Jessie Payne (née Avery; 1864–1933) was part of the deputation of working class female members of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) that visited Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in June 1914 seeking votes for all women.

Born in Bethnal Green, Jessie and her sister were brought up by their maternal grandparents, both shoe makers, since their mother, who had spent some time in the workhouse, had remarried after the death of her husband.

[3] Jessie committed herself to the cause and was instrumental in the organisation: nursing Sylvia to health after her imprisonments, initiating the Milk Fund campaign, attending meetings and representing working women in two deputations to the government.

[4] It was to the Paynes' house in Ford Road (demolished in the 1960s) that Sylvia Pankhurst was brought in July 1913, weak, hungry and physically damaged, having been released from prison on licence after her hunger strike.

Mrs Payne explained to Asquith that when their young daughter had become unmanageable she and her husband had 'felt compelled to take her to the workhouse' but when she visited and questioned the standard of care, she was told by a doctor that a mother had no voice in the matter, only the father could affect change.

The latter was converted by the ELFS members and the men of the RSPU (Rebels Social and Political Union) into a Women’s Hall, to provide premises for a creche and cost price restaurant.

[18] Jessie and Jim Payne, having already helped neighbours with shoe repairs, took responsibility for teaching their skills in the boot-making factory set up by the ELFS in a workshop at the rear of their premises at 45 Norman Road, which was run on cooperative lines.

[19] After the closure of the hall (1924), Jessie and Jim Payne continued to live in various houses in the East End and died within two years of each other in the 1930s, after the introduction of equal suffrage in 1928.