Margot Heinemann (1) (1913–1992)

Margot Heinemann was born in London, England to a Jewish family. Her parents were Meyer Max Heinemann, a merchant banker, and his wife Selma Schott, both emigrants from Frankfurt, Germany and both socialists. She was educated at Roedean School and King Alfred School, and won a scholarship to read English at Cambridge University, from which she graduated with first class honors. She joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1934. After university, she taught girls working at the Cadbury's chocolate factory at Bournville, near Birmingham. During the Spanish Civil War, she took an active role in supporting the Republicans, selling pamphlets and organizing meetings. Her lover John Cornford, a poet, was killed fighting with the International Brigade in Spain. In the 1940s, she began living with scientist J.D. (John Desmond) Bernal, with whom she had a daughter. While working for the Labour Research Department, she published Britain's Coal: A Study of the Mining Crisis (1944), The Wages Front (1947), and The Tories and How to Beat Them (1951). After World War II, she worked full-time for the Communist Party for a while, editing its publication World News and Views, among other jobs. She then began to teach English literature at Camden High School for Girls, Goldsmith College, and New Hall College. She stood as the Communist candidate for Vauxhall in the 1950 General Election. She became disillusioned with the Communist Party after the Hungarian uprising in 1956, but remained a member until it was dissolved into the Democratic Left in 1991. In 1976, she was made a Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge. Her other books included Britain in the Nineteen Thirties (1973), Experiments in English Teaching (1976), and Puritanism and Theatre (1982), as well as a novel, The Adventurers (1960).