Obituary: Death of Miss Lechmere (1936)

Obituary from the May 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The party has lost a long-service member by the death at the age of 80 of Miss Elizabeth Lechmere. She joined our ranks on March 18th, 1909, that is, twenty-seven years ago, and she was no longer young when she joined.

In times gone by she used to appear at meetings of party members, where policy was being discussed in relation to particular questions of the time, and she used to look strangely out of place in her somewhat boisterous surroundings. This was particularly true of the War years. When we saw her slight figure and grey head at a meeting of members just before the War we thought she had strayed in by mistake and would soon be frightened out. But it was not so. She attended the meeting in 1916 when the members gathered together to discuss the position of the members under the Conscription Bill.

Miss Lechmere was always a useful financial contributor and every fund opened was sure of a substantial contribution out of her slender resources, which she supplemented by writing fairy stories. Through all the troubles the party passed she remained to the end a staunch supporter of the party and its policy, and she was a comrade whose passing is very much lamented by those who knew her.