Jessie Eden (née Shrimpton; 24 February 1902 – 27 September 1986) was a British trade union leader and communist activist, most famous for leading between 40,000 and 50,000 households during the Birmingham rent-strike of 1939.

[1][4] Later in life, she served for three decades as Birmingham city's federation of council house tenants and she was also involved in the construction of the Soviet Union's Moscow Metro.

[6] She was a lifelong supporter of both the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G), and of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) of which she was a leading member.

[7] For her commitment to helping improve the working conditions of English factory workers, she was awarded the T&G gold medal from Ernest Bevin.

This district of Birmingham was close to the Lucas Electrics factory, where Eden later become a worker, and would become famous for due to her trade union activism.

[6] Both of her parents were very supportive of her trade union activism, with her father joining her during the general strike and her mother hanging a red flag from their home's front window.

[1] Eden's leadership and organisation of the strike prompted a massive increase in the number of women in the midlands joining British trade unions.

[2] She spent two and a half years in the Soviet Union, although despite her skills in worker organisation, her work did very little to speed up the progress of the Moscow Metro, due largely to language difficulties.

It is surely the conceit that Tommy Shelby, the gangster villain-hero of the series, could ever convince a woman like Eden to be wined and dined, let alone be seduced, that finally reveals the true motives of the creators of the programme.

"[16]At a round table event featuring Stevenson, poet Dave Puller, and cultural historian Professor Paul Long, the three discussed the series and its depictions of the British working class.

Puller had mixed feelings and was disappointed that the show chose to focus on Eden's fictional romance with Tommy Shelby, rather than her real achievements as a communist and a trade union leader.

During this short marriage, the couple adopted 2 sons (brothers) called Stephen and Douglas (Douggie to friends), who later joined the Royal Navy, and became a lifelong communist party member until he died in 1977.