Biography

Born in Leeds 17 May 1906, she became a public speaker and writer on nationalism, contributing to the National Review

National Review (London)

The National Review was founded in 1883 by the English writers Alfred Austin and William Courthope.It was launched as a platform for the views of the British Conservative Party, its masthead incorporating a quotation of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli:Under editor Leopold...

 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.

By mid-1940s she was famous as the belligerent and outspoken champion of the right-wing British Housewives' League

British Housewives' League

The British Housewives' League is a right-wing, non-party group that seeks to act as the voice of the British housewife, providing advice and encouraging active participation in society. The League seeks to defend the UK's independence and constitution, to promote Christian values, and to...

, 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

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 that police were called, though she was later cheered for threatening to throw Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...

 (then Minister of Health in the Attlee Labour government) over Westminster Bridge if he brought in the National Health Service Act

National Health Service Act 1946

The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948 and created the National Health Service in England and Wales. Though the title 'National Health Service' implies one health service for the United Kingdom, in reality a separate NHS was created for England and Wales accountable to...

. 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.

A regular contributor of provocative articles for the Sunday Dispatch

Sunday Dispatch

The Sunday Dispatch was a British newspaper, published between 27 September 1801 and 1961. Until 1928, it was called the Weekly Dispatch.-History:...

, - 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

Acton by-election, 1943

The Acton by-election, 1943 was a by-election held on 12 December 1943 for the British House of Commons constituency of Acton in London.The seat had become vacant after the death in October of the Conservative Member of Parliament Hubert Duggan...

  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

Smarden

Smarden is a civil parish and village, west of Ashford in Kent, South East England.The village has The Church of St. Michael which because of its high scissor beam roof is sometimes known as "The Barn of Kent"....

 near Ashford in Kent she gave birth to a daughter (Elizabeth) in 1946, to whom the Conservative MP Ida Copeland

Ida Copeland

Ida Copeland F.R.S., MStJ, M.P, [née Fenzi] was a British politician born and raised in Florence, Italy.-Family & Early Life:Great grand daughter of Count Emanuele Fenzi and daughter of Count Camillo Fenzi Banker and Senator of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and his wife, Evelyne Isabella, daughter...

 was godmother.

She was subject of a patronising article referring to her as "the buxom, brown-eyed, voluble little woman", by Gordon Beckles, published in the 12 July 1947 issue of Leader Magazine

Leader Magazine

Leader Magazine was a weekly pictorial magazine published in the United Kingdom by the Hulton Press. It was disestablished in Spring 1950.Contributors included Stephen Potter , Kay Dick , Anthony Carson, Orson Welles, Edgar Lustgarten, Lesley Blanch, Leslie Illingworth, Eric Partridge, cartoonist...

 under the title of "Housewife of England!" . 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

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

 and the following year was halfway through a similar case against the Daily Herald

Daily Herald

The Daily Herald was a British newspaper, published in London from 1912 to 1964 . It ceased publication when it was relaunched as The Sun.- Origins :...

 and expecting her son (John) when her 48 year old husband was shot dead in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 on 24 October 1948. He was a senior assistant in Watts & Co. 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 pa. 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 whilst 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) describe conditions in Holloway in order to call attention to the need of prison reform.

She later lived in Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

 for about fifteen years during the 1950s and 1960s. During this period she at one time lived at Overs Farmhouse, Barcombe

Barcombe

Barcombe is an East Sussex village lying some 4–5 miles north of Lewes. It is also the name of one of the civil parishes in the Lewes District of East Sussex...

; Jigg's Cottage Jevington; and Woodland Drive in Hove

Hove

Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast...

. Around 1975 she moved to Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 after which no more is known. However, she appears to have returned to London and died in Fulham May 1987 aged 81.

It has been said that Dorothy Crisp is the historical figure who most resembles Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

.

Books by Dorothy Crisp (as author)

The Rebirth of Conservatism, 1931, Methuen, London 203p, with five essays from the universities and a conclusion by Oliver Stanley, with an introduction by John Buchan

England - Mightier Yet, 1939, The National Review, 232p, (an analysis of the problems confronting the British Government).

