Helen Crawfurd

Vocation

Scottish suffragette and communist activist. Crawfurd's family moved to Ipswich while she was young, and she later went to school in London and Ipswich beford moving back to Glasgow as a teenager. Her father was a Catholic but converted to the Church of Scotland, and was a conservative trade unionist. Initially religious herself, she married the Reverend Alexander Crawfurd in 1898, but became increasingly radical. Crawfurd first became active in the women's suffrage movement around 1900, then in 1910 she switched her support to the more radical Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) of the Pankhursts. In 1912, she smashed the windows of Jack Pease, Minister for Education and received one month in prison. The following year, she was twice arrested in Glasgow when Emmeline Pankhurst was speaking, received another month in prison, and went on a five-day hunger strike. Following one more arrest, she left the WSPU in protest at its support of World War I and joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP). During the war, Crawfurd was involved with the Red Clydeside movement, including rent strikes in 1915, and became secretary of the Women's Peace Crusade. In 1918, her husband died, and she was also elected as vice-chair of the Scottish division of the ILP in 1918. Shortly after, she was a founder member of the ILP's left-wing faction which campaigned for it to affiliate to the Communist International. When this policy was defeated, she joined the new Communist Party of Great Britain, within which she served on the Central Committee, and was involved with various journalistic projects. She also became secretary of Workers' International Relief. Crawfurd stood for the CPGB in Bothwell at the 1929 UK general election and Aberdeen North in 1931, but did not come close to election. During the 1930s, Crawfurd was prominent in the Friends of the Soviet Union. She retired during World War II and remarried, but was elected to Dunoon Town Council shortly after the war, retiring in 1947 due to poor health. She died on 18 April 1954. Link to Wikipedia biography