Christabel Gurney

Anti-Apartheid Movement pioneer

Christabel Gurney, OBE is an activist and historian, who was heavily involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

She joined the organisation in 1969, and was the editor of its journal Anti-Apartheid News from 1969 to 1980.

Later, Christabel was secretary of the Notting Hill Anti-Apartheid Group.

She received an OBE "for political service, particularly to Human Rights" in the 2014 Birthday Honours.

In 2023 she was bestowed with the Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo.

veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Christabel Gurney recording for Activism in the 80s, a podcast produced by Creative Kin podcast production agency,

Christabel Gurney recording for Activism in the 80s, a podcast produced by Creative Kin podcast production agency.

“The anti-apartheid movements… didn't want to give up - and formed a new organisation, Action for Southern Africa, to try to support the new South Africa and the other newly liberated countries of southern Africa in overcoming the huge legacy of apartheid.”

Christabel Gurney appears in Activism in the 80s

Podcast cover art for Activism in the 80s six-part podcast series produced by Creative Kin for Ardent Theatre

Christabel was a pioneer of boycott tactics.

As far back as the early 1970s, she was campaigning for a boycott on Barclays bank, which, at that time, was heavily invested in Apartheid South Africa.

Student boycotts were an important pressure point, since Barclays wanted student accounts.

Christabel also used disruptive tactics such as buying a Barclays share to gain access to AGMs and other shareholder meetings, where questions could be posed about the bank’s involvement in South Africa.

When Barclays officials asked the protesters to end their disruption, they raised banners at the front of the meeting and stood in silence.

Barclays finally sold its stake in its South African subsidiary in November 1986, and the boycott agains the bank was lifted in March the following year.

Christabel was arrested at a 1972 protest, and convicted of public order offences alongside two other anti-apartheid activists.

In January 2023 - 51 years after being branded a criminal - Christabel’s conviction was quashed at Kingston Crown Court in London.

The review of her case followed the revelation that an undercover police officer, who had infiltrated anti-apartheid protesters, was instructed to lie at Christabel’s trial.

The officer also attended meetings between the protesters and their lawyers, breaching the key legal confidentiality principle between defendants and their legal representatives.

Activism in the 80s, Ep4: Trade unions Under Attack.

Featuring Lela Kogbara, Co-lead of Place Matters, of Justice4Grenfell; Nadia Joseph, anti-apartheid activist whose father went on trial alongside Nelson Mandela; and Christabel Gurney, former Editor of Anti-Apartheid News.