Winifred Galbraith’s travels through world history 1917-69

6 February 2025

A recent catalogue enhancement project led me to start reading the autobiography of Winifred Galbraith, written in 1969. I can answer a firm yes that the “I” in this case is very interesting. What I read was unexpected, occasionally funny and most of all a fascinating insight into some of the most significant events in the last century. Galbraith published a number of books in her lifetime but this autobiography remains unpublished and we are lucky to have the only copy in Queen Mary Archives ref. WG/2/2.

So who was Winifred Galbraith? Born in 1895, she attended university at Westfield College, a women’s college in Hampstead and a predecessor institution of Queen Mary, during the Edwardian era. Her autobiography begins just after her graduation in 1917 and tells the story of her life until retirement in 1964. During this time, she travelled the world living in Canada, China, Switzerland, Ghana and Nigeria and visiting many more countries before commercial air travel. She witnessed firsthand significant events in the twentieth century from the Communist uprisings in China 1920s-1930s, the London Blitz 1940-1, the Second Sino-Japanese War 1937-45 and she lived in both Ghana 1952-8 and Nigeria 1958-61 while they gained independence.

Galbraith had a varied career from the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during the first world war, a cleaner, teacher, sometime missionary, an aid worker, a researcher and a writer. She travelled alone through remote locations and remained unmarried during an era when this was outside of societies expectations for a woman.

The following passage (pages 19-20) about her confirmation into the Church of England c1920 when she “tried to give Christianity another try” (page 17) highlights the circumstances around gender and religion in her lifetime she challenged.

The confirming bishop was a very old man and took as his text: ‘Quit you like men, be strong.’ He addressed himself in quavering tones to the men and boys, stressing the need for courage, manliness and strength in daily life. Then improving on St. Paul, he went on:

‘And now a word to our dear women and girls. No one expects women to be brave. Gentleness and meekness are the virtues we want to see in our Christian women. And girls, dear girls, never forget to put your husband’s slippers down before the fire to warm.’

I have reflected since how often I have needed strength and courage in life and how seldom – never in fact – the exhortations to wifely ministrations. Perhaps the little girls profited by this advice. At the time I was angry. Why should one have to listen to such nonsense?

Some of the stories she tells are interesting because she met people still well known today like Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976), founder of the People’s Republic of China, who directly confronted the role of her missionary work in China and in return she confronted him about the violence of his rise to power (pages 171-2):

I had an opportunity of telling him that his campaign against Christians was unfair, and that his picture of the Christian Church as the spearhead of Imperialist aggression was untrue at that time in China.

‘Then what are you here for?’ he asked looking me straight in the face.

I quoted Christ’s words at the beginning of his ministry: ‘To preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken heart, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.’ And he seemed much impressed by the words, made me repeat them and wrote them down.

 ‘It is not so unlike our own aim. Is that really what Christianity is trying to do?’

Rather daringly, I asked why he had murdered so many people in Szechwan [Sichuan], where the record of Communist slaughter was very bad. His reply was, ‘Do you know what they did to my mother and my wife in Siangtan [Xiangtan] in 1930?’ I knew very well. He then asked me several personal questions, what kind of education I had had, why I had come to China, why I had not married. [...] At the end he said: ‘Yes, I did think all foreigners were capitalist aggressors, but I am beginning to change my mind.’ I can only have been the third foreigner he had seen in many years.

Some of her stories are interesting because they are about ordinary people experiencing extra-ordinary events. The below story is about learning of the end of World War 2 in Europe 1945 (pages 133-4):

When the news of V. Day [Victory in Europe Day] came, I was in a town about two days’ journey by river from Chungking [Chongqing]. Rumour had it that the news of the Armistice was about to break and that somewhere, I think it was in the bank, there was a radio. So I went with my Chinese colleague and the only other European in the city – a German Jew, a refugee professor – and we hung over a little radio to hear a faint whisper.

‘An Armistice has been signed.’

It was an unbelievable moment. The three of us hugged each other, danced about, the Professor kissed me, and for us, as for millions in the world, it was too good to be true. There was no possibility of finding the usual drinks for celebration, but someone produced twenty eggs, a great luxury, and we made and ate a huge omelette.

Some of her stories are just great adventure stories such as her walking holiday in the Canadian province Saskatchewan in the 1920s during a holiday from teaching (page 40):

At Midnight Lake, renouncing the idea of walking, I accepted another lift to Meadow Lake, which was the furthest north settlement of white people outside the Arctic Circle. There a family entertained me for three days. They had come from England thirty years before and they treated me like a long lost relative.

‘Is the Albert Hall still there?’ was one of the questions.

On the way back I slept one night in a woodcutters’ camp. I had not meant to stop but a woman there, cooking for the crew, ran out and begged me to stay. She said she had not spoken to another woman all the summer, and we shared a bed and talked most of the night like two school girls. […]

The next day they drove me half way to the place I was making for, where I thought I knew the teacher. But I found she had left, and as my money was running out, I decided to sleep under a haystack. There was a full moon and wonderful Northern lights, like great green searchlights stalking backwards and forwards across the sky. […]

When I arrived home, I found my employers were quite unable to believe that I had really gone off alone and inclined to be a little unpleasant about it. So I borrowed a horse and paid some visits to relate my adventures. It sounded so exciting that several of the women said they would also like to go off like that for a change and they promised to come with me next time.

She also has many stories which are just funny; such as this offer received on a ship from Trieste, Italy, to Haifa, then Palestine now Israel in 1934 (page 142):

There were three women in my cabin so I did not spend much time in it. But it was on that journey that I missed – forever – the chance of being made beautiful. One of my cabin mates was very sick and I did what I could for her. On the last day, when she was feeling a little better, she gave a scream of horror as she saw me wash my face in the basin.

‘Water! On the face! Ruinous! Impossible!’

I laughed but she was in earnest. She got up, sat me down on a chair, surveyed me carefully and then pronounced her verdict. A good deal of structural alteration as well as the façade needed extensive treatment.

‘If you will come to my salon in Tel Aviv and will stay with me for a week, I will make you beautiful. I can promise you. Beautiful for all your life! And I will not charge you a penny.’

Unfortunately I had only two weeks in Palestine and I had different plans.

Of course there are also less enjoyable aspects of reading this autobiography. As you might expect, Galbraith uses the language that was used within her own time to describe disability and race which includes words now understood to be offensive which can be jarring to a modern reader. She also unconsciously perpetuates a number of ethnic stereotypes at certain points making sweeping generalisations that are far less interesting than when she allows the individuals she meets to be individuals. Her role in colonisation as a missionary is also not fully examined by the author. 

The other difficult part of reading this autobiography are several descriptions of violent and really shocking events described in a startlingly blasé tone. “How you British do understate things” was the response by American listeners after she gave a talk about the London Blitz in the USA in 1941. One of the only time she seems so horrified that she explicitly withholds content from the reader is when she meets former concentration camp workers in post Germany; she writes “I remember, but cannot write or forget” (page 209).

Never the less it is a fascinating read I would recommend for those interested in twentieth century world history, gender studies or those just interested in a good story. 

All quotes are from Winifred Galbraith in her unpublished autobiography written in 1969. You can view Winifred Galbraith’s full autobiography by appointment in our Archives Reading Room and read more about her on our online catalogue.