Ursula Mellor Bright

Who was Ursula Mellor Bright?

Ursula Mellor Bright was a women's suffrage campaigner.

Her father was Liverpool merchant Joseph Mellor; he died when Ursula was very young. Her mother married Thomas Blackburn, a Liverpool surgeon. She was a daughter of John Pennington of Hindley, Lancashire. John Pennington had two other children, Frederick Pennington, the Liberal MP and supporter of many women's causes, and Maria, wife of Thomas Thomasson, the philanthropist.

Her father and her brother, J. P. Mellor, were generous supporters of women's rights causes and societies. Not much is known of her education, but she was brought up in a milieu that gave importance to educating daughters. Her daughter recorded that she was ‘a strong generous soul, very direct, simple as a child in some ways, yet with a keen brain and fine judgment’ and that she was an excellent chess player.

The Mellors were connected to many like-minded families. In the 1840s Ursula's cousins, Martha and Alice Mellor, are recorded as having discussed suffrage issues with Priscilla Bright in Rochdale, and on 13 September 1855, in Acomb parish church, Ursula married Jacob Bright. He and Priscilla Bright were younger siblings of politician John Bright. Jacob was at this time working with the family firm, John Bright & Brothers. The Brights lived at Alderley Edge, in Cheshire, which they left in 1867, after Jacob's election as Liberal MP for Manchester, to live at 31 St James's Place, London, during the parliamentary session. They had two sons who died of diphtheria in early childhood, within a fortnight of each other. Latterly, two more sons were born and, in 1868 they had a daughter, Esther.