A Fiery Minister's Wife

Scottish socialist and suffragette Helen Crawfurd led a remarkable life

- KENNY MacASKILL

THE term minister's wife, especially in Scotland at the turn of the 19th century, conjures up an image of a demure lady engaging with the Women's Guild over tea and scones, rather than a radical socialist and suffragette campaigner - let alone one who was jailed for her activities. Yet Helen Crawfurd was a minister's wife and all that too.

Born in the Gorbals, Glasgow, in 1877 she was the fourth of seven children to William and Helen Jack. Her father was a master baker, who was also a Presbyterian and a Tory. She'd inherit the former persuasion, but not the latter.

Moving at an early age, her childhood was largely spent in England where her father had bought a bakery in Ipswich. Returning in 1894 when she was 17, the family moved to the more fashionable Hyndland area.

However, she still appears to have been shocked at the extent of the poverty she saw in her native city. It was then the second city of the Empire - yet rickets and misery abounded.

In September 1898, Helen married Rev Alexander Crawfurd who was minister of Brownfield Church in the Anderston area of the city.

It was a poor parish in what was then part of Glasgow's docklands and slum housing proliferated.

Alexander was a widower and more than 40 years her senior. This may explain some of the indulgence he seemed to show towards her activities, which was anything but what was expected from a minister's wife.

Maybe it was while she was visiting parishioners, but it does seem that the fiery rhetoric from socialist agitators in the community enthused her, rather than prayer meetings with gentlefolk. However as well as socialism, women's suffrage was in the air and it was that cause which was the focus of her early activism.

Joining the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) at the turn of the century, she channelled her energies to the cause.