21 Facts About Helen Archdale

Helen Alexander Archdale was a Scottish feminist, suffragette and journalist.

Active during the First World War, Helen Archdale initiated a training farm for women agricultural workers in 1914.

Helen Archdale's parents were Helen Evans, one of the Edinburgh Seven, the first group of women to enrol at a British university, and Alexander Russel, a Scottish journalist and editor of The Scotsman who supported Sophia Jex-Blake's attempts to secure medical education for women in Edinburgh.

Helen Archdale was educated at St Leonard's School, St Andrews, then at the University of St Andrews, where she was one of the first women undergraduates.

In 1901, she married Captain Theodore Montgomery Helen Archdale, who was stationed in British India.

On returning to Scotland in 1908, Helen Archdale immediately joined the Women's Social and Political Union, becoming the Sheffield branch organiser in 1910 and finding employment with Adele Pankhurst as a live-in governess.

Helen Archdale moved to London to take up the position of WSPU prisoners' secretary later in that year.

Helen Archdale worked in various capacities on the WSPU's publications The Suffragette from October 1912, and from 1915 she wrote for its successor, Britannia.

Helen Archdale started a training farm for women agricultural workers, served as a clerical worker with Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps from 1917, and, in 1918, worked in the women's department of the Ministry of National Service.

Helen Archdale took part in a WSPU demonstration in Edinburgh on 9 October 1909.

The prison governor and medical supervisor assessed that due to her 'configuration' Helen Archdale 'would be particularly difficult to feed forcibly'.

In December 1911 Helen Archdale received a sentence of two months' imprisonment for window-breaking at Whitehall.

Helen Archdale was the secretary, and later international secretary, of the Six Point Group, founded by Margaret Rhondda.

Helen Archdale was active in the international version, Open Door International, founded in 1929 with Chrystal Macmillan serving as president.

In 1927 Helen Archdale began working in Geneva, lobbying for an Equal Rights Treaty at the League of Nations in the early 1930s.

Helen Archdale became secretary of the Liaison Committee of Women's International Organisations, created in 1931 as a coalition to promote equal rights, disarmament and women's representation at the League.

On 9 October 1901 Helen Archdale married Captain, later Lieutenant-Colonel, Theodore Montgomery Helen Archdale, who at the time was stationed in India.

Helen Archdale spent her early married life in Lancashire and India.

Helen Archdale appears to have been estranged from her husband from about 1913.

Helen Archdale was an adherent of Christian Science, which she credited with resolving her health issues.

Helen Archdale died on 8 December 1949 at 17 Grove Court, St John's Wood, London.