Isabella Maria Susan Tod (18 May 1836 – 8 December 1896) was a
Scottish-born campaigner for women’s civil and political equality, active in the
north of Ireland. She lobbied for women’s rights to education and to property, for the dignified treatment of sex workers and, as an Irish
unionist, for female suffrage. In 1887, her
North of Ireland Suffrage Society helped secure the municipal vote for women in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
.
Life
Tod was born in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
and was educated at home by her mother, Maria Isabella Waddell, who came from
County Monaghan
County Monaghan ( ; ga, Contae Mhuineacháin) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Monaghan. Monaghan County C ...
, Ireland. Her father was James Banks Tod, a merchant from Edinburgh.
In the 1850s she moved with her mother to
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
. She was a contributor to the
Dublin University Magazine
The ''Dublin University Magazine'' was an independent literary cultural and political magazine published in Dublin from 1833 to 1882. It started out as a magazine of political commentary but increasingly became devoted to literature. The magazine ...
, an independent literary and political magazine; the Presbyterian newspaper, ''The Banner of Ulster'' (under the editorship of the veteran
tenant righter James MacKnight); and, in the 1880s, the
Northern Whig
The ''Northern Whig'' (from 1919 the ''Northern Whig and Belfast Post'') was a daily regional newspaper in Ireland which was first published in 1824 in Belfast when it was founded by Francis Dalzell Finlay. It was published twice weekly, Monday ...
, the liberal rival to the Belfast
News Letter
The ''News Letter'' is one of Northern Ireland's main daily newspapers, published from Monday to Saturday. It is the world's oldest English-language general daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737.
The newspape ...
.
In 1868, Tod was the only woman to give evidence to a select committee inquiry on the reform of the
married women’s property law in 1868. In 1872, she established the
North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society. Determined lobbying by the Society ensured that the 1887 Act creating a new city-status municipal franchise for Belfast conferred the vote on persons rather than men. This was eleven years before women elsewhere Ireland gained the vote in local government elections.
In 1874, with
Margaret Byers
Margaret Byers (, Morrow; April 1832 – 21 February 1912) was an Irish educator, activist, social reformer, missionary, and writer of the long nineteenth century. She was the founder of Victoria College, Belfast. Byers was involved in philanthr ...
(the founder of
Victoria College) Tod formed the Belfast Women's
Temperance
Temperance may refer to:
Moderation
*Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed
*Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion
Culture
*Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...
Association, and together they campaigned for secondary and tertiary education for girls. She was instrumental in the foundation of The Ladies' Collegiate School Belfast (1859), the Queen's Institute Dublin (1861), Alexandra College Dublin (1866), and the Belfast Ladies' Institute (1867). Advancing, in ''The Education of Girls of the Middle Classes'' (1874), a programme of education to prepare women for gainful employment, she lobbied for the inclusion of girls within the terms of the Intermediate Education act of 1878.
Along with
Anna Haslam
Anna Maria Haslam (née Fisher; 1829–1922) was a suffragist and a major figure in the 19th and early 20th century women's movement in Ireland.
Early life and family
Anna Maria Fisher was born in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland on 6 April 1829. ...
, she was on the executive committee of the
Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
They campaigned, with success in 1886, for the repeal of the
Acts
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
,
[''Striapacha Tri Chead Bliain Duailcis (Prostitutes: Three Hundred Years of Vice)'' Niamh O’Reilly, J Irish Studies ](_blank)
/ref> on the grounds that the legislative attempt to protect the health of soldiers forced medical examinations upon prostitutes that violated the women's civil liberties. Tod insisted on the humanity of women engaged in the sex trade, and on a recognition of the trade’s root causes: poverty, “inequality of law” and “inequality of social judgement”.
Tod and Halsam also campaigned, with less success, for women to be able to serve as Poor Law Guardian
Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930.
England and Wales
Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the poor ...
s. In 1896, a bill was passed allowing with certain property qualifications to serve, but by the end of the century out of 8,000 Poor Law Guardians in Ireland only 85 were women.
When, in 1888 the Women’s Liberal Federation split on the issue of Irish Home Rule
Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wit ...
, Tod, citing the threat of a socially-conservative majority in an Irish parliament, co-founded the Irish Women's Liberal Unionist Association. She believed that home rule would block further advances for women: "I perceived that twould be the stoppage of the whole work of social reform for which we had laboured so hard".
That work was continued into the new century, in Belfast, by the NIWS—from 1909, the Irish Women's Suffrage Society—engaging, among others, Dr. Elizabeth Bell, the city's first practicing female doctor and gynecologist, and the writer Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken (born 1966) is an American author. She is a recipient of the PEN New England Award.
Life and career
McCracken, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Newton North High S ...
("L.A.M. Priestley").
Tod died at 71 Botanic Avenue, Belfast on 8 December 1896 from pulmonary tuberculosis. She is buried in Balmoral Cemetery in South Belfast.
Heritage
In October 2013 Margaret Mountford
Margaret Rose Mountford (''née'' Swale, born 24 November 1951) is a Northern Irish lawyer, businesswoman and television personality best known for her role in ''The Apprentice''.
Biography
Mountford is originally from Holywood in County Down, ...
presented a BBC Two Northern Ireland documentary called ''Groundbreakers: Ulster's Forgotten Radical'', which highlighted the life of Isabella Tod.
See also
*List of suffragists and suffragettes
This list of suffragists and suffragettes includes noted individuals active in the worldwide women's suffrage movement who have campaigned or strongly advocated for women's suffrage, the organisations which they formed or joined, and the public ...
*List of women's rights activists
This article is a list of notable women's rights activists, arranged alphabetically by modern country names and by the names of the persons listed.
Afghanistan
* Amina Azimi – disabled women's rights advocate
* Hasina Jalal – women's empowerm ...
*Timeline of women's suffrage
Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women and men from certain classes or races w ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tod, Isabella
1836 births
1896 deaths
Irish feminists
Irish women in politics
Politicians from Belfast
Irish suffragists
Ulster Scots people
Scottish suffragists
Irish women activists
Irish unionists