Winifred Batho

Winifred Horrabin, née Batho (1887-1971), was a British socialist activist and journalist.

She was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, on 9 August 1887, daughter of Arthur John Batho, a postal telegraph clerk, and his wife Lilian, née Outram. She was the fourth of six children, three of whom died in infancy. The family were members of The Wicker Congregational Church. Her father died in May 1891, in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa, where he was seeking treatment for his tuberculosis.

Winifred began attending the Sheffield School of Art in 1907, where she met her future husband, the political activist, cartographer and cartoonist Frank Horrabin. She had a political awakening while a student, influenced by the South African socialist and feminist Olive Schreiner. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union, a militant group campaigning for women's suffrage led by Emmeline Pankhurst, and in 1909 disrupted a speech by Winston Churchill with the suffragette cry "Votes for women!"

She and Horrabin married on 11 August 1911, and they moved to London the same year. In 1912 she delivered a paper, "Is Woman's Place the Home?", to the Fabian Society, arguing that the liberation of women from economic slavery depended on the destruction of private property. She and her husband were involved in the Central Labour College, and in 1913 Winifred set up a Women's League to focus on the education of female workers. In 1915, inspired by the art of William Morris, she became a guild socialist. She was honorary secretary of The Plebs' League, and contributed to The Plebs, the League's journal, which her husband edited. She became a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920. She and her husband collaborated on a book, Working Class Education, published in 1924.

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