The Golden Age: The 1920s and '30s

It is notable that the GFS, an organisation run by and for women, played no part in the campaign for female suffrage. But in the decade following the War the Society expanded its activities in many other directions, despite the continuing fall in membership. It began, in 1919, with a nationwide Campaign for Purity, the White Crusade, and the opening of the White Horse Centre - a social service for children in a poor area of south London - in a former public house.

Opposite: 5GFS/11/2 Postcards of the White Horse Centre. The striking contrast between the boys playing and the girls working gives an indication of contemporary notions of appropriate leisure pursuits for the different sexes.