I knew people who worked alongside her when the Chiswick refuge was founded. It wasn't necessarily the first refuge, but she was able to attract media attention and had the positive impact of bringing the problem of domestic abuse into the light.
However, as stated above, unfortunately her personal ambition and need to be recognised eclipsed her contribution to the advancement of women's safety and rights.
I think it was in 1974 that there was a gathering of representatives from the many refuges set up across the country where they decided to form a Federation. They agreed a set of principles that all would agree to. One of them (to paraphrase) was a recognition that domestic violence occurs as the result of the inferior status of women in society. All the representatives agree this, except Pizzey. She flatly refused to accept that domestic abuse was as we would call now a "gendered crime," and left the meeting. In the months and years that followed, she lobbied hard to prevent local authorities from funding refuges that weren't "her" refuge, but thankfully, this had little impact.
One could argue that the chip on her shoulder arising from this initial "snub" has grown over the ensuing decades. She has peddled a very dangerous view of the causes and effects of domestic abuse which of course is very popular amongst the tabloid press and apologists for men's violence because her theories remove responsibility for men and place it in the shoulders of women.
She has also ranted continuously about how horrid it is that feminists and marxists have taken over the refuge movement (she did an article called "How Feminists Tried to Destroy the Family"), particularly to the detriment of men and children. It's hardly surprising that she's a poster girl for the MRA's. She frequently argues that changes in legislation and policy designed to make it easier for women and children to escape abusive relationships tip too far in favour of women and demonise men for just being men.
She's based alot of her "evidence" that many women are "prone to violence" on her observations from Chiswick Women's Aid (as it was called then) and evidence from widely discredited proponents of the Conflict Tactics Scale model for "measuring" incidence of domestic abuse (look up any study based on CTS or done by Strauss, Murray, Gelles or Steinmetz on DV and you'll find figures showing equal proportions of violence perpetrated by men and women, or more often, that women are MORE violent than men.)
In her book "Prone to Violence," she says she believed 60 of the first 100 women to come into Chiswick Refuge were as violent or more violent than the men they left, that's "proof" that it's not a gender-based problem.
For those interested, one of her books "Prone to Violence" is available in full text on line if you do a search for it.
It's perfectly understandable why the charity Refuge is careful about their description of her involvement in founding of the organisation, as the philosophy she advocates is the diametric opposite of the mission, aims and values of the charity.
. We all belonged to some sort of organisation and had conferences etc.