Solly Kaye

Solomon Kaye (8 October 1913 – 1 May 2005), known as Solly Kaye, was a British communist activist and politician.

Kaye was born in the St Pancras area of London to Jewish parents from Lithuania. His father died in the Spanish Flu epidemic when Solly was five years old, and his mother brought up four children with support from Jewish charities. He left school at age 14 to work as a woodcarver, but lost his job as business was slow. He managed instead to find work for a furrier, although working conditions were very poor. He took art lessons at the Bethnal Green Men's Institute, and had four of his paintings exhibited in Foyle's Gallery.

Kaye was soon appointed as CPGB branch secretary for Hackney and, as a result, he decided not to volunteer for the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. He married Margaret Johnson in 1945, having walked her home for five successive nights, and proposed to her on a park bench on the fifth. They had three children and remained married until his death.

Kaye stood for election in Stepney in the 1955 general election and again in 1959, 1964, 1966 and 1970, taking an average of 6-8% percent of the vote. He also ran as the CPGB candidate for London County Council, and for the Greater London Council division of Tower Hamlets in 1964 and 1967, earning the Party's best vote share in the city on each occasion, peaking at 10.7% in 1967. Kaye enjoyed electoral success in 1956 when he won a seat as Communist member of the Stepney Borough Council (replaced in 1965 by the Tower Hamlets Council Father John Groser claimed that "Solly Kaye is the one remaining prophet of the Lord amid all the prophets of Baal on Stepney Council". This maneuver impressed anti-communist priest Joe Williamson, who thereafter recommended that his parishioners should vote for Kaye.

Alongside his council post, Kaye worked as a copywriter. He was a regular speaker at open air meetings in Finsbury Square, addressing city office employees during their lunch break. Solly Kaye died on 1 May 2005. He was 91.