The amazing women behind the London Guild 1

I started researching the LGWSD in June 2024 for our 75th Anniversary in November 2025. There was thought of a 75 year timeline of the Guild for the Anniversary but research soon confirmed that our defining feature is that we continue to exist, thrive and stay committed to our original aims through our volunteers work rather than a penchant for dramatic one off events. This is a huge achievement, many more well known Guilds and Societies from the last century are now just memories, but it makes a rather dull timeline.

It also didn’t take long to discover that the driving forces behind the Guild have been women. There were a few men, the first two Presidents were men, Sir Ernest Goodale, C.B.E, M.C., followed by Mr L St. J Tibbetts and there have been some very accomplished male weavers and dyers amongst our members but the majority of the organising, sharing, working, weaving spinning and dyeing was done by women. The stories of these women are the story of the Guild.

I decided to uncover some of the women’s stories. Researching women’s histories is not so easy, while men achievements remain recorded in surveys, books, biographies and obituaries, often the only record of what these remarkable women had achieved was in our archives. Nevertheless, I persisted and found so many fascinating stories that it was difficult to decide who to focus on. It’s now an ongoing obsession that will not be finished until long after our 75th anniversary.

Contrary to the popular story of women returning to domesticity after the war, the founding decade of our Guild was full of dynamic, determined and talented women. I’ve focused on three founding members:

Dates are when they were Guild members:

Dorothy Wilkinson, 1950 -1972. A founder member of the Guild, she started the Kensington School of Weaving with her sister Phoebe, around 1919 and wrote her life history in Warp and Weft over 73 issues

Hester Viney, VP 1950 -1958. After her career as one of the first trained and registered nurses, she first tried to revive the National Guild, then founded the first County Guild and helped found many others including the London Guild and the Association of Guilds.

Gwen Wood Shaw, 1950 -1960. The most difficult person to pin down any life story details of, she ran a recording studio/pirate radio station, lived over the studios, founded the Guild and ran it for the first ten years.