Helen Crawfurd ( Jack, later Anderson; 9 November 1877 – 18 April 1954) was a Scottish

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

rent strike A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent ''en masse'' until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord. This ca ...

organiser, Communist activist and politician. Born in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, she was brought up there and in London.

Biography

Born Helen Jack at 175 Cumberland Street in the

Gorbals The Gorbals is an area in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, on the south bank of the River Clyde. By the late 19th century, it had become densely populated; rural migrants and immigrants were attracted by the new industries and employment opportun ...

area of Glasgow, her parents were Helen L. ( Kyle) and William Jack. Her mother worked a steam-loom before she wed. Helen's family moved to

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

while she was young. Crawfurd later went to school in London and Ipswich before moving back to Glasgow as a teenager. Crawfurd's father, a master baker, was a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, but converted to the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...

and became a conservative

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

ist.

Helen Crawfurd, Janet Barrowman, Margaret McPhun, Mrs A

Initially religious herself and a Sunday School teacher, Crawfurd felt a call to be married at 21 to the 67-year-old widower Alexander Montgomerie Crawfurd (29 August 1828 – 31 May 1914), a Church of Scotland minister and family friend. but he became increasingly radical.A. T. Lane, ed., ''Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders, Vol. 1'', pp. 224–226. Alexander died aged 85 at 17 Sutherland Street in Partick, Glasgow. In 1944, Crawfurd remarried, to widower George Anderson of Anderson Brothers Engineers,

Coatbridge Coatbridge ( sco, Cotbrig or Coatbrig, gd, Drochaid a' Chòta) is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, about east of Glasgow city centre, set in the central Lowlands. Along with neighbouring town Airdrie, Coatbridge forms the area known as ...

. Her second husband was a member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

. George Anderson died on 2 February 1952 and Crawfurd two years later at Mahson Cottage, Kilbride Avenue, Dunoon, Argyll, aged 76.

Political activity

Crawfurd first became active in the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

movement in about 1900, then in 1910 at a meeting in

Rutherglen Rutherglen (, sco, Ruglen, gd, An Ruadh-Ghleann) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, immediately south-east of the city of Glasgow, from its centre and directly south of the River Clyde. Having existed as a Lanarkshire burgh in its own ...

. Crawfurd was jailed three times for "militant" political activity during her career as an activist. In 1912, Crawfurd smashed the windows of Jack Pease, Minister for Education, and received a one-month prison sentence. In March 1914, Crawfurd was arrested in Glasgow when

Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...

was speaking. She received another month in prison and went on an eight-day

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

. After one further arrest, Crawfurd left the WSPU in protest at its support of the First World War and in 1914 she joined the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

(ILP).

During the war, Crawfurd was involved with the

Red Clydeside Red Clydeside was the era of political radicalism in Glasgow, Scotland, and areas around the city, on the banks of the River Clyde, such as Clydebank, Greenock, Dumbarton and Paisley, from the 1910s until the early 1930s. Red Clydeside is a ...

movement, including the Glasgow rent strikes in 1915 when she led the

South Govan Women's Housing Association South Govan Women's Housing Association was established in 1915 under the leadership by Mary Barbour in Govan on the south side of Glasgow in Scotland. The Glasgow Rent strikes began in response to rent increases in Glasgow during the First Worl ...

to resist rent increases and prevent evictions, alongside

Mary Barbour Mary Barbour ( Rough; 20 February 1875 – 2 April 1958) was a Scottish political activist, local councillor, bailie and magistrate. Barbour was closely associated with the Red Clydeside movement in the early 20th century and especially for h ...

Mary Laird Mary Laird ( Burns; died 1944) was a founding member and first President of the Glasgow Women's Housing Association, a President of the Partick Branch of the Women's Labour League, associated with the Red Clydeside movement, and supported the ...

Mary Jeff Mary Jeff (1873-1941) was a Scottish activist and politician who was involved in the Glasgow rent strike. Early life and education Mary Jeff was born Mary Russell Watson in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire in 1873. She moved to Govan in 1896, and lived ...

and

Agnes Dollan Agnes Johnston Dollan Order of the British Empire, MBE ( Moir; 16 August 1887 – 16 July 1966), also known as Agnes, Lady Dollan, was a Scottish suffragette and political activist. She was a leading campaigner during the Glasgow rent st ...

