Isabella Tod facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Isabella Tod
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| Born | 18 May 1836 Edinburgh, Scotland
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| Died | 8 December 1896 (aged 60) Belfast, Ireland
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| Nationality | Scottish-Irish |
| Occupation | Suffragist, Unionist |
Isabella Maria Susan Tod (18 May 1836 – 8 December 1896) was a Scottish-born suffragist, women's rights campaigner and unionist politician in the north of Ireland. In Belfast she helped secure the municipal vote for women in 1887.
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. In the 1850s she moved with her mother to Belfast. She contributed to several newspapers, including the Northern Whig and the Dublin University Magazine.
In 1872 Tod moved the foundation the North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society which later became the Irish Women's Suffrage Society. Determined lobbying by the Society ensured the 1887 Act creating a new city-status municipal franchise for Belfast conferred the vote on persons rather than men. This was eleven years before women elsewhere Ireland gained the vote in local government elections.
In 1874, with Margaret Byers (the founder of Victoria College) Tod formed the Belfast Women's Temperance Association.
Along with Anna Haslam she campaigned for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. She was on the executive committee of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts until 1889.
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 at 71 Botanic Avenue, Belfast on 8 December 1896 from pulmonary tuberculosis. She is buried in Balmoral Cemetery in South Belfast.
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.
See also
In Spanish: Isabella Tod para niños
