Mrs Ursula M Bright

Other sources: https://www.parliament.uk/1866
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866?1928 (2001)

Family information: Father a Liverpool merchant. Married radical Liberal MP for Manchester and suffrage campaigner Jacob Bright.

Additional Information: Ursula subscribed to the Enfranchisement of Women Committee (EWC) 1866?7; was a member of the Manchester NSWS in 1867; attended a founding meeting of the Birmingham Society for Women's Suffrage in 1868; and was a founder member of the executive committee of the Central Committee of the NSWS in 1872. By 1890, she and her husband Jacob Bright were allied to the Women's Franchise League (WFraL). Ursula's work with the League resulted in women's entitlement to be elected as parish and district councillors, and confirmation of their eligibility to be elected as Poor Law Guardians (via an amendment to clauses in the Local Goverment Act of 1894). She also wrote and gave several papers on women's rights, including one that posed the question, 'Shall we work for candidates who are against women' s suffrage?'. This was an important question for Ursula and women like her, who supported and often worked for Liberal Party candidates and MPs, many of whom were opposed to votes for women. After her husband's death and her own ill health, she took a less active role in the suffrage movement, but did attend a banquet celebrating the release of WSPU prisoners in 1907, to whom she donated £12.

Other Suffrage Activities: Ursula was politically active across a broad spectrum of campaigns. She was a founder member, with her husband, of the Ladies National Association, who lobbied for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Ursula was a member of the executive committee of the Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights in the 1880s and of the Married Women's Property Committee throughout its lifespan (1868?1882), as well as being its treasurer from 1874?1882. She was also committed to the parliamentary Liberal Party, becoming president of the Lancashire and Cheshire Union of Women's Liberal Associations in the 1890s. Ursula was a vegetarian and a member of the Theosophical Society; she campaigned against compulsory vaccination enforced on the poor; and she believed in the abolition of the House of Lords. Her daughter Esther was a member of the Women's Freedom League in the 1920s.