Helen Archdale (nee Russel)
1876 - 1949

Founder member of Women’s Pioneer Housing

Helen Archdale was born into a family of radical, politically active intellectuals. She was the daughter of Alexander Russel, editor of The Scotsman and an active supporter of progressive causes, including women’s rights to education. Her mother, Helen de Lacy Evans, was one of the ‘Edinburgh Seven’ - the first group of women medical students at Edinburgh University; she had answered an advertisement placed in The Scotsman by Sophia Jex-Blake asking for women seeking to study medicine at Edinburgh to join her in a group application. Jex-Blake was an impassioned and forthright feminist with links to housing pioneer Octavia Hill. The Russel household in Edinburgh was a focus for political and intellectual gatherings and this evidently shaped Helen’s life and feminist politics. She would also follow in her mother’s footsteps by becoming one of the first women undergraduates at St. Andrews, where she studied from 1892 to 1894.

After leaving education, Helen entered into marriage with Theodore Montgomery Archdale, a captain with the British Army based in India. The marriage didn’t last and the couple became estranged by the time of Helen’s involvement with the suffrage movement. Helen joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908 and quickly became a close and trusted associate of the Pankhursts. She took several official positions in the WSPU and threw herself into the movement’s militant action. Betty would later recall collecting stones for her mother to use to break Whitehall windows and visiting her mother in Holloway during one of Helen’s two stints in prison.

After working for the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps during World War I, Helen joined the Women’s Department of the Ministry of National Service in 1918. There, she met Lady Margaret Mackworth (later Viscountess Rhondda), another veteran of the militant suffrage movement and the two developed an intense relationship, with Helen assisting in the running of Lady Rhondda’s business affairs after the death of her father. Helen also became closely involved with Time and Tide, a feminist magazine founded by Lady Rhondda in 1920. She became its second editor, when Vera Laughton resigned the role after two months. Shortly after the launch of Time and Tide, the pair embarked on another significant feminist project: with a mix of older suffragettes and younger feminists, such as the writer Winifred Holtby, they set up the Six Points Group in 1921. Through the Six Points Group, Helen, Lady Rhondda and other members planned to lobby for a change in the law in six key areas that affected women’s rights.

Helen’s personal relationship with Lady Rhondda developed alongside their professional activities. In 1923, Lady Rhondda divorced her husband and moved in with Helen and her children, living with them at Stonepitts (after having first rented the large cottage next door) in Seal near Sevenoaks, Kent, and in Lady Rhondda’s Chelsea flat in London. The two fell out in 1926 - but they remained sharing the house until 1931.

Helen was a founding member of Women’s Pioneer Housing and on the Committee of Management (COM) from 1920. She used her organisational experience as Chair from January 1921 onwards. During the financial crisis in spring 1921, she approached Lady Rhondda for a loan, which was not forthcoming. She was particularly active in fundraising and advertising, served on a sub-committee on raising capital in 1925 with Lady Shelley-Rolls, Vernon Ory and Charles Peel, organised fundraising dinners (writing to Mrs Wintringham MP to ask her to speak at a fundraising dinner in 1924 ) and came up with advertising schemes in 1927. She nominated Lady Rhondda as a COM member in 1925, and the two opposed a suggested amalgamation with the United Women’s Housing Association in 1926.

After her break with Lady Rhondda, Helen’s interest in feminist issues took on a more internationalist outlook. She resigned from Women’s Pioneer Housing in October 1931 (although she did write a letter of support to Etheldred during the retirement crisis in 1937) but continued to work as a journalist and on various feminist organisations. She moved to Geneva to lobby delegates of the League of Nations and chaired Equal Rights International until 1934, when she retired and returned to England.

Helen’s passion for women’s rights kept her active even in retirement and she continued to campaign for issues such as the acceptance of women peers in the House of Lords. In 1947, she spent two years with her daughter Betty in Australia, where she was invited to speak on equal rights by organisations including the Australian Institute of International Affairs. However, Helen suffered a heart attack in 1948, and once her health had improved enough, she was forced to return to London. Helen died at 17 Grove Court, St John's Wood, London, on 8^th December 1949.