Ann, Lady Dummett (born Agnes Margaret Ann Chesney; 4 September 1930 – 7 February 2012) was an English activist, campaigner for racial justice and published author.
Early life and career
Ann (as she was always known) was born on 4 September 1930 at
Westminster Hospital
Westminster Hospital was a hospital in London, England, founded in 1719. In 1834 a medical school attached to the hospital was formally founded.
In 1939 a newly built hospital and medical school opened in Horseferry Road, Westminster. In 1994 the ...
, the daughter of actor
Arthur Chesney
Arthur William Kellaway (21 November 1881 – 27 August 1949), known as Arthur Chesney, was an English character actor who worked on stage and screen.
Biography
He was born 21 November 1881 in Hampstead, London, the son of John and Catherine Ke ...
(1882–1949) and artist Kathleen ('Kitty') née Ridge (1901–1988).
At the time of her birth her parents lived in
Pimlico
Pimlico () is a district in Central London, in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Lon ...
, London, but she was to grow up in
Battersea
Battersea is a large district in southwest London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and also extends along the south bank of the Thames Tideway. It includes the Battersea Park.
Hist ...
, then a poor working-class part of the city,
And the family were so 'hard up' that Kitty "sometimes pretended she had eaten earlier to have enough food to feed her".
She was a child prodigy, being able to read at the age of two.
A 'lifelong friend' Jill Kaye recalled that "at the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
when we were five or six ... an old chap gave her sixpence ... impressed she was translating Ancient Greek from the
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt, Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts ...
."
Ann attended Guildhouse School in Pimlico, London, and then, having fled
the blitz
The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War.
Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...
with her mother, was educated at
Ware Grammar School in Hertfordshire
She performed exceptionally at the latter,
and unusually for a young woman of her background, won a scholarship to read modern history at
Somerville College
Somerville College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. It began admitting men in 1994. The college's liberal tone derives from its f ...
, Oxford from where she graduated in 1951.
She was awarded an
MA at the same.
In December 1951 she married the philosopher
Michael Dummett
Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...
at the Roman Catholic
Church of St Edmund and St Frideswide, Oxford.
And she devoted most of the next few years to looking after their seven children (two of whom died at a young age).
In 1955 Dummett travelled with her husband to the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, where he had been awarded a fellowship.
They both joined the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
and heard
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
address a rally.
With
Evan Luard
David Evan Trant Luard (31 October 1926 – 8 February 1991), most commonly known as Evan Luard, was a British Labour Party and Social Democratic Party (SDP) politician, and a renowned international relations scholar.
Education and early care ...
, Oxford's MP, they founded the Oxford Committee for Racial Integration, forerunner to Oxfordshire Council for Community Relations, and she became a full-time community relations officer .
She went on to work at the
Institute of Race Relations
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an "anti-racist think tank".
Proposed by ''Sund ...
, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and the
Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is a British race equality and civil rights think tank. It was founded by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, lead ...
of which she was director from 1984 to 1987.
Dummett died on 7 February 2012 in Oxford, six weeks after the death of her husband.
Publications
*''A Portrait of English Racism'', Penguin, 1973;
*''Citizenship and Nationality'', Runnymede Trust, London, 1976
*''A New Immigration Policy'', Runnymede Trust, London, 1978
*''British Nationality: the AGIN guide to the new law'' (with
Ian Martin), published for the Action Group on Immigration and Nationality by the
National Council for Civil Liberties
Liberty, formerly, and still formally, called the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), is an advocacy group and membership organisation based in the United Kingdom, which challenges unjust laws, protects civil liberties and promotes huma ...
, London, 1982;
*''Towards a Just Immigration Policy'' (ed.), Cobden Trust, London, 1986;
*''Subjects, Citizens, Aliens and Others,'' (with Andrew Nicol), Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990
*''Racially Motivated Crime: responses in three European cities: Frankfurt, Lyons and Rome'' (ed.), Commission for Racial Equality, London 1997;
For a complete bibliography (and an introduction to her work) see "Ann Dummett's Contribution to the Understanding of Immigration and Racism" (2015).
References
External links
"Anti-Anti-Racism" Ann Dummett, ''
London Review of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews.
History
The ''London Review of Book ...
'', Vol. 9 No. 13, 9 July 1987
"Ann Dummett – Obituary"by Sue Shutter, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants blog (10 February 2012)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dummett, Ann
1930 births
2012 deaths
Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford
English activists
English women activists
Writers from the City of Westminster
Wives of knights