Isabella Tod

Isabella Maria Susan Tod (18 May 1836 – 8 December 1896) was a Scottish suffragist, women's rights campaigner and unionist politician in Ireland.

Isabella Tod
Born(1836-05-18)18 May 1836
Edinburgh, Scotland
Died8 December 1896(1896-12-08) (aged 60)
Belfast, Ireland
NationalityScottish-Irish
OccupationSuffragist, Unionist

Life

Tod was born in Edinburgh and was educated at home by her mother, Maria Isabella Waddell, who came from County Monaghan, Ireland. Her father was James Banks Tod, a merchant from Edinburgh.[1] In the 1850s she moved with her mother to Belfast. She contributed to several newspapers, including the Northern Whig and the Dublin University Magazine.

She founded the North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society which later became the Irish Women's Suffrage Society.

She formed the Belfast Women's Temperance Association along with Margaret Byers.[2]

Along with Anna Haslam she campaigned for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.[3] These acts allowed for state regulation of prostitutes in areas in which the British army was stationed. She was on the executive committee of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts until 1889.[4]

After the Liberal Party split over the issue of Home Rule in Ireland she became an organiser of the Liberal Women's Unionist Association in Belfast.

Tod died on 8 December 1896 in Belfast. She is buried in Balmoral Cemetery in South Belfast.[5]

Heritage

In October 2013 Margaret Mountford presented a BBC Two Northern Ireland documentary called Groundbreakers: Ulster's Forgotten Radical, which highlighted the life of Isabella Tod.[6]

See also

References
  1. "The Dictionary of Ulster Biography". www.newulsterbiography.co.uk. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  2. uhistadmin (18 April 2015). "Isabella Tod". Ulster History Circle. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  3. Striapacha Tri Chead Bliain Duailcis (Prostitutes: Three Hundred Years of Vice) Niamh O’Reilly, J Irish Studies
  4. Luddy, Maria (22 January 2013). "Women and the Contagious Diseases Acts 1864-1886". History Ireland. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  5. "Isabella Tod: Ulster's Forgotten Radical on BBC Two NI". Northern Ireland Screen. 21 October 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  6. "Ulster's Forgotten Radical Isabella Tod, Series 1, Groundbreakers - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
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