Joan Beauchamp

Constance 'Joan' Beauchamp (1 November 1890 – 1964) was a prominent anti-World War I campaigner, suffragette and co-founder of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Childhood She was born in 1890 into a farming family in Welton, Midsomer Norton in Somerset. She was the sister of Kay Beauchamp, who went on to become a fellow founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The family was part of the Beauchamp family that dominated the Somerset coalfield, her father being the cousin of Sir Frank Beauchamp and Louis Beauchamp who owned coalmines in the area. Her mother died in 1904 when Joan was fourteen. Early adult life During the First World War, Beauchamp became active in the No Conscription Fellowship (NCF). The NCF was established to help and give advice to the estimated 16,000 pacifists and socialists who refused to join the military and fight. In 1920 she received a ten-day prison sentence for her anti-war activities. She was one of the founders and a lifelong member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and an associate of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst. She was regarded as one of the suffragette movement's most militant members.