Helen Alexander Archdale (née Russel; 25 August 1876 – 8 December 1949) was a Scottish feminist, suffragette and journalist.
Archdale was the Sheffield branch organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union and later its prisoners' secretary in London.
In 1917 she served as a clerical worker with Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps, transferring in 1918 to the women's department of the Ministry of National Service.
[2] On returning to Scotland in 1908, Archdale immediately joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), becoming the Sheffield branch organiser in 1910 and finding employment with Adele Pankhurst as a live-in governess.
[4] In 1911, she hosted a mass 1911 census boycott party with Pankhurst, which was attended by 57 people including one invited male newspaper reporter.
[2] She was the first editor of the political and literary weekly review Time & Tide (with the unspoken subtext "wait for no man"), founded in 1920 by Margaret Rhondda.
[4] They were convicted of breach of the peace after interrupting a meeting being held by the local MP, Winston Churchill, at which women had been excluded.
Equal opportunities for men and women in the civil serviceIn 1926 Archdale and Rhondda founded the Open Door Council with Chrystal Macmillan and Elizabeth Abbott.
In 1927 Archdale began working in Geneva, lobbying for an Equal Rights Treaty at the League of Nations in the early 1930s.
However, in later life she was "rejected by a Christian Science hospice because she had gone to a regular hospital after suffering a heart attack", violating the denomination's restrictions against seeking medical treatment.