Early life Childhood Elizabeth Bamber was born on 24 September 1899 at 23 Zante Street, in the Everton area of Liverpool, the eldest daughter of Hugh Bamber, a bookbinder, and his wife Mary, née Little. Mary had come to Liverpool as a child when her father, a well-to-do Edinburgh lawyer, abandoned his family after his descent into alcoholism and poverty. Liverpool in the late 19th century suffered extremes of deprivation, and had the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Mary became a trade union organiser and campaigner against deplorable social conditions, and established a reputation as an outstanding platform speaker. She was the dominant early influence on her daughter Elizabeth, who formed a lifelong determination to represent and fight for the disadvantaged. In 1902 the Bamber family relocated to Smollett Street in nearby Bootle, one of several moves that caused Elizabeth's formal education to be divided among different schools. Alongside her normal schooling, her political education began at the Marmaduke Street Socialist Sunday School, and through the medium of her mother's campaigning activities. One of Elizabeth's early memories was of the soup kitchen for the destitute which Mary helped to run on St George's Plateau: "I remember the faces of the unemployed when the soup ran out ... I remember blank, hopeless stares, day after day, week after week, all through the hard winter of 1906–07". At the age of eleven Elizabeth left the Sunday School and joined the youth section of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), where she studied socialism alongside a busy programme of social activities. She later described herself at this time as "strong, agile, fond of walking and eating". By this time Mary Bamber was working as an organiser for the Warehouse Workers' Union; Elizabeth assisted her mother, sometimes acting as a steward at meetings. Mother and daughter were both present at St George's Plateau on 13 August 1911, when a baton charge by police and troops broke up a rally in support of Liverpool's striking transport workers. Hundreds were injured, and in the disturbances that followed, two demonstrators were shot dead. The day became enshrined in Liverpool's working-class history as "Bloody Sunday". ILP years Elizabeth left school in 1913, and began work filling seed packets for five shillings a week. The job was too monotonous to engage her for long, and after a few months she found a post in the drapery department of