Isabella Bream Pearce (5 May 1859 – 11 December 1929) was a socialist propagandist and suffrage campaigner. She was the vice-president of the Glasgow Labour Party, president of the Glasgow Women's Labour Party, and a member of the

Cathcart Cathcart ( sco, Kithcart, gd, Coille Chart)
is an are ...

School Board.

Early life

Isabella Bream Pearce was born 5 May 1859 in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, the daughter of John Thomson Duncan, a bookkeeper, and Margaret Fraser. Pearce married Charles Bream Pearce, a wine importer for the American organisation the Brotherhood of the New Life.

Campaigning for women's suffrage

Pearce was an active member of the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

during the 1890s and also served as vice-president of the Glasgow Labour Party and president of the Glasgow Women's Labour Party. Pearce and her husband, Charles Bream Pearce (1839-1905), were financial supporters of Keir Hardie's newspaper, ''

Labour Leader The ''Labour Leader'' was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed ''New Leader'' and ''Socialist Leader'', before finally taking the name ''Labour Leader'' again. 19th century The origins of the ...

''. She wrote a column, 'Matrons and Maidens', for the newspaper between 1894 and 1898 under the pseudonym 'Lily Bell'. Pearce and Isabella Ford both worked on behalf of the

Women's Emancipation Union The Women's Emancipation Union was founded by Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy in September 1891 following an infamous court case. Regina v Jackson, known colloquially as the Clitheroe Judgement, occurred when Edmund Jackson abducted his wife in a ...

(WEU) in addition to their socialist labours. Ford spoke on the WEU's behalf at a series of rallies in the East End of London in 1895 while Pearce contributed important papers to WEU conferences. Not one of the WEU's authors and speakers "deprecated the effects of ‘awakening’ working‐class women to feminism, for as Isabella Bream Pearce asserted such women were no longer content to ‘sell

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Officiall ...

birthright … for a “mess of pottage”’, either in their labouring or their intimate lives." The Glasgow branch of the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

(WSPU), the leading militant organisation campaigning for

women's suffrage in the United Kingdom A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britai ...

, from its inception had very strong links with the Independent Labour Party with early support provided by Pearce and from Tom Johnston of the ILP.

Teresa Billington-Greig Teresa Billington-Greig (15 October 1876 – 21 October 1964) was a British suffragette who helped create the Women's Freedom League in 1907. She had left another suffrage organisation – the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) – as s ...

was sent to organise the

WSPU The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

in Scotland in 1906 and it was through Pearce's friendship with

Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme-Elmy (died 12 March 1918) was a life-long campaigner and organiser, significant in the history of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She wrote essays and some poetry, using the pseudonyms E and Ignota. Early ...

that Billington-Greig was introduced to Glasgow. Billington-Greig setup the WSPU's Scottish Council with Pearce as treasurer and married Frederick Lewis in Pearce's home in February 1907. When Billington-Greig resigned from the WSPU in June 1907 after falling out with then Pankhursts, Pearce and Grace Paterson took over as joint secretaries of the WSPU's Scottish Council.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearce, Isabelle Bream 1859 births 1929 deaths Scottish suffragists British socialist feminists

Early life

Campaigning for women's suffrage

See also

References