Marian Ramelson
Marian Jessop joined the Communist Party in 1932, after regularly attending Sunday night meetings on the Town Hall Square.
Her father, Tom Jessop, was a leading member of the AEU in Leeds and a city councillor. An “attractive, red-haired girl” of “great charm, extremely intelligent, courageous” [Benson], she was enormously highly-regarded in the Leeds Communist Party and was an especially effective and dedicated activist.
She was a member of the Central Committee in 1939, the year she married Bert Ramelson (see separate entry).
Still known as Marion Jessop, she was the Communist Party’s West Riding area organiser in the early 1940s. At the West Riding Area Conference in January 1941 [according to the Daily Worker], she paid tribute to the Party’s work in Leedsin campaigning for "proper shelters for the people" and referred to the "terrible burdens placed on the people as a result of the war". She also referred to the Peoples Convention, which she said "evoked the memory of the Chartists which obtained such support in the West Riding. Now the grandchildren of the Chartists are beginning to mobilise against the class enemy and will not stop until final victory".
For much of the 1940s and 1950s, She remained active in the leadership of the Yorkshire Communist Party, especially espousing the need for work involving women.
Late in life, Marian authored a pioneering work of women’s history, `The Petticoat Rebellion’ published in 1967 the year of her relatively early death.
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