1. Marjory Newbold was a leading Scottish socialist and communist, prominent in the Independent Labour Party and in the 'Red Clydeside' movement demanding reforms for the working class.
22 Facts About Marjory Newbold
1. 2.
Marjory Newbold's father was a Presbyterian and a cabinet-maker, earning enough to send his daughter to higher education after schooling at Beith Academy.
3.
Marjory Newbold's siblings were Annie was born on 1886 and and Eliza was born on 1889 and and brother Alexander, who in January 1917 was imprisoned for refusing to serve as a soldier in World War I By 1891, the family had moved to 14 New Street, Beith, and had a boarder Archibald Flemington, a french polisher.
4.
Marjory Newbold studied from 1902 to 1905 at Glasgow University, but did not have sufficient grades to graduate in the arts, perhaps as she became a political activist whilst a student.
5.
Marjory Newbold went on to teach at Wishaw elementary state school from 1908 to 1916, being a pupil teacher from 1901.
6.
Marjory Newbold was said to be 'gifted with intellectual abilities of a high order' and had 'warm human sympathies with the struggles of the poor' and she embraced socialist activism to work to improve opportunities in education, health, welfare and housing for the working class.
7.
Marjory Newbold met John Turner Walton Marjory Newbold, a fellow socialist, and a research student from Buxton, Derbyshire, whom she met at a lecture in December 1913, a few months after his previous long engagement to 'Red' Ellen Wilkinson had been called off by his fiancee.
8.
Whilst still a student, Marjory Newbold joined the Independent Labour Party and adopted atheist, feminist and socialist beliefs which she put into activism for improving conditions for the working classes.
9.
From 1912 to 1916, Marjory Newbold took on responsibilities at the divisional council of the Scottish ILP, and became an election agent, and did so again later for her husband in 1922 and 1923.
10.
Whilst she was teaching, Marjory Newbold had been actively involved in the Scottish Socialist Teachers Society.
11.
Marjory Newbold became secretary to Wishaw Housing Council, pressing for changes for the working class.
12.
Marjory Newbold led the No-Conscription Fellowship for Scotland, and she joined young socialist pacifist activist groups in Edmonton, London.
13.
On 24 April 1920, the Newbolds were living at 6 Grange Road, Buxton, Derbyshire and Marjory Newbold was the chair of the National Young Labour League and writing in communist press, to encourage donations following resolution of the Conference of the League for Communist Youth for a memorial circulating collection of the works of Karl Leibknecht, from America, Norway, Sweden, Holland and Italy.
14.
Marjory Newbold's six-month visit included time in Leningrad, observing the Soviet system.
15.
At the Congress, Marjory Newbold briefed delegates on the communist movement within ILP and the nascent Communist Party in the UK and learned about the Soviet principles and experience for women and children.
16.
Marjory Newbold wrote about her experience in Petrograd for The Communist, describing visits to sumptuous palaces that had been taken over for workers' accommodation for recuperation from poverty and malnutrition and in need of health care.
17.
Marjory Newbold linked this to a call to lift the blockade on Russia by Britain and other nations.
18.
Marjory Newbold described decor of a palace now the home to 45 factory workers where 'the library, billiard-room, terrace and the grand piano were all being made use of by the workers'.
19.
Marjory Newbold found that a former sugar factory owner's 105 room holiday home now housed not a rich couple, but 150 workers, where the head of food provision for the two-week respite was a former chef to Tsar Nicholas II, and seven boats were available for use on the artificial lake.
20.
Marjory Newbold herself was not physically strong and her fellow delegate Dora Russell, noted that she was:.
21.
Marjory Newbold remained committed to 'the great cause of the international commonwealth' and remained a Communist to the end of her life.
22.
On 15 November 1926, Marjory Newbold died at home in Bellscauseway, Beith.