Item WEA/3/1 - Yorkshire & Yorkshire North; WEA Yorkshire North District by W.E. Styler

The Workers Educational Association or WEA was established in 1903, and there was branch in York from at least 1912. From 1912 to c1920 the WEA held meetings and classes at the St Mary's Educational Settlement. However, during the interwar years the relationship between the two institutions was an uneasy one. The WEA was suspicious of the Educational Settlement due to it's financial reliance on the Rowntree family, which it believed prevented the settlement from running on genuinely democratic lines. The Settlement was also considered 'bourgeois', 'middle class' 'capitalist' and 'reactionary' by the WEA. In 1921, they began to hold meetings at the Co-operative Society Hall on Railway Street, although WEA classes continued to be held at the St Mary's Settlement.
Connected to the Educational Settlement at St Mary's and the York Community Settlement Players.
See Also - York Settlement Community Players
See Also - York Educational Settlement