Muriel Lester (1885–1968)

Muriel Lester was born in Leytonstone, Essex, now part of London, the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder and his wife. As a teenager, she went with her father to visit a factory girls' club in Bow, a destitute part of East London, which made such an impression on her that she began to return regularly as a social worker. She became an internationally noted pacifist, Christian activist, and social reformer. She and her sister Doris Lester used their inheritance to buy and found Kingsley Hall in Bow as a collective and community center for local youth, women, and others to study, worship, and get involved in social events. Its most famous visitor was Mohandas Gandhi, a friend of Muriel's, who stayed there in 1931. Muriel lived at Kingsley Hall and made it the center of her activism for 20 years. In 1934, she became Ambassador-At-Large and later Traveling Secretary for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR). She also accompanied Gandhi on part of his tour of India during his "untouchability" campaign of 1934. During the Spanish Civil War, she worked for peace and humanitarian relief. In World War II, she organized anti-war efforts, and continued to travel for IFOR even after her official retirement in 1954. She published her autobiography, It Occurred to Me, in 1937. See also The Match Girl and the Heiress by Seth Koven, a dual biography of Muriel Lester and her partner Nellie Dowell.