Rachel Barrett

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Rachel Barrett (12 November 1874 – 26 August 1953) was a Welsh suffragette and newspaper editor who helped lead the campaign for women's voting rights in the United Kingdom.

She was born in Carmarthern, Wales, and grew up speaking Welsh. After studying at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, she trained as a science teacher and worked in several towns. In 1906, inspired by Nellie Martel’s talk on women’s suffrage, Barrett joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and moved to London to work for the cause.

In 1907 she became a full-time WSPU organizer. When Christabel Pankhurst fled to Paris, Barrett helped run the national campaign. In 1912 she took charge of The Suffragette, the WSPU’s newspaper, even though she had no journalism background.

Barrett was arrested several times for suffrage activities and spent periods in prison during 1913–1914, going on hunger strike. She helped keep The Suffragette in print despite government efforts to shut it down, moving between London, Edinburgh, and Paris to avoid arrest.

During the war years, The Suffragette’s offices were moved for safety, and Barrett continued to edit the paper. She supported Britain’s war effort and worked with the WSPU’s Victory Fund in 1916. After the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave some women the vote, she kept pushing for full equality. In 1928, when full voting rights were won, she helped raise funds for commemorations and for the Emmeline Pankhurst statue in London.

In 1929 Barrett became secretary of the Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee, advocating equality for men and women in politics. She remained involved with suffrage circles, joining the Suffragette Fellowship and the Sible Hedingham Women’s Institute later in life.

Barrett also had a close, long-term relationship with Australian writer Ida Wylie. The two traveled in the United States in 1919 and lived together for a time in California. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 26 August 1953 at a nursing home in Faygate, Sussex, aged 78. She left Lamb Cottage to her niece, Gwyneth Anderson, who lived there with her husband, the poet J. Redwood Anderson.