Betty Hamilton

Who was Betty Hamilton?

Betty Hamilton was a British Trotskyist.

Born Berthe Dutoit in the Valais area of French Switzerland, the daughter of a socialist engineer, Hamilton moved to Paris as a young woman. There, she worked as a fashion journalist and, in the left-wing ferment of the early 1930s, became associated with the early Trotskyist movement and with others such as the Greek archeo-Marxists. She moved to London in the 1930s, working as a dance teacher and moving in radical art and music circles, then as an industrial worker during the war when she was also the secretary of Newark Labour Party. Maintaining her links with Trotskyists in Paris she had a key role in linking British and French Trotskyists during and just after the Second World War. During the war she sheltered emigres from Europe in London. Later she ran her own business importing industrial diamonds which enabled her to help finance the Healy wing of the British Trotskyists.

From Hamilton's arrival in England, she was a member of various Trotskyist groupings, including the early Militant Group, the