I Was Myself:
the archive of Peggy Jay
Peggy Jay, née Garnett, (1913-2008) was a politician and campaigner, particularly influential in the areas of healthcare, child welfare, and disability rights. Her archive has been catalogued and is now available to researchers at Churchill Archives Centre.
Peggy Jay was a councillor of the London County Council (later the Greater London Council) for over twenty five years, representing Central Hackney, 1938-49, and North Battersea, 1952-67, for the Labour Party. Her archive contains files about her career in urban government, specifically her work on the needs of families and the provision of better social services and housing for them (PEJY 1/6).
Peggy Jay’s election address as Labour candidate for Central Hackney in the London County Council By-election, 1938 (PEJY 6/1).
Beyond her work as an LCC councillor, she was associated with various other official organisations, many of them focused on healthcare and social services for people with developmental disabilities and mental health problems. She was a member of the management committee of the Friern psychiatric hospital in north London (PEJY 1/5), a trustee of the Winnicott Clinic (PEJY 1/13), and most significantly the chair of the Committee of Enquiry into Mental Handicap Nursing and Care which published the ‘Jay Report’ in 1979 (PEJY 1/9).
“You have produced an “official" report rare in courage, imagination + humanity.” - a letter of congratulation on the publication of the Jay Report from sociologist, Peter Townsend, 22 March 1979 (PEJY 1/9/3). © Estate of Peter Townsend.
"You really have stirred things up!" - a letter of congratulation on the publication of the Jay Report from Labour MP and former Minister, Barbara Castle, 28 March 1979 (PEJY 1/9/3). © Estate of Barbara Castle.
Alongside her conventional political career, she was a committed activist in non-governmental organisations and campaign groups. One area that is strongly represented in the archive is her engagement with the issue of children in long-stay hospitals and the promotion of more appropriate and sensitive care, whether in hospital or in alternative settings, for instance through her participation in the Council for Children’s Welfare (PEJY 1/3), Exodus (PEJY 1/4), and the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital (PEJY 1/10).
Whittington Hospital advice leaflets for young patients and their families, collected by Peggy Jay, undated (PEJY 1/15/10).
Her political life and campaigns are also reflected in extensive miscellaneous public and personal correspondence files (PEJY 1/15 and PEJY 2/13); the letters and papers she assembled when researching her memoirs (PEJY 5/1); and the publications and grey literature she collected on subjects of interest (PEJY 8). It is in these series, for instance, that papers can be found about her work on the Royal Commission on Population, 1944-9, or the Fisher group and the Ingleby Committee on family social services and children in the criminal justice system, 1955-60.
A pamphlet collected by Peggy Jay and produced by a committee including a ‘Mrs Margaret Thatcher MP’, 1961 (PEJY 8/5).
Photograph of Peggy Jay and other children of the family, undated (PEJY 7/25).
Peggy Jay lived her whole life in the milieu of an elite metropolitan family with connections to the worlds of academia, science, politics, international relations, and the media. Her archive contains correspondence with her parents, James Clerk Maxwell Garnett, who was Secretary of the League of Nations Union, and Margaret Lucy Garnett, née Poulton; her Garnett grandparents in Manchester and her Poulton grandparents in Oxford; and her siblings and children, including her son Peter Jay, whose archive is also available to researchers at Churchill Archives Centre.
![“I am in a tremendous state of political ferment.” - a letter from Peggy Jay to her parents, describing the aftermath of the King and Country debate at Oxford, 20 February [1933] (PEJY 2/13/12).](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f327a1eafa1f910a1b2baa9/1599824876809-CVQTJJ1VYZ04GRMKAH1O/PEJY+02+013+012+%281%29.jpg)
“I am in a tremendous state of political ferment.” - a letter from Peggy Jay to her parents, describing the aftermath of the King and Country debate at Oxford, 20 February [1933] (PEJY 2/13/12).
There is correspondence about her own childhood and her education at St Paul’s Girls’ School in London and at Oxford University, where she was part of a group of left-wing students and academics that included Richard Crossman, Goronwy Rees, and her future husband, Douglas Jay. Particularly striking is her network of female friendships, some of them sustained throughout her life and extending back to school and university, most notably her correspondence with her closest friend, the journalist and writer, Shiela Grant Duff (later known as Shiela Sokolov Grant), whose own papers are preserved at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Note from Somerville College, Oxford, 18 February 1933 (PEJY 2/13/14). © Principal and Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford.
As a lifelong resident of Hampstead, she was active in urban heritage preservation projects, such as the conversion of Burgh House into a community arts space and the initiatives of the Heath and (Old) Hampstead Society to protect the natural and built environment in their locality. Her family’s long-standing connection with the Isle of Wight, described in correspondence and pictured in photographs, also give an interesting insight into holidays and leisure during the period.
Photograph of Peggy Jay on a stall promoting Burgh House at a fete or street party in Hampstead, undated (PEJY 7/29).
Finally, her archive includes an important visual dimension, in the form of a collection of photographs, encompassing late nineteenth century cartes de visite and cabinet cards, twentieth century formal studio portraits, and informal snapshots of the extended family of Jays, Poultons and Garnetts, useful for biographical purposes, but also illustrative of subjects including childhood, fashion, domestic life and architecture.
Photograph of Peggy Jay and family on holiday, undated (PEJY 7/17).
“When my mother and sisters hobnobbed about ‘women’s topics’ such as dressmaking and cooking, I longed to be involved with them. At the same time, I also wanted to be apart, if not superior, to all that. On my mother’s side of the family there was a long tradition of university educated women and certainly neither at school at St Paul’s nor at college at Somerville, did I ever doubt my equal status with men. Now for the first time in my life, I was neither daughter, wife nor mother. I was alone. I was myself.”
Peggy Jay, Loves & Labours (1990)
Peggy Jay built a career in public life based on her wide-ranging knowledge and expertise, at a time when women faced significant obstacles in doing so and when many of their roles went unpaid and unrecognised. Her archive has much to offer political and social historians, especially those interested in the intersection between government and activism.
Photograph of Peggy Jay with a delegation at the Manresa site on the Alton Estate (West) in Roehampton, ca. 1965 (PEJY 7/19).
Browse the catalogue of Peggy Jay’s archive.
Contact Sophie Bridges for further information.
With thanks to Peter Jay and the Jay family for their generous gift of the archive.
And with thanks to Grace Whorrall-Campbell for her work on the photographic collection.
Photograph of Peggy Jay watching the family’s beach hockey match on the Isle of Wight, undated (PEJY 7/29).