Jessie Stephen, MBE (19 April 1893 – 12 June 1979) was a twentieth-century British suffragette, labour activist and local councillor. She grew up in Scotland and won a scholarship to train as a teacher. Family finances dictated otherwise, leading to her becoming a domestic worker at the age of 15. She became involved in national labour issues as a teenager, via organisations such as the Independent Labour Party and the Women's Social and Political Union. Stephen moved to London during World War I and in the 1920s she toured the United States and Canada, where she held meetings with the public including migrant English domestic workers.
Stephen was elected as a local councillor several times and stood as a candidate in general elections. After moving to Bristol in the 1940s she became the first woman president of Bristol Trades Council. She was appointed MBE in 1977 and her life is commemorated by a blue plaque in Bristol.
Jessie Stephen was born in Marylebone, London, on 19 April 1893, the eldest of the eleven children of tailor Alexander Stephen and his wife Jane Miller. The family moved to Edinburgh, then Dunfermline, before settling in Glasgow in 1901.[1] Stephen's father was a founder member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) when it was established[2] and she described her mother as being "so quiet and the very opposite of dad".[3]
She attended Sunday schools separately linked to the church[1] and to socialism,[1][4] and was educated at North Kelvinside School.[1] She won a scholarship to train as a pupil-teacher.[5] Family circumstances meant that she could not afford to pursue her aspiration to become a teacher, and she became a domestic worker at the age of 15.[2]
Unfortunately for my dreams, unemployment became worse so there was nothing for it but to leave [scholarship as a pupil teacher].
Jessie Stephen, quoted by Jill Liddington in The Road to Greenham Common: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain Since 1820[6]
Stephen was the youngest member of the WSPU Glasgow delegation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George in 1912,[5] and, she took part in the first of the "Scottish Outrages", involving attacks on pillar boxes, in Glasgow in February 1913.[4][9][10][11] Her job as a maid worked in her favour during these attacks, as she explained in a 1975 interview:
"I was able to drop acid into the postal pillar boxes without being suspected, because I walked down from where I was employed in my cap, muslin apron and black frock... nobody would ever suspect me of dropping acid through the box."[12]
In the 1920s she visited the United States, holding public meetings with immigrant communities from Scotland and Wales.[1][15] and fund-raising for the Socialist Party of America.[1] She also visited Vancouver, where she encouraged migrant English domestic workers to unionise.[1]
From 1924 she worked as a freelance journalist,[4] established a secretarial agency in Lewes in 1935[4] and joined the National Union of Clerks in 1938.[1] At the time of the Second World War, she worked for Murphy Radio in Welwyn Garden City.[4]
Later life
In 1944 Stephen was appointed as the first woman area union organiser of the National Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union for South Wales and the West of England and moved to Bristol.[1] She also worked at the Broad Quay branch of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), later becoming chair of the local CWS management committee.[1] Around this time, she spoke publicly and gave advice on birth control.[4] She was elected to the city council.[17] In 1952 she became the first woman president of Bristol Trades Council[17] and in 1955 she was awarded the TUC Gold Badge.[18]
In later life Stephen was blind.[20] She died from pneumonia and heart failure at Bristol General Hospital on 12 June 1979.[1]
Commemoration
Stephen's life is commemorated by a blue plaque at her former home in Bedminster, Bristol.[17] On 10 November 1995, the Party of European Socialists group in Bristol honoured her memory by holding the inaugural Jessie Stephen memorial lecture, 'Women in European politics'.[1]
She is included in River of Words, an artwork by Anoushka Havinden at the Stockingfield Junction on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Maryhill, Glasgow, which lists local people of historic significance.[21]
Stephen's unpublished autobiography, Submission is for Slaves, is available digitally via the Working Class Movement Library.[22]Brian Harrison recorded an oral history interview with Stephen, in July 1977, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.[23] Stephen talks about the influence of her Father, her WSPU activities and her involvement with Sylvia Pankhurst.
^Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 219. ISBN0-900178-06-X.
^London School of Economics and Political Science. "The Suffrage Interviews". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
^"Vote 100: The Films". Glasgow Women's Library. Archived from the original on 30 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.