MARJORY NEILSON NEWBOLD (1883 – 1926), SOCIALIST PIONEER

Marjory Neilson was born 29 May 1883, 11.55am at Winton Terrace, Beith, the first of four children born to parents Alexander Neilson, a journeyman cabinet maker, and Mary Steven Fettes.  Her siblings were: Ann Duncan Steven, born 1885; Eliza Fettes M., born 1888 and Alexander, born 28 October 1891.  All the children were born in Beith.  Alexander Neilson and Mary Steven Fettes were married at Arbroath on 01 October 1882.

The 1895 valuation roll and the 1901 census reveal that Alexander and Mary Neilson were the tenants of a four-room house in New Street, Beith.  Alexander was employed as a cabinet maker and Marjory was employed as a Pupil Teacher.  Her youngest two siblings Eliza and Alexander were at school.

Marjory was educated at Beith Academy, in Kirk Street, Beith, where she was a Dux medallist in 1898, achieving first place in English, Arithmetic and Mensuration (mathematics).  She then studied at Glasgow University from 1902 to 1905 where she developed an interest in radical politics, joined the Independent Labour Party and became involved in the socialist Sunday School in Glasgow.  She also fought for women’s rights and sexual equality.  Despite having been raised in a church-going family, Marjory became a militant atheist.  Perhaps due to her many activities, Marjory failed to achieve the grades necessary to graduate from Glasgow University.  Even so, she began working as a teacher.

In 1908 she moved to Wishaw to take up a teaching post at Wishaw Public School, one of the largest elementary schools in the district with a student roll of 1,300 pupils, where she encountered the devastating effects of child poverty combined with the problems of overcrowded classrooms and a lack of resources.  Utilising her socialist beliefs, Marjory began fighting for educational reform and to change legislation to provide free health and welfare services for working class families.

She organised and spoke at Independent Labour Party meetings and public meetings to raise awareness of child poverty and put pressure on school boards and local authorities to implement the new Liberal Government proposals on “medical inspection, free schooling, free school meals and clothing for poor children”.

By February 1909 she had established the Wishaw Socialist Sunday School, encouraging both children and their parents to attend.  She frequently chaired Independent Labour Party branch meetings; helped to organise a programme of guest speakers for the winter meetings and also helped to develop a programme of outdoor summer meetings and demonstrations.

During World War One she became involved with the “No Conscription Fellowship” which campaigned against compulsory conscription and opposed the war on both religious and political grounds.  Her brother Alexander was a conscientious objector which resulted in him being imprisoned.  He served time in Wormwood Scrubs (London), Calton Jail (Edinburgh) and Perth Prison.

On 16 June 1915 she married John Turner Walton Newbold, a research student, at 88 Bath Street, Glasgow, by Warrant of Sheriff Substitute.  Unable to continue teaching in Scotland, due to her married status, she moved to London in 1916 where both she and her husband were involved in anti-war and political work.  Marjory joined the other activists involved in non-violent protest, campaigning outside of Wormwood Scrubs, where her brother Alexander was imprisoned.

Both Marjory and her husband Walton’s political beliefs moved further to the left, and in late 1917 she took on the role of assistant secretary to the “Hands off Russia Committee” and began working to build a revolutionary youth movement in London.  Following a move to Manchester, she led the small pro-communist National League of Working Youth, while acting as secretary to the Manchester group of the left-wing movement within the Independent Labour Party.  In the late spring of 1920 she travelled to Russia as a representative of both the youth organisation and as a delegate of the Labour Party’s Left-Wing to participate in the “Second Congress of the Third (Communist) International” which was held in Petrograd and Moscow from 19 July  to 07 August 1920.

The British Naval Blockade of Russia meant that Marjory was unable to travel directly to Russia.  Instead she had to travel incognito from Newcastle through Norway, Denmark and Sweden up to Murmansk in northwestern Russia where she took the Karelian railway to Leningrad, arriving in May 1920.  She spent some time on a fact-finding mission to establish what policies and provisions the communist country had in regard to women and children.  At the Smolny Institute in Leningrad, she reported on the political situation in Britain, on the position of the Left-wing movement of the Independent Labour Party and the trade union movement.

After her return to Britain it was discovered that she had tuberculosis.  In April 1921 Marjory and her husband joined the British Communist Party.  With her health failing Marjory continued to assist her husband, John Turner Walton Newbold, who was elected the first Communist Party of Britain M.P. in 1922.  He rejoined the Labour Party in 1924.  Marjory died at her parents’ home on 15 November 1926, 8.30pm at Bellcauseway, Beith, aged 43.

Further Reading