Christ is no Pacifist: the Religious and Secular Case against Pacifism, 1939 London: Boswell Publishing Co. Ltd.,

Thieves by the Grace of God, a novel, exposing the great injustices of our times, the story of re-housing, Boswell Publishing Co. Ltd

England’s Purpose, 1941, Rich & Cowan, 191p, English characteristics, Privately, the Englishman will agree with everything she writes,' review in The Belfast Telegraph,

Aprons of Fig Leaves, 1942, a novel

The Future of Europe 1944, Keliher, Hudson & Kearns, Ltd, London, 36p booklet,- author's analysis and thoughts on the (then) current situation in Europe and the future, particularly in relation to Poland.

Why we lost Singapore 1945, Dorothy Crisp & Co., London, 178p, comprises newspaper articles written in 1942 and 1943 author examines in some detail the political, economic and military situations both prior to, and during the war.

The Commonsense of Christianity 1945, Rich & Cowan, London, 126p,

A Life for England, 1946, Dorothy Crisp & Co., London, 311p, biography, the causes of the discontents for which the author suggests the remedy.

The Path for England, 1947, Dorothy Crisp & Co., London, 174p,

A Light in the Night, 1960, Holborn Publishing Co. Ltd, London, 156p, prison memories describe conditions in Holloway in order to call attention to the need of prison reform.

The Dominance of England, 1960, Holborn Publishing Co. Ltd London, author's post war political and statistical analysis of Britain's role, contribution and relationships with Allies, particularly the USA, during the World War 1939-1945,

Truth Too Near the Heels, 1986, Spider Web (London 184 Munster Road SW6 6AU), 260p,

Some books published by Dorothy Crisp & Co Ltd (as publisher)

Old Mrs Warren, Faith Wolseley, 1939, 324p, a humorous novel

Thus My Orient, (12 short stories), Hubert S Banner, 1947, 220p

Stony Ground, John Norwood, 1946, The Australia Book for English Boys & Girls (and Their Parents), 158p

With the Fourteenth Army, D F Karaka, 1945, first account of the Burma Campaign, not a war book, or authoritative treatise on the 14th Army, just a personal diary. 85p

Empire Relations – The Peter Le Neve Foster Lecture, Delivered on the 3rd June 1942, at the Royal Society of Arts by The Right Hon. The Viscount Bennett, P.C.,K.C., R. B. Bennett

R. B. Bennett

Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett, PC, KC was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, politician, and philanthropist. He served as the 11th Prime Minister of Canada from August 7, 1930, to October 23, 1935, during the worst of the Great Depression years...

 1945 43p,

Song of the City, 1943, Peter Abrahams

Peter Abrahams

Peter Abrahams is a South African novelist.His father was from Ethiopia and his mother was classified by South Africa as a mixed race person, a "Kleurling" or Coloured. He was born in Vrededorp, nearby Johannesburg, but left South Africa in 1939...

 (South African author) Novel, 179p One of South Africa's most prominent black writers,

Mine Boy, 1946, Peter Abrahams, his seminal novel, the first author to bring the horrific reality of South Africa's apartheid system of racial discrimination to international attention.

By Parachute to Warsaw, Marek Celt -pen name of Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt

Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt

' was a Polish Cichociemny, journalist, and author. He did two parachute missions into occupied Poland during World War II and for his war work he was honored with the Virtuti Militari....

, 1945, Polish National Hero & wartime agent. The author's eye-witness account of conditions in Poland on his second parachute courier mission in April–July 1944.

Between Tears and Laughter, Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang was a Chinese writer and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West.-Youth:Lin was born in...

, 1945, Chinese author & Inventor, written during World War II, was his bitter plea for the west to change its perspective of the world order.

One Hour of Justice, Arthur Cecil Alport, 1946, 311p, a denunciation of the living conditions of the Egyptian poor, by the late professor of clinical medicine, University of Cairo

A Police Background, 1947, Rene H Onraet, a former Inspector-General of Police, Straits Settlement 1935-39

Reference sources

• Notable Sussex Women: 580 Biographical Sketches, Helena Wojtczak, Hastings Press, 2008, Pages 186-7, ISBN 978-1-904-10915-0
• Death of John Becker in 1948, Newspaper report, The Straits Times (Singapore), 16 March 1949, Page 10