Bessie Rayner Parkes

Elizabeth Rayner Belloc (nee Parkes; 16 June 1829 – 23 March 1925) was one of the most prominent English feminists and campaigners for women's rights in Victorian times and also a poet, essayist and journalist. Early life Bessie Rayner Parkes was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, daughter of Joseph Parkes (1796–1865), a prosperous solicitor and a liberal with Radical sympathies, and Elizabeth ("Eliza") Rayner Priestley (1797–1877), granddaughter of the scientist and Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley (1733–1804). Eliza always considered herself an American, having been born in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Although not in great sympathy with her daughter over Bessie's strong wish to make changes in the status of women, Elizabeth nevertheless loved her dearly and did not actively oppose her; Joseph Parkes's support for his daughter's aspirations was moderate. Unusually for girls of her background, Bessie was sent to a progressive Unitarian boarding school at age 11, a period of her life which she enjoyed. Parkes' passion for writing stemmed from the cultured life she was exposed to as a child, as her parents were avid consumers of the arts. Self-taught poetry was Parkes's earliest passion, which later led her to use her talents in her activism. Activism Parkes became gradually aware of the unjust, contradictory, and even absurd situation of women in Great Britain, though there were many differences according to the social class they belonged to. The first endeavour that Parkes and her friend Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon took on was to try to change the restrictive property laws that applied to married women (see Married Women's Property Act 1870).