Private means

78

Widowed

12 Warwick Row, Coventry

NUWSS

Complies

Selina Bright was a pioneer of the women's suffrage movement. Born in London in 1833, Selina spent most of her life in Rochdale, Lancashire, where she married her husband Samuel Bright. Samuel was the business partner and brother of John Bright (industrial cotton manufacturer as well as a Manchester and later Birmingham MP) and of Jacob Bright, a radical Liberal M.P. who helped formulate the first organised women's suffrage petition handed to parliament in 1866 by John Stuart Mill, M.P. The couple had three children all of whom sadly died in infancy. Marrying into the Bright family put Selina at the heart of social and political reform politics of the day. In 1878, she attended a meeting of the Central Committee for the National Society for Women's Suffrage and was likey a member of this early suffrage society. Others in attendance included Millicent Fawcett future leader of the large and law abiding National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) which had yet to form in 1897. The Bright's had ties to Coventry and likely settled in the city in the 1860s where Selina stayed after her husband's untimely death in 1873 although she travelled frequently. Selina became vice-president of the Coventry and District Women's Liberal Association and later president of the Coventry Women's Suffrage Society (CWSS) which officially formed in 1910 as the local branch of the NUWSS. In 1911, we find her living in Warwick Row with two servants. As a law abiding suffragist, she did not take part in the suffragette boycott of the 1911 government census but instead complied. Selina worked tirelessley for the CWSS until ill health began to effect her role as president forcing her to miss numerous meetings. She subsequently died at her Coventry home in October 1917 aged 86, a year before the Representation of the People Act was passed which gave some qualified women over 30 the vote. Annette Iliffe (see) took over her role as President of the CWSS. Selina was known for her good works in Coventry and in her will left funds to many local charities including the Coventry Warwickshire Hospital Convalescent Fund, Coventry and District Nursing Institution and St Faith's Friendless Girls Institution. Selina is buried with her husband Samuel in Lancashire Cemetery alongside their three children. Researcher: Tara Morton. Coventry research funded by Warwick University.