Profile Major Works Resources

Clara E. Collet, 1860-1948.

English economist, social science researcher and civil servant.

Clara Elizabeth Collet was the daughter of the Charles Dobson Collet, a London merchant, journalist, Unitarian and radical activist.  Karl Marx contributed to Collet's review, The Diplomatic Review. Their families became friendly, and their two daughters, Clara Collet and Eleanor Marx became particularly close at a young age.

Her father endeavored to give her the best education available at the time, enrolling Clara in the North London Collegiate School.  In 1878, she became a teacher at Wyggeston Girls' School in Leicester, while continuing her studies.  Collet enrolled at University College London and obtained her BA in October 1880, becoming one of the first women university graduates in England (women were only allowed to take degrees at UCL in 1878, the first English university to do so).  She continued to study economics, receiving a Teacher's Diploma along the way and obtaining her MA from UCL in 1887.  She won the Joseph Hume scholarship in Political Economy along with Henry Higgs in 1886.   

Collet was recruited by Charles Booth as one of the researchers for his massive statistical project on the London poor. Booth was then in need of a researcher to complete the  study of women's work in the East End begun by Alice Stopford Green, who had abandoned the project in 1888.   Booth had originally asked on of his current researchers Beatrice Potter to undertake the additional study, but she was already overworked in other areas, so Collet was recommended instead (Potter had been introduced to Collet by their common friend Eleanor Marx).  To undertake the project, Collet left teaching in Leicester and took up residence in the East End slums of London in late 1888 (at the height of the "Jack the Ripper" murders in Whitechapel) and remained with the project until 1892.  While undertaking investigations, she also conducted occasional lectures nearby at Toynbee Hall, filling in for Henry Higgs' course on political economy when needed. 

Growing in experience as an expert on female labor, Collet undertook some work as an assistant commissioner to the Royal Commission on Labour in 1892, and the next year, in 1893, Clara Collet joined the civil service as a Labour Correspondent for the Board of Trade.

 

  

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Major Works of Clara E. Collett

  • "Women's Trade Unions", 1888, Charity Organisation Review, v.46, p.420
  • "Maria Edgeworth and Charity", 1889, COR, v.59 (Nov), p.418
  • "Women's Work", 1889, in Charles Booth, editor, Labour and Life of the People, v.1, p.406.
  • The Economic Position of Educated Working Women: A discourse, 1890 (Feb) [1902 reprint, p.1].
  • "Foreign Competition", 1890, COR, v.65 (May), p.185 & v.67 (Jul), p.285.
  • "Salaries of Women Teachers", 1890, J of Education (Aug),
  • "Book Review of LL Price's 'West Barbary'", 1891, COR, v.80 (Aug), p.323
  • "George Gissing's Novels", 1891, COR, v.82 (Oct), p.375
  • "Moral Tales", 1891, Intl J of Ethics, v.1 (Apr), p.370
  • "Reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics on Labour on Working Women, 1870-1889", 1891, EJ, v.1 (Jun), p.398
  • "Strikes an Lock-out, 1889", 1891, COR, v.74 (Feb), p.74
  • "Wages and the Standard of Living", 1891, QJE, v.5 (Apr), p.365
  • "Women's Work in Leeds", 1891, EJ v.1 (Sep), p.460
  • "Prospects of Marriage for Women", 1892, Nineteenth Century, v.31 (Apr), p.537.
  • Report by Miss Collet on the Statistics of Employment of Women and Girls, Report to Board of Trade, 1894. [bk]
  • "Three Ideal COS Secretaries", 1894, COR, v.110 (Mar), p.119.
  • "Industrial and Economic Position of Women: Extracts from Miss Collet's Report on the Statistics and Employment of Women", 1895, Englishwoman's Review, v.26 (Jul), p.208 & (Oct) p.222
  • "Statistics of Employment of Women and Girls (excerpt)", 1895, JRSS v.58 (Sep), p.518
  • "Review of Family Budgets", 1896, EJ (Dec), p.570.
  • Changes in the Employment of Women and Girls in Industrial Centres, Part I: Flax and Jute Centers, Report Board of Trade 1898.
  • "The Collection and Utilisation of Official Statistics Bearing on the Extent and Effects of the Industrial Employment of Women", 1898, JRSS, v.61 (Jun), p.219, app. p.244.
  • "The Expenditure of Middle Class Working Women", 1898, EJ (Dec), p.543.
  • Report of Miss Claret on the Money Wages of In-door Domestic Servants, Report of Board of Trade, 1899 [av].
  • "The Age Limit fo Women", 1899, Contemporary Review (Dec), p.868
  • "Wage Boards in Victoria", 1901, EJ (Dec), p.557
  • Educated Working Women: Essays on the economic position of women workers in the middle classes, 1902 [bk, av].
  • "West End Tailoring (Women)" in Booth 1902
  • "Review of Bosanqut's Strength of the People", 1903, EJ, p.81.
  • "The Social Status of Women Occupiers", 1908, JRSS (Sep), p.513
  • "Female Labour", 1910, in Palgrave's Dictionary, v.2, p.49.
  • "Females and Children, Earnings of", 1910, in Palgrave's Dictionary, v.2, p.50.
  • Women in Industry, 1911 [av]
  • "The Professional Employment of Women", 1915, EJ (Dec), p.627.
  • "Cost of Food for an Adult Woman", 1916, JRSS (May), p.300
  • "Comment on Barton", 1919, JRSS (Jul), p.547
  • "Review of Watson's Charity Organisation in the US", 1923, EJ, p.410.
  • "Loch, Sir Charles", 1923, EJ, p.123
  • "Review of Broughton's Labour in Indian Industries", 1924, EJ (Sep), p.457
  • "Review of Welfare", 1924, EJ (Sep), p.457.
  • "The Development of Ruskin's Views on Interest", 1926, Econ Hist (Jan), p.23
  • "Some Recollections of Charles Booth", 1927, Social Service Review, p.384
  • "Domestic Service", 1931, in H. Llewellyn Smith, editor, New Survey of London Life and Labour.
  • "Source Materials: Mrs Sidney Webb before the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance", 1933, SSR
  • The History of the Collet Family, 1935.
  • "E.C. Price", 1936, Charity Organization Quarterly,
  • "Professor Foxwell and University College", 1936, EJ (Dec), p.614.
  • "Review of Martindale's 'Woman Servants of the State'", 1939, EJ, p.124
  • "Obituary of Henry Higgs", with J.M. Keynes, 1940, EJ (Dec), p.546.
     

 
HET

 
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Resources on Clara Collett

  • Clara Collett website by Deborah MacDonald
  • "Clara Collett and Jack the Ripper" by Deborah MacDonald at VictorianWeb [vict]
  • Clara Collet, 1860-1948: An Educated Working Woman by Deborah McDonald (2004)
  • Wiki

 

 
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