| Biography | Isabel Brown was born in Tyneside on 6th December 1894. An intelligent girl she was awarded a scholarship at the local High School. She became deeply involved with the local church in her adolescence till reading about politics undermined her faith.
Brown joined the Labour Party and trained as a teacher in Sunderland. An active trade unionist she became the National Union of Teachers representative on the county committee. In 1921 she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. Three years later she spent time in Moscow.
In 1926 she was imprisoned for making speeches at public meetings attacking the government for the way it was dealing with the General Strike. In the early 1930s she became active in the Committee for the Relief of Victims of Fascism.
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War Brown went to Spain as a member of a delegation from the British Anti-Fascist Committee. According to the author of British Women and the Spanish Civil War (2002): "Passing through the countryside between Barcelona and Madrid, she almost wept at the sight of the poverty stricken villages, where the defences consisted at times of a few sandbags and a boy of about twelve with a shotgun."
Isabel Brown joined forces with Leah Manning to establish the Spanish Medical Aid Committee. Manning later recalled: "We had three doctors on the committee, one representing the TUC and I became its honorary secretary. The initial work of arranging meetings and raising funds was easy. It was quite common to raise £1,000 at a meeting, besides plates full of rings, bracelets, brooches, watches and jewelery of all kinds... Isabel and I had a technique for taking collections which was most effective, and, although I was never so effective as Isabel (I was too emotional and likely to burst into tears at a moments notice), I improved. In the end, either of us could calculate at a glance how much a meeting was worth in hard cash."
Beryl Barker was one of those who attended one of Isabel Brown's meetings: "Isabel Brown came, because she was the champion money collector for Spanish Relief and she did a City Hall meeting, and she also went round the working-men's clubs, speaking and collecting."
During the Second World War she was active in the campaign to provide aid for the Soviet Union. She was also appointed as the National Women's Organiser for the Communist Party of Great Britain.
(Taken from www.spartacus.schoolsnet.co.uk) |