Minnie Pallister: The Voice of a Rebel

A feminist, pacifist and socialist, Minnie Pallister was twice accused of sedition in the First World War before travelling to Nazi Germany in late 1938 and 1939 to rescue Jews, helping bring them to Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War. In between, having reached national prominence in the labour movement, in which she was considered the best woman orator, and with a Parliamentary career beckoning, she was struck down by an illness which cruelly robbed her of speech. Suffering years of paralysing infirmity, which reduced her to the edge of penury, she eventually recovered to become a successful journalist with the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald. Fearless and principled and always challenging, Pallister was initially barred from a position with the BBC because of her socialist politics, and later twice banned by the Corporation, first for her pacifist then her feminist politics.