Bessie Rayner Parkes

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Bessie Rayner Parkes (later Belloc) , a late nineteenth-century feminist, focused her writings especially on issues relating to women's work. During her life she published a collection of miscellaneous essays, a collection of vignettes, numerous articles in periodicals, a travel book, and political treatises. Though her feminist writings have been better recognized, her passion was poetry. She published a lengthy philosophical poem in addition to three volumes of poems, some of which were later compiled into a collection.
  • BirthName: Elizabeth Rayner Parkes
  • Nickname: Bessie
    Though BRP was formally named Elizabeth, her daughter notes that she was called Bessie from the moment of her birth.
    Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
    37
    She is so named in all scholarly sources.

  • Married: Belloc
    After her marriage BRP used a series of forms of her name on her title-pages: B. Parkes-Belloc, B. R. Belloc, and finally Bessie Rayner Belloc.
    Banks, Olive. The Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists. New York University Press, 1985–2025, 2 vols.
    Crawford, Anne, editor. The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications, 1983.
    Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
    37
Sepia toned photograph of Bessie Rayner Parkes, seated on an upholstered chair, with an ornate table next to her. Her hands are clasped in her lap, she is wearing a dark dress with a voluminous skirt and long sleeves. She has dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair.

Milestones

16 June 1829

BRP was born in Birmingham, the second of two children.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
37
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 240. Gale Research, 2001.
240: 183

By 27 May 1865

BRP 's best known text, Essays on Woman's Work, appeared in print.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1961 (1865): 717

1904

A collection appeared of some of the more religious poetry by BRP (now Belloc), titled In Fifty Years.
Parkes, Bessie Rayner. In Fifty Years. Sands, 1904.
prelims
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

23 March 1925

BRP , now Belloc, died at the age of ninety-five.
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 240. Gale Research, 2001.
240: 189

Biography

Birth and Family

16 June 1829

BRP was born in Birmingham, the second of two children.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
37
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 240. Gale Research, 2001.
240: 183

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