Name Margaret Davies | ||
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Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861–1944) was the general secretary of the Co-operative Women's Guild from 1899 until 1921. During her tenure, the Guild became far more politically active than it previously had been.
Davies's election was a "turning point" in the organization's history; her tenure ushered in an era of unprecedented growth and success for the guild. Davies was considered to be such a significant figure in the guild that Catherine Webb considered Davies's retirement such a significant loss for the Guild that she began writing The Woman with the Basket, her history of the Guild to that time. She was a prominent and dedicated pacifist of her era.
Davies had an unusual upbringing; her parents were involved in radical intellectual movements when she was a child. Her father was a fellow of Trinity College and an outspoken foe of poverty and inequality, active in Christian Socialist groups, and also involved in the early co-operative movement. Many of her extended family were also politically active, especially around the issue of women's suffrage.
Her brother Arthur Llewelyn Davies was a barrister, whose five sons were the inspiration for J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.