Isabella Ford

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Isabella Ford (January 1924)

Isabella Ford , also Isabella Ormston Ford , (born May 23, 1855 in Headingley , Leeds , UK ; died July 14, 1924 , Leeds) was an English social reformer, women's suffrage activist and writer. She became a public speaker and she wrote pamphlets on issues of socialism, feminism and workers' rights. After studying the rights of factory workers at an early age, she took care of organizing a union in the 1880s. As a member of the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labor Party , she was the first woman to speak at a meeting of the Labor Representation Committee, from which the Labor Party emerged .

life and work

Isabella Ford was born in Headingley, Leeds, in the north of England. She was the youngest of eight children of Quaker Robert Lawson Ford and his wife Hannah (nee Pease). Her mother was a cousin of the abolitionist Elizabeth Pease Nichol . Her father was a lawyer who ran a local evening school for factory worker girls. Contact with these girls gave Ford and her sisters an insight into class differences and working conditions. When she was 16 years old, she began teaching at her father's school.

Ford was unionized in the 1880s. She worked with seamstresses who fought for better working conditions; she helped them form a union, and she was there when they went on strike in 1889. In the years 1890 to 1891 she marched with the workers of the "Manningham Mills" (Manningham factories) in Bradford . As a result of her commitment, she was named a lifelong member of the Leeds Trades and Labor Council.

She helped found the Independent Labor Party (ILP) in Leeds and became president of the Leeds Tailoresses' Union. Her main interests were the organization of trade unions, socialism and women's suffrage . She overcame her natural bias and became a skilled speaker in public. She spoke at many events that dealt with socialism, labor rights and the emancipation of women. She wrote many martial arts pamphlets and also had a column in Leeds Forward magazine . In 1895 she was elected "Parish Councilor" for "Adel cum Eccup" in Leeds. In the 1900s Ford concentrated its work on the ILP and was elected to the "National Administrative Council". She cared more about the national women's suffrage movement , but felt that feminism and the labor movement were equally important. In 1903 she was the first woman to speak at the annual conference of the Labor Representation Committee (later the Labor Party ).

After a debate in 1914 with future politician Margaret Bondfield , Sylvia Pankhurst described Ford as

"A plain, middle-aged woman, with red face and turban has crushed down upon her straight hair, whose nature yet seemed to me ... kindlier and more profound than that of her younger antagonist".

(German: a simple middle-aged woman with a red face and a turban hat, who sat deep on her straight hair, whose character seemed to me ... more friendly and profound than that of her younger opponent. )

Private life

Ford was friends with Labor politician Philip Snowden , with the socialist writer Edward Carpenter , the poet Walt Whitman , and with Josephine Butler , Millicent Fawcett and Olive Schreiner . For most of her adult life, she lived with her sisters Bessie and Emily in Adel Grange, the Leeds family home where the family had moved when she was eleven.

Bessie Ford died in 1919 and her sisters moved to a smaller house called Adel Willows in 1922. Isabella Ford died on July 14, 1924.

Recognition after death

Ford's name and picture (and those of 58 other supporters of women's suffrage) were engraved on the base of the Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square , London, unveiled in late 2018.

Works

  • Miss Blake of Monkshalton (1890)
  • On the Threshold (1895)
  • Mr Elliott (1901)
  • The Secret Diaries of Ciara Loughlin

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ↑ a b Crawford
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Historical Dictionary of British Women
  4. ↑ Millicent Fawcett statue unveiling: the women and men whose names will be on the plinth . iNews. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Ford, Isabella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ford, Isabella Ormston (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British suffragette, trade unionist, social reformer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Headingley , Leeds
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1924
Place of death Leeds