Marian Ramelson

Marian Ramelson (1908–1967) was a 20th-century communist, political activist and historian. Ramelson was the first British representative to greet the People’s Republic of China after its establishment in 1949. Ramelson wrote The Petticoat Rebellion: a century of struggle for women's rights concerning the suffrage movement published in 1967.

Biography Marian Jessop was born in 1908 in Leeds, to parents Thomas Austin Jessop, an engine fitter, and Ethel Jessop, née Wilson. Her father was a socialist and trade unionist, and served as a Leeds city councillor and was lord mayor in 1956. He supported women's suffrage, and his activism influenced Ramelson in her own political views.

She joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1932, and was active in the Leeds Communist Party. This followed an already long involvement in trade union activities and membership of the Labour Party, and she joined CPGB after her father's experience of long spells of unemployment; hardening her resolve to end capitalism. and the couple married in 1939. In 1950 she described China in the Daily Worker; "China is free. That fact lights up the East as a blazing sun".

After meeting her at communist historians' gatherings, the historian Eric Hobsbawm described Ramelson as "marvellous and remarkable". a socialist, feminist history of the suffrage movement published in 1967.

She died in 1967 from cancer, following a long illness.