Helen Keynes
British political activist and author

Helen Mary Keynes (1892 – 26 August 1975) was a British political activist and author.
Keynes wrote from an early age. Her first novel, The Spanish Marriage, was written before she turned twenty. She was also a supporter of the Labour Party. By the late 1920s, she served on the executive of the Fabian Society, chaired the Fabian Women's Group, and also served on the executive of the Rural Reconstruction Association.
Keynes stood for Parliament at the 1928 Epsom by-election, taking third place with 16.8% of the vote. She stood again in Horsham and Worthing at the 1929 and 1931 general elections, taking third place on each occasion, and finally in Southend at the 1935 general election, where she again came third. Alongside these candidacies, she served as secretary of the Society of Labour Candidates, which helped candidates network and share ideas.
Keynes continued to write during the 1930s and 1940s, her works including Murder In Rosemary Lane, and Salute To The Brave (under the pseudonym "Clementine Hunter").
“Helen Keynes” enters the record as british political activist and author. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Helen, Keynes and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q58085624. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1975, 1928 and 1929.
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This entry incorporates text from “Helen Keynes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.