- Jeanne Hoban
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name = Jeanne Hoban
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birth_date = birth date|1924|08|03
birth_place =Gillingham, Kent
death_date = death date and age|1997|04|18|1924|08|03
death_place =Sri Lanka
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other_names = Jeanne Moonsignhe
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occupation = Trade unionist
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footnotes =Jeanne Hoban (
3 August 1924 Gillingham, Kent -18 April 1997 Sri Lanka ), known after her marriage as Jeanne Moonesinghe, was a BritishTrotskyist who became active in trade unionism and politics inSri Lanka . She was one of the handful ofEuropean Radicals in Sri Lanka .Early years
She was born in Gillingham, Kent. Her father, Major William Leo Hoban was a British featherweight boxer and former soldier of Irish roots, her mother, May Irene Free, was a small businesswoman of partly
Jewish extraction. Her early life was spent in a variety of Army camps. In 1936 her father was appointed an instructor atEton College , and they settled inSlough . She attended Slough High School for Girls, where she becameHead Girl in 1942 ( [http://www.oldpaludians.org] ).During the
Second World War , she was once machine-gunned by a NaziLuftwaffe aircraft. Although selected for London University, she had to do her two-yearNational Service as a government inspector in the Bristol aircraft factory atStaines . There she joined theCommunist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1943. She was a member of theTransport and General Workers' Union and anyway came from a fairly radical background - theMerseyside branch of what would later become theMilitant Tendency used to meet in her aunt's house inBirkenhead . To the end of her life she was to maintain that the members of the CPGB were the most dedicated and conscientious political workers she was ever to knowAt
University College London , she studied law. There she met her future husband,Anil Moonesinghe , who converted her to Trotskyism. and also a young conscientious objector calledStan Newens , who would later become a Labour Party MP and MEP.RCP and Labour Party
The three of them joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), and Jeanne was elected to its National Executive. She fell out early with
Gerry Healy , who was most prominent in the RCP at the time, but remained close toTed Grant . She was associated with the group aroundTony Cliff , the so-called 'State-Caps' after their characterisation of the USSR as 'State-Capitalist'. The group would later become the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).She married Anil Moonesinghe in 1948 and they moved into a houseboat called 'Red October', which they built together, on the Thames near Marlow. They both entered the Labour Party in Slough, on the orders of the RCP. Jeanne was elected to the Executive of the
Labour Leagues of Youth , later being put on the list of Labour Party Parliamentary candidates. She and Anil were associated with the MP for SloughFenner Brockway and withGeorge Padmore , the prophet of Black African Liberation.After graduating from University College, she studied International Law at the
London School of Economics . However, she was unable to complete her Masters Degree as she was forced urgently to accompany Anil to Sri Lanka in 1952.Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, Jeanne joined the
Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and worked in theLanka Estate Workers' Union (LEWU), which organised labourers on the tea and rubber plantations. At the time the British were still very powerful on the island, in spite of the country having obtained a form of independence in 1948. The British planters, aghast at the idea of a white woman speaking on behalf ofcoolies , prevailed upon the government todeport Jeanne, but she went into hiding withVivienne Goonewardena and the LSSP fought successfully to prevent the deportation, in a repeat of theBracegirdle affair .Lake House and the CMU
She joined the
Lake House group of newspapers as a journalist, recruited by chief editor Esmond Wickremasinghe (the father ofRanil Wickremasinghe ) along with other left-oriented intellectuals such asHerbert Keuneman andRegi Siriwardena . She had a column (under the pseudonym 'Jane Freeman') in "The Observer " and also worked on the "Jana " magazine. In 1955 she was called upon by Wickremasinghe to help write the a speech for SirJohn Kotelawala , the thenPrime Minister . This was theBandung Conference ofNon-Aligned Movement , and the speech, which became quite famous, was a joint effort with the brilliantB.J.B Fernando ('Bonnie').In the mid-1950s, she joined Sri Lanka's first co-operative housing scheme, the Gothatuwa Building Society, founded by Herbert Keuneman,
Seneka Bibile , 'Bonnie' Fernando and other members of the radicalintelligentsia . This led to the foundation of theWelikadawatte housing estate, which attained some fame as an island of intellectual creativity.Jeanne formed a journalists' branch of the
Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU) at Lake House, much to the chagrin of the management which had strenuously upheld a 'no unions' policy. She was elected national Assistant Secretary of union, a post she held for several years. In 1960, she and several other trade-unionists were sacked from Lake House and were not reinstated. [http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2002/12/15/fea05.html] At this time she edited "Visi-pas-vasarak", a magazine brought out by the LSSP on its 25th anniversary.In the 1960s, she was involved in the Union’s publications and was active in many strikes of the period. [http://lakdiva.com/island/i981220/wed/mdwkrvw.htm#Cat's%20Eye]
Teaching
In need of employment, Jeanne turned to teaching at the
Terence de Zilva School inKolonnawa . She subsequently joined theGhana High Commission (at the timeKwame Nkrumah was President and had been advised by George Padmore) as a press officer, but returned to teaching at the Castle Street School (later Devi Balika Vidyalaya) in Borella, St Michael's Polwatte and St Paul's Milagiriya.She went on to edit the left-wing "Patriot" newspaper. She was also foreign news editor of the 'Nation' newspaper. In 1967, her she was one of those proposed to contest the
Agalawatte constituency on the LSSP ticket, but DrColvin R de Silva was selected by the party'scentral committee in preference to her. She became active in the "Kantha Kavaya", a circle of leftist women led byTamara Kumari Ilangaratne . One of the proposals she made through this organisation, for a consumer council, was later adopted.Education reform
In 1972 (as part of the ongoing educational reforms instituted by the
United Front (Sri Lanka) government, she was appointed to a committee to look into the teaching of English in Sri Lanka Schools. She was seconded to the Curriculum Development Centre, where she edited its bulletin. There she was on the drafting committee of a new series of English Language textbooks. She was associated with a group of educationists led byDouglas Walatara , who wanted to teach English through the medium of the students' mother tongue, the "indirect method". The new English textbook, which replaced the GCE (Advanced Level) English textbook, and which she was partly responsible for, was controversial, avoidingChaucer andShakespeare , but includingBob Dylan ("Blowin' in the Wind "),John Lennon ("Imagine") andIsaac Asimov ("Jokester") - her personal favourite,Arthur C. Clarke 's ("The Star "), was left out for fear of offendingRoman Catholics .She returned to England for a short time and was active in the
Anti-Nazi League and the trades-union movement. In 1981 she returned to Sri Lanka once again.She died in 1997 after being diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease . She left two children, Janaki and Vinod.References
* [http://lakdiva.org/suntimes/970518/plus4.html Surangani Dayaratne, 'Jeanne Moonesinghe: A remarkable woman was she', "Sunday Times", 18 June 1997]
* [http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2002/12/15/fea05.html Ajith Samaranayake, 'A Leftist to the last', "Sunday Observer", 15 December 2002]
*Vinod Moonesinghe, 'Jeanne Moonesinghe', in Wesley S. Muthiah, Selvy Thiruchandran and Sydney Wanasinghe (eds), "Socialist Women of Sri Lanka", Colombo: Young Socialist Publication, 2006.Persondata
NAME = Hoban, Jeanne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Moonsinghe, Jeanne
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH =1924-08-03
PLACE OF BIRTH =Gillingham, Kent
DATE OF DEATH =1997-04-18
PLACE OF DEATH =Sri Lanka
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