Helen Crawfurd

Born Helen Jack at 175 Cumberland Street in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, her parents were Helen L. ({{nee}} Kyle) and William Jack.{{Cite web |url=http://scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=SR Birth Search for Helen Jack (Statutory Births 644/12 1466) |website=Scotland's People}} Her mother worked a steam-loom before she wed. Helen's family moved to Ipswich 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, but converted to the Church of Scotland and became a conservative trade unionist.

File:Helen Crawfurd, Janet Barrowman, Margaret McPhun, Mrs A.A. Wilson, Frances McPhun, Nancy A. John and Annie Swan.jpg, Margaret McPhun, Mrs A. A. Wilson, Frances McPhun, Nancy A. John and Annie S. Swan]]

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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=OR Birth and Baptism Search CRAWFORD, ALEXANDER (O.P.R. Births 612/01 0020 0089 ST QUIVOX) |website=Scotland's People}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=SR Death Search for Alexander Montgomerie Crawfurd (Statutory Deaths 644/22 0321) |website=Scotland's People}}{{Cite web |url=http://scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=SR Marriage Search for CRAWFORD, ALEXANDER M - JACK, HELEN (Statutory Marriages 490/00 0075) |website= Scotland's People}} However, she became increasingly radical, after witnessing injustices, and what she deemed to be "un-Christian" behaviour from the Church.A. T. Lane, ed., Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders, Vol. 1, pp. 224–226. For example, not helping widows financially before they had sold all their belongings in their home.{{Cite web |title=Helen Crawfurd by MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY & WORKERS' SCHOOL - Issuu |url=https://issuu.com/marxmemoriallibrary/docs/helen_crawfurd |access-date=2023-05-09 |website=issuu.com |date=28 January 2016 |language=en}} Alexander died, aged 85, at 17 Sutherland Street in Partick, Glasgow.

In 1944, Crawfurd remarried, to widower George Anderson of Anderson Brothers Engineers, Coatbridge. Her second husband was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.{{Cite web |url=http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=SR Marriage Search Anderson George Crawford Helen COATBRIDGE OR OLD MONKLAND Lanark 652/02 0071 |website=Scotland's People}} George Anderson died on 2 February 1952 and Crawfurd two years later at Mahson Cottage, Kilbride Avenue, Dunoon, Argyll, aged 76.{{Cite web |url=http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=SR Death Search ANDERSON, GEORGE (Statutory Deaths 510/02 0002) |website=Scotland's People}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk |title=SR Death Search ANDERSON, HELEN (Statutory Deaths 510/01 0067) |website=Scotland's People}}

Crawfurd first became active in the women's suffrage movement in about 1900, then in 1910 at a meeting in Rutherglen.{{Cite book |title=The Scottish Suffragettes |last=Leneman |first=Leah |publisher=NMS Publishing Limited |year=2000 |isbn=1-901663-40-X |location=British Library |pages=58–61}} Agreeing with their tactics, Crawfurd became a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) the same year.{{Cite web |title=Helen Crawfurd |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/CRIcrawfordH.htm |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=Spartacus Educational |language=en}}

Crawfurd was jailed three times for "militant" political activity during her career as an activist.{{Cite book |last=Castells, Manuel, 1942- |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8929555 |title=The city and the grassroots: a cross-cultural theory of urban social movements |date=1983 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-04756-7 |location=Berkeley |oclc=8929555}} 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 was speaking. She received another month in prison{{Cite book |title=Rise up, women! the remarkable lives of the suffragettes |last=Atkinson |first=Diane |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2018 |isbn=9781408844045 |location=London |pages=308, 532 |oclc=1016848621}} and went on an eight-day hunger strike. She spoke at the Music Hall, Aberdeen on 26 February 1914, in favour of militarism.{{Cite web |last=Pedersen |first=Sarah |title=The Aberdeen Women's Suffrage Campaign |url=https://suffrageaberdeen.co.uk/ |access-date=2023-03-18 |website=suffrageaberdeen.co.uk |publisher=copyright WildFireOne}} But 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 (ILP).

File:Mary Barbour Statue - Front view.jpg

During WWI, Crawfurd was involved with the Red Clydeside movement, including the Glasgow rent strikes in 1915 when she led the South Govan Women's Housing Association to resist rent increases and prevent evictions, alongside Mary Barbour, Mary Laird, Mary Jeff, Jessie Stephens and Agnes Dollan. Crawfurd had co-founded the Glasgow branch of the Women's International League and become secretary of the Women's Peace Crusade.{{Cite news |title=The Peace Negitiations Memorial |work=Forward |date=8 July 1916}} By then she had met Agnes Harben and others, who held the same international perspectives.{{Cite web |title=Women's International League |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/Winternational.htm |access-date=2021-01-21 |website=Spartacus Educational}} On 23 July 1916, Crawfurd organised the first demonstration of the Women's Peace Crusade, which was attended by 5,000.{{Cite book |title=The Life and Times of a Respectable Rebel: Selina Cooper (1864–1946) |last=Liddington |first=Jill |publisher=Virago |year=1984 }}{{Cite book |title=Most Dangerous Women: Feminist Peace Campaigners of the Great War |last=Wiltshire |first=Anna |publisher=Pandora |year=1985}} Crawfurd formed a branch of the United Suffragists in Glasgow.{{Cite news |title=Suffrage in Glasgow |date=30 July 1915 |work=Votes for Women}} These women used the realms of domesticity entrenched within society to support their campaign, known as "Wives and Weans Socialism".{{Cite book |last=Hughes |first=Annmarie |title=Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 1919-1939 |publisher=Edinburgh Scholarship Publishing |year=2010}}

In 1918, Crawfurd was elected as vice-chair of the Scottish division of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and was said to be a convincing speaker when she spoke in the Market Place at the branch meeting in Loftus.{{Cite news |date=22 August 1918 |title=Branch Reports - Loftus |page=2 |work=The Labour Leader}} 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. Crawford went to Moscow in 1920, with Marjory Newbold, Sylvia Pankhurst, Willie Gallacher and others for the Congress of the Third Communist International and interviewed Lenin.{{Cite book |last=Holmes |first=Rachel |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1196193442 |title=Sylvia Pankhurst natural born rebel |date=17 September 2020 |isbn=978-1-4088-8043-2 |location=London |oclc=1196193442}} When the affiliation policy was defeated, Crawfurd joined the new Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). She served on its Central Committee and involved herself in various journalistic projects. She also became secretary of Workers' International Relief.

