbian Group at 54-56 Phoenix Road (from 1991 onwards); discussion and publicity were led by volunteers.

Project for Advice, Counselling and Education (PACE) was a London-based charity promoting the health and wellbeing of LGBT people, through the provision of free or low-cost counselling, therapy, groupwork, advocacy, youthwork, employment and other services. Established in 1985, PACE became a vital support network for many living in London and beyond - particularly in the context of Section 28, the homophobic law prohibiting the 'promotion of homosexuality'. PACE dissembled in 2016.

Sappho was a magazine aimed at lesbian and bisexual women that ran on voluntary contributions from both its publishers and its readership. The first issue published in April 1972 and aimed to act as a forum for lesbian and bisexual women in the UK and beyond, providing information on groups, events and resources happening as far as Australia, the US and Canada by the final issue. It encouraged lesbian and bisexual women to form local groups and produce their own newsletters, which ultimately led to a decrease in Sappho’s circulation and decline in funds. The last issue was published in 1981.

Sappho was a lesbian, volunteer-run magazine that ran from 1972 to 1981. As well as publishing information on lesbian groups and organisations, the women behind Sappho campaigned for fair treatment of lesbians in all aspects of society, including the army and prison system. They organised lesbian exhibitions and conferences, supported others, and were used as a network of communication for lesbian women around the world. They also provided a creative outlet for lesbians, publishing poems, creative writing and photography, similar to the Spinster publication (which ran from 1979 to 1983, and whose papers are included in this collection).

Southall Black Sisters (SBS), a not-for-profit, secular and inclusive organisation, was established in 1979 to meet the needs of Black (Asian and African-Caribbean) women. Their aims are to highlight and challenge all forms gender-related violence against women, empower them to gain more control over their lives; live without fear of violence and assert their human rights to justice, equality and freedom.

For over three decades SBS have been at the forefront of challenging domestic and gender-related violence locally and nationally, and have campaigned for the provision of proper and accountable support services to enable women and their children to escape violent relationships and live in dignity. They run an advice, advocacy and resource centre in West London which provides a comprehensive service to women experiencing violence and abuse and other forms of inequality. SBS offers specialist advice, information, casework, advocacy, counselling and self-help support services in several community languages, especially South Asian languages.