She was born to a farming family at Welton Manor Farm,
Midsomer Norton,
Somerset on 27 May 1899. She was sister of
Joan Beauchamp, later Joan Thompson, who became a prominent
suffragette and associate of
Sylvia Pankhurst. 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 Kay was only four. She completed a degree in history at
University College, London in 1924. In that year she married bookseller and bibliographer
Graham Pollard, son of Professor
Albert Pollard. She joined the Communist Party, for which she served as International Secretary. She was one of the eight Party members who produced the first ever edition of
The Daily Worker (later
The Morning Star), which appeared on 1 January 1930. As its Managing Director she was jailed for contempt of court when the paper described the conviction of
Wal Hannington, an unemployed workers' leader, as a "frame-up". She worked as a teacher and was also involved with the Communist Party's Education Department. During the 1930s and 1940s, she worked closely with
Harry Pollitt, organising hunger marches, solidarity work for the
Spanish Civil War and the campaign for the Second Front in
World War II. After the war, she was elected a local Councillor in
Finsbury. She also served as International Secretary of the Communist Party. In this role she made several visits to Africa. She was involved in the
Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF), founded in 1954, and worked with
Kwame Nkrumah,
Jomo Kenyatta and other future leaders of emergent Africa. In 1972 her first marriage was dissolved and she married
Tony Gilbert. She continued to be active in politics for the rest of her life. She died on 25 January 1992. ==Publications written by Kay Beauchamp==