Ethel MacDonald

• Name — Ethel MacDonald • Birth Name — Camelia Ethel MacDonald • Born — 24 February 1909 • Birthplace — Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland • Died — 1 December 1960 • Place of death — Knightswood Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland • Other Names — The Scots Scarlet Pimpernel • Occupation — Activist, broadcaster • Employer — The Strickland Press • Organization — Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF) • Movement — Anarchism Anti-fascism National Confederation of Labor (CNT) United Socialist Movement (USM) • Mother — Daisy Watts • Father — Andrew McDonald

Camelia Ethel McDonald was born on 24 February 1909 in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, to Andrew McDonald, a coach painter, and Daisy Watts. MacDonald was the fifth of nine children. She left home at 16, joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and worked at various jobs. In 1925 she met Guy Aldred, who later appointed her as the Secretary of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF) upon its inception in 1933. In June 1934 she joined him in the formation of the United Socialist Movement (USM). During this time she became fluent in French and German.

In November 1936 MacDonald travelled to Barcelona with Guy Aldred's partner, Jenny Patrick, to represent and show the support of the Scottish anarchist movement for the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War. In January 1937 she began to transmit regular English-language reports on the war on Barcelona's widely heard anarchist radio station run by the National Confederation of Labor (CNT). In the crackdown following the events of May 1937 she assisted the escape of anarchists wanted by the Communist secret police and smuggled into prison letters and food for fellow anarchists held by regional authorities. Through her activities in helping anarchists escape Spain, she became renowned in the British press as the Scots Scarlet Pimpernel. Between July and November 1937, she was a national figure in the newspapers, with daily reports and inquiries as to her whereabouts and activities.

On 12 June 1937, Bob Smillie, who was a member of the Independent Labour Party that had been fighting with the POUM forces for the Republicans, died while being held by the Valencia police. The police stated that his death had been caused by peritonitis, however, rumours flew around Valencia that he had been beaten to death. MacDonald began reporting the latter version of events on her radio broadcasts and in newspaper articles. This eventually led to her being captured and imprisoned on several occasions. MacDonald eventually escaped custody and left Spain, making her way back to Glasgow where she arrived on 7th November 1937. Along the way she travelled through Paris and Amsterdam, where she denounced the actions of the communists in Spain. She continued to publicly discuss the case of Bob Smillie, but her version of events was disputed in the UK by David Murray, a member of the Independent Labour Party who had also been in Spain. Murray insisted that Smillie had died of peritonitis, and he was generally believed until George Orwell returned to London in 1938 and also began to denounce the actions of the communists in Spain. Georges Kopp, who had been Smillie's commander in Spain, also returned and supported the view that Smillie had been murdered.

After her return from Spain, Ethel MacDonald worked closely with Guy Aldred, Jenny Patrick, John Taylor Caldwell and other Glasgow anarchists on a shoestring publishing enterprise, The Strickland Press which, beginning on May Day 1938, published regular issues of the USM organ, The Word. They continued their activities through World War II and the 1950s peace movement, with MacDonald considered as the unofficial manager, bookkeeper and printer of The Strickland Press. Ethel MacDonald was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in February 1958 and lost her ability to speak. Within three years she died in Glasgow's Knightswood Hospital on the 1st December, 1960, at the age of 51.