. Crawfurd had co-founded the Glasgow branch of the Women's International League and become secretary of

the Women's Peace Crusade The Women's Peace Crusade was a grassroots socialist movement that spread across Great Britain between 1916 and 1918. Its central aim was to spread a 'people's peace', which was defined as a negotiated end to the First World War without any anne ...

. By then she had met

Agnes Harben Agnes Helen Harben (née Bostock; 15 September 1879 – 29 October 1961) was a British Women's suffrage, suffragist leader who also supported the militant suffragette hunger strikers, and was a founder of the United Suffragists. Family and lif ...

and others, who held the same international perspectives. On 23 July 1916, Crawfurd organised the first demonstration of the Women's Peace Crusade, which was attended by 5,000. Crawfurd formed a branch of the

United Suffragists The United Suffragists was a women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. History The group was founded on 6 February 1914, by former members and supporters of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In contrast to the WSPU, it admit ...

in Glasgow. In 1918, Crawfurd was elected as vice-chair of the Scottish division of the

(ILP), and was said to be a convincing speaker when she spoke in the Market Place at the branch meeting in Loftus. Shortly afterwards, Crawfurd became a founder member of the ILP's left-wing faction, which was campaigning for it to affiliate to the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

. Crawford went to Moscow in 1920, with

Marjory Newbold Marjory Newbold (25 May 1883 – 15 November 1926) was a leading Scottish socialist and communist, prominent in the Independent Labour Party and in the 'Red Clydeside' movement demanding reforms for the working class. Newbold organised pacifist ...

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

, Willie Gallacher and others for the Congress of the Third Communist International and interviewed

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

. When the affiliation policy was defeated, Crawfurd joined the new

(CPGB). She served on its Central Committee and involved herself in various journalistic projects. She also became secretary of Workers' International Relief. In 1919, Crawfurd was a delegate to the Congress of the Women's International League in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

. Crawfurd ran in 1921 as the first Communist Party candidate in the

Govan Govan ( ; Cumbric?: ''Gwovan'?''; Scots: ''Gouan''; Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile a' Ghobhainn'') is a district, parish, and former burgh now part of south-west City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south ba ...

ward of Glasgow. In 1927, Crawfurd was an official delegate to the Brussels International Conference against Oppressed Nationalities, at which the

League against Imperialism The League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression (french: Ligue contre l'impérialisme et l'oppression coloniale; german: Liga gegen Kolonialgreuel und Unterdrückung) was a transnational anti-imperialist organization in the interwar period. ...

was established. Crawfurd joined the executive of the British section. Crawfurd stood for the CPGB in Bothwell at the 1929 general election, and Aberdeen North in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

, but did not come close to being elected. During the 1930s, Crawfurd was prominent in the Friends of the Soviet Union. She unsuccessfully stood for

Dunoon Dunoon (; gd, Dùn Omhain) is the main town on the Cowal peninsula in the south of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is located on the western shore of the upper Firth of Clyde, to the south of the Holy Loch and to the north of Innellan. As well ...

Town Council in 1938. However, she was elected as Dunoon's first woman town councillor shortly after the war, but retired from it in 1947 due to poor health.Crawfurd Helen
''Compendium of Communist Biography'' Helen Crawfurd (by then Mrs Anderson) died in 1954 at Mahson Cottage, Kilbride Avenue, Dunoon, Argyll, aged 76.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawfurd, Helen 1877 births 1954 deaths Communist Party of Great Britain councillors Councillors in Scotland People from Gorbals Scottish suffragists Scottish suffragettes Scottish pacifists Red Clydeside Scottish communists 19th-century Scottish women 20th-century Scottish women Scottish socialist feminists Pacifist feminists Hunger Strike Medal recipients Scottish women activists Scottish anti-war activists Women councillors in Scotland 20th-century Scottish women politicians 20th-century Scottish politicians 20th-century British women politicians Women's Social and Political Union