Priscilla Bright McLaren 1815-1906
Priscilla Bright McLaren - © Edinburgh City Libraries (NC). Licensor www.scran.ac.uk
Women's rights campaigner and mother and stepmother to activists
Born into an activist Quaker family she supported her brothers, husband and sons in the Anti-Corn Law campaign, the fight for the Married Women’s Property Act and battle for women’s suffrage. Her daughters, step-daughters and daughters-in-law carried on the fight for women’s rights and later for scientific and medical education.
She was the third wife of Duncan McLaren MP and Edinburgh Councillor, and supported him in the establishment of a Peace Conference in 1853 and in the fight to extend free education to the poor of Edinburgh through establishing thirteen free Heriot’s schools. She worked hard to close the pubs on Sundays and together they cooperated with Josephine Butler to oppose the humiliation of women engendered by the Contagious Diseases Act.
From 1866 she followed the progress of women’s suffrage Bills in the House of Commons and got her menfolk (all MPs) to support them at every opportunity. In 1867 she presided over the foundation of the Edinburgh Branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. She organised petitions and rallies for the vote in Edinburgh and addressed large gatherings at Manchester and in Glasgow. She was considered a good speaker. Although a suffragist herself, one of her last letters was written to congratulate the suffragettes who were beginning to take more violent action and to suffer for it in prison. Priscilla has a plaque to her memory in the Quaker cemetery in the Pleasance, Edinburgh.