On this day in history….16th September 1915

On this day in history : 16th September 1915 – Britain’s first Women’s Institute is opened in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobllllantysiliogogogoch, Anglesey, Wales….

Since that time the W.I. has grown to become the UK’s largest women’s voluntary organisation with over 6,300 branches and more than 212,000 members….

Originally the W.I. was established to teach and encourage rural women to grow and preserve food to help feed the nation during the war years…. Women got together to share their skills – something that is still a very important part of the organisation today….

It was during the 1920s that many W.I.s formed choirs…. An amateur musician from Shropshire, W.H.Leslie, acted as an advisor to the formed music committee…. He then asked his friend Sir Walford Davies, who was a composer, conductor, musician and advisor to the BBC, to write an arrangement of ‘Jerusalem’ especially for the W.I. choirs…. The song was deemed as an appropriate choice to encourage women to actively take a role in public life….because of its association with the fight for women’s rights and the Suffrage movement….