A Tribute to Maggie Davis

At GMCDP and the Disabled People's Archive we were greatly saddened to hear of the recent death of Maggie Davis (also known as Maggie Hines) in March 2024.

Maggie, along with her partner Ken Davis, was a member of UPIAS and a co-founder of Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People (DCDP) and Derbyshire Centre for Integrated (later Inclusive) Living (DCIL).

She was a pioneer of Independent Living in the UK, her involvement in the Disabled People's Movement starting from her experience of living in the groundbreaking Grove Road housing scheme in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. The history of this is documented in 'To and From Grove Road', a collection of Maggie's and Ken's writings which was compiled and published by Tony Baldwinson.

In the early 1980s, Maggie was featured in a documentary film called "Independent Living", made by the Greater Manchester Housing and Disability Group, that we recently found in our video archive. As a tribute to her, we are now sharing this publicly.

The film features interviews with both disabled people, including Maggie and Ken Davis, and representatives of local authorities and housing associations, talking about how accessible housing and personal assistance services - both of which were in very early stages of development in the UK at the time - could give disabled people control over their everyday lives and prevent them from having to move into institutional settings.

There were several different versions of the film in our video collection, each with different parts included and cut out. We have combined these into the most complete edited version that we could make, though unfortunately there are still some parts where footage or narration seems to be missing. We have also added subtitles to the video.

You can read a transcript of the video here.

Maggie and Ken were also interviewed in a video called "Proud to be Disabled" which was produced by Birmingham City Council's Equalities department in 2004. We have subtitled, and are sharing here, the section of this video featuring them.

You can read a transcript of the video here.

We are also sharing an article by Maggie Davis called "The Way Back", also on the subject of housing, personal assistance and de-institutionalisation, which was originally published in Derbyshire Coalition's newsletter, and later re-published in Disability Challenge, the magazine published by UPIAS under the title "The Link Between Housing and Help".

"The Way Back" - 14pt Word .doc version

"The Way Back" - 18pt Word .doc version

"The Way Back" - Easier to Read translation

There is a longer obituary of Maggie Davis written by John Pring of the Disability News Service here: Maggie Davis: Tributes to pioneer, rebel and advocate – Disability News Service