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Dorothy Crisp (1906–1987) was a right-wing English political figure, writer and publisher. == Biography == Born in Leeds on 17 May 1906,〔1911 England Census records Albert & Annie Crisp and daughter living at 123 Cross Green Lane Leeds Yorks.〕 the only daughter of Albert Edward Crisp (an Examiner) and Annie Beckwith, she was baptised at the Anglican church of St Saviour Richmond Hill, Leeds in June the same year. She became a public speaker and writer on nationalism, contributing to the ''National Review'' in the 1920s. Among her books were ''The Rebirth of Conservatism'' (1931) and ''Why we Lost Singapore'' (1944). She was a British political commentator with contacts in high places at the Foreign Office.〔Helena Wojtczak, ''Notable Sussex Women: 580 Biographical Sketches'', Hastings Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-904109-15-0〕 By mid-1940s she was famous as the belligerent and outspoken champion of the right-wing British Housewives' League, whose meetings frequently descended into boos, catcalls and physical tussling for control of the microphones. Hecklers once got so out of hand at the Royal Albert Hall that police were called, though she was later cheered for threatening to throw Aneurin Bevan (then Minister of Health in the Attlee Labour government) over Westminster Bridge if he brought in the National Health Service Act. The police were summoned twice to maintain order at an uproarious meeting in which she expelled several executive members amid shouted accusations of "dictatorship". She resigned her chairmanship in 1948 on personal grounds, after that the League went into decline. She was a regular contributor of provocative articles for the ''Sunday Dispatch''; one edition in 1943 was banned in Eire (Southern Ireland) because it contained her criticisms of the de Valera’s government. Crisp fought the Acton by-election, 1943 as an Independent but secured only 707 out of the 8,315 votes cast. She married John Noel Becker in Westminster, London, during the spring of 1945, but retained her maiden name. Moving to the village of Smarden near Ashford in Kent, she gave birth to a daughter (Elizabeth) in 1946, to whom the Conservative MP Ida Copeland was godmother. She was subject of a patronising article referring to her as "the buxom, brown-eyed, voluble little woman", by Gordon Beckles,〔( Scoop! biographical dictionary of journalists )〕〔''Fleet Street, press barons and politics: the journals of Collin Brooks, 1932-1940'', ed. N. J. Crowson, Camden Fifth Series, Vol.II, University of Cambridge, 1998, ISBN 0-521-66239-7〕 published in 12 July 1947 issue of ''Leader Magazine'' under the title of "Housewife of England!".〔''Housewife of England'', by Gordon Beckles, photo article in ''Leader Magazine'', 12 July 1947. Copyright ''Picture Post'' (defunct). Hull University Archives ref DCL/16/11〕 It featured a photo of her giving a speech on behalf of the British Housewives' League. In 1947 she won substantial damages for libel against the ''New Statesman'' and the following year was halfway through a similar case against the ''Daily Herald'' and expecting her son (John) when her 48-year-old husband, a senior assistant in Watts & Co, was shot dead in Singapore on 24 October 1948. He had been helping the police arrest a crazed man, an intruder in his office in Robinson Road (he was a special constable), when he was shot in the struggle. Because he was off-duty at the time the government denied her a pension, but after a three-year struggle she finally got £500 p.a. By then she was bankrupt, her publishing company had folded and the libel case abandoned. She was convicted of misdemeanours under the Bankruptcy Act (obtaining credit while an un-discharged bankrupt) in 1958 and twice again in the 1960s and served three terms in Holloway Prison. Her prison memories, ''A Light in the Night'' (1960),〔Review quote: "as the most extra-ordinary story I ever read", from the Managing Director of one of the largest publishing firms in London (book review featured in ''The Dominance of England'', published 1960).〕 describe conditions in Holloway in order to call attention to the need of prison reform. She later lived in Sussex for about fifteen years during the 1950s and 1960s. During this period she at one time lived at Overs Farmhouse, Barcombe; Jigg's Cottage Jevington; and Woodland Drive in Hove. Around 1975 she moved to Oxford, after which no more is known. However, she appears to have returned to London and died in Fulham in May 1987 aged 81.〔(Dorothy Becker), England & Wales, Death Index: 1916-2005, Vol. 12, p. 710.〕 It has been said that Dorothy Crisp is the historical figure who most resembles Margaret Thatcher.〔James Hinton, ''Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class'' Oxford University Press, 2002.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dorothy Crisp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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