History of the WI

The WI movement began at Stoney Creek in Canada in 1897 when Adelaide Hoodless addressed a meeting for the wives of members of the Farmers' Institute. The first British WI meeting took place on 16 September 1915 at Llanfairpwll on Anglesey in North Wales. The WI was originally set up in the UK to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War.

http://www.thewi.org.uk/

Our national structure The national headquarters of the WI, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, is in London. We also have an office in Cardiff,NFWI-Wales, and a residential college in Oxfordshire, Denman College. We produce a membership magazine WI Life. WI Enterprises is the trading arm of the organisation and exists to raise funds and provide benefits for members. Companies wishing to explore sponsorship should visit the commercial opportunities section.

Our regional structure Our 7,000 WIs are grouped together to form 69 county and island federations, each with a regional office. Details of federation offices can be found in the Find your WI section. Together the WIs and federations make up the National Federation. Each level of the organisation is run by a committee of elected members. The NFWI Board of Trustees is democratically elected every two years by the members.