Kay Beauchamp papers

Catalogue record

Notes

CP/IND/KAYB. Kay Beauchamp (1899-1992) came from a traditional Anglican-Conservative background, but was preceded by a sister Joan Beauchamp (1890-1964) who played an important role in the anti-conscription movement and became a foundation member of the CPGB. Kay herself joined the party in 1924 and was one of the original staff members on the Daily Worker in 1930 before briefly attending the Lenin School. Her first husband was the book dealer Graham Pollard, who left an important collection of documents relating to the St Pancras CPGB, in which both were involved in the 1920s. These are now held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Beauchamp's own papers relate primarily to her later activities. Over several decades, she maintained her commitment to local campaigning activities, first in Finsbury, where she was briefly a communist councillor, then in Hackney. With her second husband Tony Gilbert, she was perhaps more prominently identified with the anti-colonial and anti-racist movements, and was active as a foundation member of the Movement for Colonial Freedom (later Liberation). Dating mainly from the 1970s, her papers provide an important complement to the MCF's own archives, deposited in the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.