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Betty Tebbs (10 April 1918 – 23 January 2017) was an English activist for women's rights and a Peace movement. She was described by the People's History Museum in Manchester as "a radical hero who worked tirelessly and with great humility to campaign for equal rights, workers' rights and peace her whole life".
Tebbs, who lived latterly in Prestwich, married for a second time in 1947. Her second husband, Leonard Tebbs, a former soldier and university lecturer who died in 1979, aged 61, had encouraged her in campaigning for peace and also to further her education at college when in her 50s. The couple had met in 1945 and had a son, Glyn. She also had a daughter, Patricia, from her first marriage. Encouragement from her grandchildren led to publication of an autobiography titled A Time to Remember in 2007.
After Whewell's death, she was dismayed with the unfairness of a tax and allowance system that she thought penalised war widows. At a union conference in 1960 she advocated for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from their bases in Britain. She also became prominent in peace activism and joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament when it began in 1958. She became chair of the National Assembly of Women in 1978, having joined it in 1952, and met with world leaders in her attempts to bring about nuclear disarmament. Tebbs was banned from entering the United States due to her activism, and her protests against the Trident nuclear programme at HMNB Clyde led to her arrest at the age of 89.
Tebbs also continued working for women's rights as a member of trade unions, and led a successful strike for equal pay at ELPM in the early 1950s. She persuaded a number of women to join her union at the mill she worked at after leaving ELPM, and herself moved up the union hierarchy, representing it as district representative, district committee member, and as women's representative for the northwestern region. She attended union conferences in Scarborough in 1958 and 1960, and attended the International Women's Conference in Switzerland on behalf of the union. She also worked on campaigns for equality at numerous other industrial sites and established a refuge at Warrington for women who had suffered from domestic violence.
In 1963 she was elected to the Radcliffe Municipal Borough Council against stiff opposition, running as a Labour Party candidate. For some time she was the sole woman on the council. Tebbs had left the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in protest against the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. She later left Labour to rejoin the CPGB, and then the New Communist Party. Later still, she returned to the Labour Party fold to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 party leadership election.
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Recognition
Tebbs was interviewed at the People's History Museum (PHM) by actor and activist Maxine Peake in June 2016. Shortly before her death on 23 January 2017 at the age of 98, she was recognised with the PHM's Radical Hero Award, which described her as "a radical hero who worked tirelessly and with great humility to campaign for equal rights, workers' rights and peace her whole life." In 2010, she had been given an award named after Elizabeth Gaskell by Manchester City Council. A fellow activist stated that Tebbs' work had provided the foundation for legislation protecting all women.
Further reading
Categories: 1918 Births, 2017 Deaths, People From Bury, Greater Manchester, Women's Rights In The United Kingdom, English Trade Unionists, Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament Activists, Labour Party People, Communist Party Of Great Britain Members, Women Councillors In England, English Anti–nuclear Weapons Activists, Councillors In Greater Manchester
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