File:British delegation at the 2nd international conference held by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom conference, Zurich, 1919.jpg

In 1919, Crawfurd was a delegate to the Congress of the Women's International League in Zürich.{{Cite news |date=6 June 1919 |title=Women who have pledged themselves to work for the Prevention of all future wars |work=The Crusader}}

Crawfurd ran in 1921 as the first Communist Party candidate in the Govan ward of Glasgow.{{Cite web |url=https://govanshiddenhistories.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/strong-women-of-clydeside-join-us-for-a-guided-walk-public-art-action-sat-15-aug-2-4pm/helencrawfurd_govanelectionposter1921/#main |title=HelenCrawfurd_GovanElectionPoster1921 |date=2015-06-17 |website=Govan's Hidden Histories |access-date=2016-07-02}}

In 1927, Crawfurd was an official delegate to the Brussels International Conference against Oppressed Nationalities,{{Cite journal |last=Ellison |first=John |date=2017 |title=The League against Imperialism (British Section)- A Hidden History |journal=Communist Party History Group: Our History|volume=15 (vol 2 new series) |pages=6 |via=issuu}} at which the League against Imperialism was established. Crawfurd joined the executive of the British section.{{Cite journal |last=Ellison |first=John |date=2017 |title=The League against Imperialism (British Section) - A Hidden History |journal=Communist Party History Group: Our History |volume=15 (vol 2 new series) |pages=8 |via=issuu}}

Crawfurd stood for the CPGB in Bothwell at the 1929 general election, and Aberdeen North in 1931, 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 Town Council in 1938.{{Cite news |title=Other burghs |work=The Scotsman |date=2 Nov 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.[http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=128:helen-crawfurd-anderson&catid=3:c&Itemid=99 Crawfurd Helen], Compendium of Communist Biography

Helen Crawfurd (by then Mrs Anderson) died in 1954 at Mahson Cottage, Kilbride Avenue, Dunoon, Argyll, aged 76.

Crawfurd was included in a series of posters in 2019 and an educational resource called Scotland's Suffrage Education Pack.{{Cite web |date=2020-08-19 |title=Group celebrating Scotland's suffragettes raises £11,000 in one day to provide educational packs to school pupils |url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18662416.project-provide-educational-packs-scottish-suffragettes-school-pupils-raises-11-000/ |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=The Herald |language=en}} The education pack included a Top Trumps-style game called Scotland's Suffragettes Trumps, produced by Protests and Suffragettes (an organisation led by artists, activists and local historians) by crowdfunding to send 700 sets to schools.{{Cite web |date=2021-12-06 |title=Gallusness 10: The Top Trumps-style project taking suffragette stories to schools |url=https://www.thenational.scot/news/19763770.top-trumps-project-uncovers-scotlands-lost-black-suffragette/ |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=The National |language=en}} Women's History Scotland's Dr. Yvonne McFadden called the game 'a fun and important tool to make sure these women and their stories' are included in the Scottish school curriculum, as women's history is often limited in school history teaching.{{Cite web |date=2022-01-02 |title=Schools across Scotland receive hundreds of resources including trump cards on ‘overlooked’ Scottish suffrage |url=https://www.scotsman.com/education/scottish-suffrage-history-packs-handed-out-to-schools-across-scotland-3501771 |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=The Scotsman |language=en}}

Crawfurd was also memorialised in 2024 in stained glass window by Artist Keira McLean in Glasgow's Woodside Library,{{Cite web |title=In your area |url=https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/family-history/stories-and-blogs-from-the-mitchell/special-collections-blogs/in-your-area |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=Glasgow Life |language=en}} working with young people from the local community.{{Cite web |title=Stained Glass Library Trail Nominated for Community Champion Award |url=https://www.cilips.org.uk/library-trail/ |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=www.cilips.org.uk}} The window also features Suffragette Jessie Soga and was co-designed with young people from SiMY Community Development in Townhead.{{Cite web |date=2024-09-13 |title=New stained glass window trail remembers 'neglected' working class Glaswegians |url=https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/24579551.new-city-trail-remembers-neglected-working-class-glaswegians/ |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=Glasgow Times |language=en}} Artist McLean said "there are so many forgotten histories of people who made a real difference' to Glasgow, and that the window is "restoring the neglected histories of communities often marginalised or dismissed.” The unveiling of the window took place at an event hosted by Glasgow Life on 5 September 2024 and featured new musical arrangements by Musician Lorna Morgan of the Holloway Jingles poems written by imprisoned suffragettes. Historical information about Jessie Soga and Helen Crawfurd was shared by Clare Thompson from Protests and Suffragettes.

• Wilkins, K. (2023). Helen Crawfurd (1877–1954): Scottish Suffragette and International Communist. In: de Haan, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists around the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13127-1_5

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Category:1877 births

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Category:Communist Party of Great Britain councillors

Category:Councillors in Scotland

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Category:19th-century Scottish women

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Category:Scottish socialist feminists

Category:Pacifist feminists

Category:Scottish suffragettes

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Category:20th-century Scottish politicians

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