Betty Tebbs

Betty Tebbs (10 April 1918 – 23 January 2017) was an English activist for women's rights and a peace campaigner. She was described by the People's History Museum in Manchester as "a radical hero who worked tirelessly and with great humility to campaign for equal rights, workers' rights and peace her whole life". She was born in Bury, Lancashire, on 10 April 1918 and the rheumatic fever suffered during her childhood meant that she had a patchy education. – from the time that she discovered the pay discrepancy at ELPM. She was involved in union activities there for 17 years until the death of Whewell in 1944. In 1968 she played a role in the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades adopting a motion that the National Economic Council establish a women's advisory committee, that would advise the council on issues affecting women workers. Tebbs had stated that the trade union movement had not been sufficiently successful in addressing women's issues.

After Whewell's death, she was dismayed with the unfairness of a tax and allowance system that she thought penalised war widows. At a union conference in 1960 she advocated for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from their bases in Britain.

Tebbs also continued working for women's rights as a member of trade unions, and led a successful strike for equal pay at ELPM in the early 1950s.

In 1963 she was elected to the Radcliffe Municipal Borough Council against stiff opposition, running as a Labour Party candidate. For some time she was the sole woman on the council. Tebbs had left the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in protest against the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. She later left Labour to rejoin the CPGB, and then the New Communist Party. Later still, she returned to the Labour Party fold to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 party leadership election.

Recognition Tebbs was interviewed at the People's History Museum (PHM) by actor and activist Maxine Peake in June 2016. Shortly before her death on 23 January 2017 at the age of 98, she was recognised with the PHM's Radical Hero Award, which described her as "a radical hero who worked tirelessly and with great humility to campaign for equal rights, workers' rights and peace her whole life." In 2010, she had been given an award named after Elizabeth Gaskell by Manchester City Council. A fellow activist stated that Tebbs' work had provided the foundation for legislation protecting all women.