Kay Beauchamp

Kathleen Mary 'Kay' Beauchamp (27 May 1899 – 25 January 1992) was a leading light in the Communist Party of Great Britain in the 1920s. She helped found The Daily Worker (later The Morning Star) and was a local councillor in Finsbury.

Biography

She was born to a farming family at Welton Manor Farm, Midsomer Norton, Somerset on 27 May 1899. She was sister of Joan Beauchamp, later Joan Thompson, who became a prominent suffragette and associate of Sylvia Pankhurst. The family was part of the Beauchamp family that dominated the Somerset coalfield, her father being the cousin of Sir Frank Beauchamp and Louis Beauchamp who owned coalmines in the area. In that year she married bookseller and bibliographer Graham Pollard, son of Professor Albert Pollard.

She joined the Communist Party and was one of the eight Party members who produced the first ever edition of The Daily Worker (later The Morning Star), which appeared on 1 January 1930. As its Managing Director she was jailed for contempt of court when the paper described the conviction of Wal Hannington, an unemployed workers' leader, as a "frame-up". She did not pay the associated fine and ended up spending five months in prison.

Publications written by Kay Beauchamp

Leninism ~ a syllabus (1940) Our Borough - an introductory discussion syllabus. On the government of the borough of Finsbury (1945) Canvassing (1945) Fascism and how to defeat it (1959) We can get those deep shelters (1961) Black citizens (1973) Report of Liberation Conference to isolate and defeat racism (1977) One race, the human race (1979) Ethiopia: An African Giant Awakens [with Tony Gilbert] (1985) Racism: A Threat to World Peace – [with Amanda Mensah] (1986) Ring Around the Carnival [with Maggie Chetty] (1986)