Ethel de Keyser OBE OLG (4 November 1926 - 16 July 2004) was a South African anti-apartheid activist based in London, England.
Early life Ethel Tarshish was born in 1926, to Jewish parents who moved to South Africa soon after she was born. (Some obituaries located her birth in Vilnius, some in South Africa.)Paul Trewhela, "Ethel de Keyser: London Anti-Apartheid Activist", The Independent (30 July 2004)."Ethel de Keyser; Anti-Apartheid Campaigner with a Flair for Outwitting Spies", The Times (29 July 2004). Her father owned a garment factory in South Africa. She went to college in England and became a British citizen. She returned to South Africa in 1960 after the Sharpeville massacre and the detention of her brother Jack Tarshish.
Career She became involved with her anti-apartheid work. She was on her way back to England in 1963 when Jack was arrested again as a member of the African National Congress. She was in South Africa for the trial but was deported afterwards, and Jack was jailed for twelve years. Back in England, she worked for the London Symphony Orchestra while volunteering for the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), eventually becoming its executive secretary.Robert Hughes and Mike Terry, "Ethel de Keyser; Dedicated and Lifelong Campaigner in the Struggle Against Apartheid" The Guardian (20 July 2004). She led campaigns to maintain the British arms embargo against South Africa, and to refuse recognition to the Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia. She helped organize SATIS (South Africa The Imprisoned Society), a conference and network for those working for the release of political prisoners.Glenn Moss, The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s (Jacana Media 2014).
She became director of the British Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (BDAF) in 1981, and set up an educational trust (the Canon Collins Educational Trust for Southern Africa) as well. Antony Sher said she was his "political guru" during this time.Antony Sher, "Trafalgar's New Nelson", The Guardian (6 May 2001).
After 1994, her work shifted from an anti-apartheid focus to health and education causes in South Africa, including HIV/AIDS. She was awarded an OBE for her human rights work in 2001."The New Year's Honours", BBC News (30 December 2000).
Personal life Ethel Tarshish was married to actor David de Keyser for ten years (from 1949 to 1959), and she had a longterm relationship with writer George Lamming.
Ethel de Keyser died aged 77 on 16 July 2004, after a heart attack. She had been looking forward to being awarded an honorary degree at the University of the Western Cape in September. The trustees of the Canon Collins Educational Trust established scholarships in her name as a memorial."The Ethel de Keyser Scholarships Fund", Canon Collins Educational Trust.
References
External links "Ethel de Keyser", South African History Online (2011). Two audio clips from a 2000 interview with de Keyser, at Forward to Freedom: A History of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement AAM Archives. Have You Heard from Johannesburg? (2010), a seven-part documentary film series about the international anti-apartheid movement, produced and directed by Connie Field. "Papers relating to Ethel de Keyser", Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts.