This paper forms part of a recent trend that aims to contribute to the writing of a more inclusive education history sensitive to the operation of gender. The author presents an analysis of educator activists in twentieth-century England that connects, rather than separates, the domains of education, labour history and politics. The paper also contributes to a redefining of history/histories of education which, instead of relegating gender to the margins, integrates this perspective into its mainstream conceptual frameworks. The intent is to examine the circumstances that make class politics grounded in gendered and occupational identities possible, showing the way in which the politics of place works as an active influence at a range of scales. Here the auto/biographical practices of a married couple who taught in state schools are used as a lens through which to explore the larger questions of the intersection of biography and history, the distinction between lived experience and historical experience, the link between generation and social change. (Contains 62 footnotes.)