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As Lucy Worsley Celebrates Women's Institute's 100th Birthday, We Find 10 Facts That Just Might Surprise You About UK's Largest Women's Group

10 Things That Will Surprise You About The WI...
Caroline Frost
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To help the Women's Institute celebrate its centenary in the UK, historian Lucy Worsley is going behind the town hall doors tonight to see if there's more to the organisation than "jam and Jerusalem". The answer is, oh yes.

Ahead of tonight's 'Cake Bakers and Trouble Makers: Lucy Worsley's 100 Years of the WI', here are 10 facts that might just surprise you about this tireless group of women...

Women's Insitute
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- Tony Blair underestimated the power of the WI, when he appeared at their AGM in 2000, and stood flummoxed, on the receiving end of a slow handclap from the assembled members.

- 'Jerusalem' has been sung at the opening of WI AGMs since 1924. Many WIs also open meetings by singing Jerusalem. Although it has never actually been adopted as the WI's official anthem, in practice it holds that position.
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- The film 'Calendar Girls' was based on the true story of a group ofYorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research under the auspices of the Women's Institutes in April 1999. The filn starred Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton and Celia Imrie, and went on to make an impressive $96m box office, from an original production budget of $10m.

- The quaint picture of Jam-making by the WI originated from a crucial purpose, when the organisation started to make jam, as well as pickle, during World War II after a government request to keep up the home food supplies.
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- The WI is the largest women's group in the country, with 212,000 members, more than any of the three main political parties. It had an alltime high in 1954, with 467,000. There are around 6,600 WIs across England and Wales, with 520 groups forming in the last four years.

- The WI's archives are kept at the Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics ref 5FWI and are open to the public.
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- The Women's Institute originally started in Canada in the 19th century, before it had its first British meeting in 1915, in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey, Wales (Scotland has the Women's Rural Institutes). Then, as now, it was non-party-political, non-religious and open to women of all ages and classes.

- Campaigning over the years has included the rights of single mothers’ children, alternative energy, women’s education, recognition of rape within marriage
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- In December 2012 Sami Score founded The Iron Maidens WI in Liscard in Merseyside, with many members sporting tattoos, piercings and wildly coloured hair. The branch was opened to provide a forum for women interested in rock music, burlesque, goth culture, steampunk, retro and more. There is also a goth WI in Wales.

- 'Little Britain' fell foul of the WI with a sketch featuring two WI women judging cakes. The featured pair projectile vomited whenever they "accidentally" ate something made by someone gay or non-white. The National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) complained and the show had to remove the WI's logo.

'Cake Bakers and Trouble Makers: Lucy Worsley's 100 Years of the WI' airs tonight at 10pm on BBC2. Trailer below...

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