Muriel Dowbiggin and husband Ernest outside their home on Borrowdale Road, Lancaster, with teachers and the Lancaster Band of Hope and Temperance Union
Lancaster Guardian, 25 Aug 1933
Having been made Hon. Secretary in 1925 with husband Ernest as Assistant Secretary, the Dowbiggins remained in these roles with Lancaster LNU for the next 14 years. Muriel continued to develop her understanding of the League and demonstrate her organising abilities. In 1926 she organised the weekend stop of the Peacemakers’ Pilgrimage, and was already running the yearly programme of meetings. She wrote several entertainments for League publicity, travelling around the district addressing local groups in her car. (1) She educated herself in League affairs, attending an LNU conference at Harrogate in 1927 and writing a column in the ‘Lancaster Guardian’ giving a report of Professor Gilbert Murray’s lecture. By 1929 her annual report was as much about the League of Nations as local branch business.
Muriel’s combative nature came to the fore again in 1932 when she criticised Government policy towards the League of Nations, coming into conflict with the then President, Rev. Benjamin Pollard. The next year she organised the rally held at Quernmore Park, home of W. J. Garnett, the new president, with Lord Cecil, the LNU President, as guest speaker. But Muriel was not a single-cause activist. She was a keen member of the local Liberal Party and c.1930 was elected a local councillor, becoming Mayor of Lancaster in 1940/1. She was involved with the WI and became a Governor of the Girls’ Grammar School. (2) In later life she was President of the Lancaster Association of Lay Preachers. Ernest died in 1955 and she died at Caton Green, Brookhouse, in 1963.
References/Further Reading:
(1) Muriel’s father, Tom Taylor: ‘At Christmas (1924) he had built a garage for her’. Lancaster Guardian, 18 Apr 1925.
(2) Z. Barbarachild, 2016. Muriel Dowbiggin: World War 1 Lancaster Peace Activist.
Lancaster Guardian: 5 Jun 1926, 29 Jan 1927, 20 Aug 1927, 18 Mar 1932, 25 Aug 1933, 25 Feb 1955 & 8 Mar 1963.