Edith Bethel

Edith Bethel born Edith Clarke (1 March 1871 – 21 December 1929) was an Australian political organizer.

Life Bethel was born in Bowen, Queensland. In 1882 Walter Edmund Bethel who was about eight years older and married began a relationship with her and in 1884 when she was about thirteen years old she gave birth to a child who was adopted. Edith was the daughter of Mary Sophia born Edkins and her husband William Clarke. Her mother was born in England and her father was born in Ireland. Her father became the mayor.

Edith Bethel took an interest in the Australian Labor Party and she came to notice when she became the founding secretary of the Women's Central Organising Committee (WCOC) in September 1904. The WCOC was part of New South Wales' Political Labor League and she attended their next annual conference in February 1905. She was among the first woman allowed into a Labor Party conference

Bethel was elected to lead a women's branch of the party in North Sydney and she was re-elected to the executive of the party from 1906 to 1908. She held the role of WCOC secretary until 1909 when she was replaced by Eva Seery who had also been one of the few founding members of the WCOC.

Bethel was expelled from the Labor Party in the row about conscription.