Isabella Ormston Ford

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Standard Name: Ford, Isabella Ormston
Used Form: Isabella Ford
Isabella Ormston Ford was a dedicated labour activist, suffragette, and anti-war advocate at the turn of the nineteenth century whose writing advocates her socialist-feminist ideals. She wrote newspaper articles, pamphlets, short stories, and novels, all in the service of her ideas for social reform, and continually underlined the importance of keeping the labour movement and women's movement together. She also lectured widely on behalf of the causes near to her heart throughout Britain and occasionally in Europe. For several years she regularly contributed to the Labour Leader and the Yorkshire Factory Times, and maintained a column in the socialist Leeds Forward. She sat on the executive committee for several key national organizations in these movements: the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party , the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies , and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom .
Black and white photo of Isabella Ford in 1924, sitting reading a book with a telephone beside her. Her body is in profile but she turns her head to face the camera. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and pulled back.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Mary Gawthorpe
During her time with the WSPU, MG worked with Christabel Pankhurst (who was twenty-four when Gawthorpe first met her, before she had yet met Isabella Ford ), whom, like Ethel Snowden , she knew from...
Friends, Associates Katharine Bruce Glasier
Her involvement in socialist circles led her to acquaintance with Sidney and Beatrice Webb , Edward Hulton (editor of the Sunday Chronicle), and Robert Blatchford , for whom she wrote several articles.
Thompson, Laurence. The Enthusiasts. Victor Gollancz Limited, 1971.
71
With...
Literary responses Katharine Bruce Glasier
Unfortunately, KBG 's efforts to mediate were not rewarded with concilliation. Instead, her column met with opposition from both suffragette and socialist circles, particularly over its handling of the suffrage issue. Isabella Ford , for...
Occupation Maude Royden
MR served on the executive committee of the NUWSS along with suffragists Dorothea Rackham , Chrystal Macmillan , Margaret Ashton , Catherine Marshall , Ida O'Malley , Kathleen Courtney , and Isabella Ford . By...
politics Jane Hume Clapperton
Among others the committee also included Clementina Black , Beatrice Webb , and Maud Pember Reeves . It was attended by Emma Brooke and Isabella Ford .
Aberdeen, Ishbel Maria Gordon, Marchioness of, editor. Women in Industrial Life: The International Congress of Women of 1899. T. Fisher Unwin, 1900.
front matter
politics Mary Gawthorpe
MG (inspired by the notorious arrest of Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst in Manchester on 13 October 1905) worked with Isabella Ford to launch and run the LeedsWomen's Suffrage Society .
“Guide to the Papers of Mary E. Gawthorpe, 1881-1990”. The Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
politics Katharine Bruce Glasier
At the first league conference in 1906, Isabella Ford moved to insert a clause stating that the women of the WLL wanted to obtain direct representation of women in parliament and on local bodies.
qtd. in
Balshaw, June Marion. Suffrage, solidarity and strife: political partnerships and the women’s movement 1880-1930. University of Greenwich, 1998.
188
Reception Margaret Harkness
MH 's socialist novels have begun to be republished since the mid 1980s. Until the 1990s academic interest in her was limited to Engels's famous letter to her and a few chapters in books on...
Reception Mary Gawthorpe
This article brought MG an invitation to tea with Isabella Ford , a tea at which Ford and Ethel Annakin (later Snowden) asked her why she had written her article—apparently implying that she ought to...

Timeline

March 1882: The first issue appeared of The Gatherer,...

Building item

March 1882

The first issue appeared of The Gatherer, a small literary and feminist magazine published in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
10
Hannam, June. Isabella Ford. Basil Blackwell, 1989.
xiii

19 May 1906: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, newly-elected...

National or international item

19 May 1906

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman , newly-elected Prime Minister, received a deputation of suffragists.
Hume, Leslie Parker. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1897-1914. Garland, 1982.
25n85
Holton, Sandra Stanley. Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Routledge, 1996.
121

11 December 1906: Millicent Garrett Fawcett gave a banquet...

Building item

11 December 1906

Millicent Garrett Fawcett gave a banquet at the Savoy Hotel in London to celebrate the release from Holloway Prison of suffragists arrested on 23 October.
Holton, Sandra Stanley. Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Routledge, 1996.
128-9
Gawthorpe, Mary. Up Hill to Holloway. Traversity Press, 1962.
252-3

Early August 1914: In response to the support for Britain's...

National or international item

Early August 1914

In response to the support for Britain's war effort pledged by Millicent Garrett Fawcett and other National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies Executive Committee members, several leading members of the Union resigned to form the...

Texts

Ford, Isabella Ormston. “Factory Legislation for Women”. Yorkshire Factory Times.
Ford, Isabella Ormston. Industrial Women and How to Help Them. Humanitarian League, 1901.
Ford, Isabella Ormston. Miss Blake of Monkshalton. John Murray, 1890.
Ford, Isabella Ormston. Mr. Elliott. Edward Arnold, 1901.
Ford, Isabella Ormston. On the Threshold. Edward Arnold, 1895.
Ford, Isabella Ormston. Women and Socialism. The Independent Labour Party, 1904.
Ford, Isabella Ormston. Women’s Wages. William Reeves, 1893.