Priscilla Bright McLaren

Priscilla Bright McLaren
Born
Priscilla Bright

8 September 1815
Rochdale, Lancashire, England
Died5 November 1906(1906-11-05) (aged 91)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Burial placeSt Cuthbert's Kirkyard, Edinburgh, Scotland
EducationHannah Johnson's school in Liverpool
Known forSuffragist and abolitionist
SpouseDuncan McLaren (m. 1848, d. 1886)
ChildrenCharles McLaren
Helen Priscilla McLaren
Walter McLaren
RelativesJohn Bright (brother), Jacob Bright (brother), Margaret Bright Lucas (sister), Anne Ashworth (niece), Lilias Ashworth Hallett (niece)

Priscilla Bright McLaren (8 September 1815 – 5 November 1906) was an English activist who served and linked the anti-slavery movement with the women's suffrage movement in the nineteenth century. She was a member of the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society and, after serving on the committee, became the president of the Edinburgh Women's Suffrage Society.[1]

Biography

She was born Priscilla Bright in Rochdale, Lancashire, England,[2] the fifth of the eleven children.[3] She came from a Quaker family that believed in educating its women. Her father, Jacob Bright, had risen from weaver to bookkeeper to wealthy cotton manufacturer. His politics remained radical and he passed his activist interest to his children. Her mother, Martha, took an equal part in her husband's business concerns and created essay societies and debating clubs for her children. Skills that they developed in addressing an audience were later put to use by the daughters Margaret and Priscilla, as well as the most famous of the Bright sons, Radical MP John Bright and Liberal Party MP Jacob Bright.[4][5]

Priscilla was educated at a Quaker school in York and Hannah Johnson's school in Liverpool, then attended another Quaker school in Southport with her sister Esther.[2][6] In 1843, Priscilla attended the first Anti-Corn Law League meeting.[6]

Priscilla kept house for her widowed brother, John, including looking after her niece Helen Bright Clark.[7] She believed that she had missed her own chance for a family life, but when John remarried, Priscilla accepted a suitor she had turned down twice before. Duncan McLaren was a twice-widowed Edinburgh merchant. He was considerably older than Priscilla and she became stepmother to his five children, the oldest of whom was aged 17.[3][4] They married at a registrar's office in 1848.[6]

For accepting Duncan on his third proposal and "marrying out" of the Quaker faith, Priscilla was disowned by the Society of Friends (though she ignored this for the most part, continuing to attend Quaker meetings).[4] Duncan built a political career as a town councillor, Lord Provost, and then Liberal Member of Parliament in 1865.[8] They worked together on many campaigns, described by contemporaries as "equal partners." They had three children together and lived at Newington House in Edinburgh.[4][6]

After the Ladies' Emancipation Society came to an end, Eliza Wigham, Jane Smeal, and some of their friends set up the Edinburgh chapter of the National Society for Women's Suffrage. Eliza Wigham and McLaren's step-daughter Agnes McLaren became the secretaries,[9] Priscilla McLaren was the president and Elizabeth Pease Nichol was the treasurer.[10]

In 1869, McLaren subscribed to the Married Women's Property Campaign and was a member of the executive committee of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act from its formation in 1870.[6] She also subscribed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Revising Committee for the Woman's Bible.[6]

In 1893, McLaren donated funds to the progressive feminist newspaper Shaft, as it was suffering from financial difficulties.[6]

McLaren died from pneumonia at home in Edinburgh on 5 November 1906,[2][3][7] shortly after giving her written support for suffragettes who had been imprisoned for their militancy in a letter addressed to the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).[6] She was buried beside her husband in St Cuthbert's Kirkyard, Edinburgh, Scotland.[2] Her funeral was attended by members of suffrage societies from across the British Isles.[6]

McLaren's daughter-in-law Laura McLaren, Lady Aberconway, also became involved in the women's suffrage movement.[11][12]

Legacy

Four women associated with Edinburgh were the subject of a campaign by Edinburgh historians in 2015. The group intended to gain recognition for Priscilla Bright McLaren, Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Eliza Wigham and Jane Smeal – the city's "forgotten heroines".[13]

Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.[14][15][16]

References

  1. ^ Midgley, Clare (1995). Women Against Slavery. Routledge. p. 173. ISBN 0415127084.
  2. ^ a b c d Edward H. Milligan. (23 September 2004) 'McLaren, Priscilla Bright (1815–1906)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  3. ^ a b c "McLaren; Priscilla Bright (1815-1906); campaigner for women's rights". archives.lse.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  4. ^ a b c d Stanley Holton, Sandra (2007). Quaker Women. Routledge. ISBN 9780415281447.
  5. ^ Joannou, Maroula; Purvis, June (1998). The Women's Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives. Manchester University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-7190-4860-9.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. pp. 400–402. ISBN 978-1-135-43401-4.
  7. ^ a b Ewan, Elizabeth (15 October 2018). New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 282. ISBN 978-1-4744-3629-8.
  8. ^ Mackie, John Beveridge (1888). The Life and Work of Duncan McLaren. T. Nelsons and Sons.
  9. ^ National Society for Women's Suffrage. Examiner; Jan 14 1871; 3285; British Periodicals, p. 55
  10. ^ Eliza Wigham Archived 2015-05-31 at the Wayback Machine, The Scottish Suffragists. Retrieved 30 May 2015
  11. ^ "'Force of nature': Suffragist remembered at Bodnant Garden". BBC News. 25 September 2018. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  12. ^ Jones, Mari (5 February 2018). "The three Bodnant ladies who were a force for Women's Suffrage". North Wales Live. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  13. ^ Campaign to honour four 'forgotten' heroines of Scottish history, The Herald (Glasgow), 2 June 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2015
  14. ^ "Historic statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett unveiled in Parliament Square". Gov.uk. 24 April 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  15. ^ Topping, Alexandra (24 April 2018). "First statue of a woman in Parliament Square unveiled". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  16. ^ "Millicent Fawcett statue unveiling: the women and men whose names will be on the plinth". iNews. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
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