Women of the Century Database Display

Surname	Ford
Forename/s	Isabella Ormston
Other Names
Dates

Biographical Notes

Born into a Quaker family and immersed in radical liberal politics at an early age, she was encouraged to take an active interest in politics and social issues. As a teenager, Isabella together with her sisters, taught at a night school for mill girls in Leeds. During the 1890's she worked tirelessly as a working women trade union organiser among women textile workers in the West Riding. She helped set up several working women's organisations such as the Tailoresses Society, the Workwomen's Society (1888), the Leeds Tailoresses Union, and the Women's Trade Union Club (1897). She was the Leeds Tailoresses Union's president for ten years until it merged with the men's Amalgamated Union of Clothiers Operative in 1899. She was elected life member of the Leeds Trade and Labour Council. She often represented women workers at numerous International Textile Workers' Congresses, usually being the only female delegate. Elected parish councillor in 1895. Between 1903-1907 she was member of the national executive of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and was involved in forming a Leeds branch of the ILP. In 1890 she helped form the Leeds Women's Suffrage Society, and after 1906 she focused her energies on the campaign for women's suffrage. 1907-1915 elected to the executive committee of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). When war broke o,ut|| she continued to work f'or women's suffrage, but as a pacifist. In 1915 she resigned from the executive when it refused to support a delegation to the International Women's Peace Congress to be held in the Hague. She was an executive member of British section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, establishing a Leeds branch of the Women's Peace Crusade. She also supported the Union of Democratic Control, the National Council for Civil Liberties, and the movement against the extension of conscription.

Associated Places

Leeds