Women at the National Gallery – Lena Laurie

The National Gallery employed many women in the 1920s, in roles including Housemaid and Saleswomen, as well as newer, more technical roles of typist and photographer. No women had yet infiltrated the keeper staff which included the Keeper and his Assistants, who were responsible for administrative work as well as the Gallery’s scholarly activities.

In 1926 Professor Arthur Pillans Laurie, an outspoken Scottish chemist specialising in the analysis of paintings, met with the Trustees as part of a Royal Academy delegation advocating for more openness on picture cleaning methods. When Laurie unexpectedly followed up with letters to the Director Charles Holmes and the Trustee Lord Crawford asking them to offer some unpaid work to his daughter Lena, who he was training up to one day gain a role as an Assistant in a gallery, it put them in a difficult position.

"Do you know anything about her? I really do not see how we could fit any other official at Trafalgar Square but Lawrie is a man whom one would prima facie like to oblige, and it would at least be something if one could say that the young woman should be allowed to pursue her studies; but even so, what can be done? I am really rather puzzled to know. We will talk about it tomorrow if a quiet moment is available."

Letter from Lord Crawford to Charles Holmes, 19 Apr1926 (NG26/22/2)

The Trustees rejected the suggestion, much to the relief of Holmes and Crawford. Holmes, clearly committed to keeping Professor Laurie on side, sent a polite reply promising that he would keep Lena in mind for future opportunities.

However, the two men were intrigued by Laurie’s suggestion of employing an ‘honorary attaché’. Crawford envisioned the role could become a training program for the future directors of our provincial galleries. They began meeting with other potential candidates and ordered furniture to fit out the Sand room (now the Library) as a workspace.

In August 1927, Lena personally submitted an application, and included a copy of an official English guide to the Rijksmuseum, which she had recently published while working there as an unpaid assistant. This time Holmes accepted, and she joined the Gallery in November 1927 as the first Honorary Attaché.

William Constable would act as her supervisor. He records meetings with Lena in his diary. On her first day they discuss her ‘work in the library’. It is suspected that Lena was heavily involved in assembling the curatorial dossiers which were established that year. Her handwriting appears on many of the bibliographical reference cards contained in the early dossiers.

She is regularly asked to complete research tasks and even accompanies one of the Trustees to view a painting on offer to the Gallery. Another Attaché, Trenchard Cox, joined Lena in the summer of 1928.

In 1929 an Assistant post is advertised at the Gallery and both Laurie and Cox applies. Lena does not make the shortlist, prompting a flurry of letters from her father demanding an explanation. He asks Constable to send him a frank assessment of her prospects and Constable tells him that she should apply for roles in chemical research. The job is given to a man called Ellis Waterhouse with Trenchard Cox named as the reserve candidate. Both men went on to become well know museum directors.

Professor Laurie asks Constable to assist Lena with an application for another role at the National Gallery of Scotland in 1930. Although Constable agrees to help, he warns him that the chances of them appointing a woman are small and points out that although the V&A had recently appointed Margaret Longhurst as an Assistant Keeper, this was an exceptional case. Laurie retorts that 'Lena should be six years older and ugly as sin. Then she might have a fair chance.' Her application was again unsuccessful.

During 1930 the Gallery had trouble attracting women staff in general, offering low pay and few prospects for promotion. A new director, Augustus Daniel, was in post and made it clear that he was no longer in favour of training inexperienced attachés, He would only agree to hosting serious post-graduate students from then on.

Another Assistant role was advertised at the Gallery at the end of 1931 and for the first time, the advert specified that it was open to women applicants. Lena was not advised to apply, instead Augustus Daniel suggested she tender her resignation, which she did after four years at the Gallery.

The Civil Service Commission were disappointed to see that the Gallery had not included any women on their shortlist for the assistant job.

"We notice that none of the women candidates has been put on the short list and although it does not seem likely that any of them would have much chance in competition with your eight picked men Mieklejohn thinks that it would be well, if you see no strong objection, to summon one woman candidate for interview.

Miss Agnes Reynolds seemed to us to be among the best qualified of the women, and we noticed also that she gives the Prime Minister as one of her references."

Letter from the Civil Service Commission to Augustus Daniel, 13 Nov 1931 (NG16/41/3)

The keeper, Collins Baker, replies outlining the reasons why they would never consider a woman for this role.

In the end, they interviewed two women, however, the candidate selected was none other than another Honorary Attaché, Martin Davies, who went on to become one of our very own directors.

There is no evidence to suggest that Lena ever obtained the role in a gallery that she coveted. Although the National Gallery continued to interview women for these roles, a female assistant keeper was not appointed until Dillian Gordon in 1979. In the interim there are some examples of women who have contributed to art historical research on the collection, notably Stella Mary Pearce, the dress historian who worked on this aspect of the collection between 1954 and 1961. The Honorary Attaché post continued to produce notable male art historians up until the Second World War including John Pope Hennessy, Christopher Norris, Dennis Mahon and Benedict Nicholson.