Bessie Rayner Parkes

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Standard Name: Parkes, Bessie Rayner
Birth Name: Elizabeth Rayner Parkes
Nickname: Bessie
Married Name: Elizabeth Rayner Belloc
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.
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.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In May 1869 George Eliot recorded in her diary Bodichon's steady friendship at the time when G. H. Lewes 's son Thornie was dying of tuberculosis of the spine. Bodichon visited twice a week and...
Friends, Associates George Eliot
Bessie Rayner Parkes (already a friend of Marian Evans—later GE ) introduced her to Barbara Leigh Smith , who became her close confidant and supporter.
Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. W.W. Norton, 1995.
136
Friends, Associates Anna Mary Howitt
Family biographer Carl Ray Woodring numbers AMH with a group of Pre-Raphaelite sisters, including Barbara Leigh Smith (later Bodichon) , Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Margaret Gillies , who associated themselves with innovation in...
Friends, Associates Adelaide Procter
Other intimate feminist friends of AP 's adult years, in addition to Matilda Hays , were Bessie Rayner Parkes and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon . Procter was also a member of the Portfolio Society ...
Friends, Associates Jessie Boucherett
Partly through her membership of the Kensington Society (a social and political discussion group of about fifty women inaugurated in 1865), JB broadened her acquaintance with significant members of the feminist movement, including Frances Power Cobbe
Friends, Associates George Eliot
Some of her closest friends were prominent feminists, and they were among those soonest willing to flout convention and visit her after her union to Lewes.
Despite the social and spiritual gulf between them, GE
Friends, Associates Pamela Frankau
Her aunt Eliza Aria introduced the very young PF to many of her older, god-like friends: first of all actress Sybil Thorndike and writers Michael Arlen and Osbert Sitwell .
Frankau, Pamela. I Find Four People. I. Nicholson and Watson, 1935.
133-4
Later came John Van Druten
Friends, Associates Emilie Barrington
Emilie Wilson (later EB ) and Emily Faithfull were inseparable
Westwater, Martha. The Wilson Sisters. Ohio University Press, 1984.
115
friends until they fell out just before Emilie was married. Westwater suggests that they may have been introduced by Bessie Parkes , whose father,...
Friends, Associates Mary Howitt
MH served on the reception committee for Harriet Beecher Stowe at the time of her visit to England in April 1853. She had by that time become friendly with titled people and with members of...
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Bessie Rayner Parkes ' family took a sea-side house at Hastings next to Barbara Leigh Smith 's family.
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Charles
Her friendship with Arthur Stanley , Dean of Westminster Abbey, and his wife, Lady Augusta Stanley , helped her through her mourning period; they encouraged her to try new interests and hopes.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Another dear...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Charles
Combe Edge soon became a noted centre of religous, philanthropic, and social activity.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
343
Marie Belloc Lowndes , who stayed there for many weekends as a child with her mother, Bessie Rayner Belloc (formerly Parkes)
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Gaskell
By 1852, EG 's strong nucleus of important female friends included Barbara Leigh Smith , Bessie Parkes , Adelaide Procter , Octavia and Miranda Hill , and Harriet Martineau .
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber, 1993.
311
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith (later BLSB ) and Bessie Rayner Parkes met Dr Elizabeth Blackwell , then the western world's only qualified female physician.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
58-9
Friends, Associates Jane Francesca Lady Wilde
During the 1860s she and her husband formed a friendship with Bessie Rayner Parkes .
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus, 1971.
13

Timeline

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Texts

Parkes, Bessie Rayner. Vignettes. Alexander Strahan, 1866.