Isabel Brown

Isabel Brown (6 December 1894 – 22 October 1984) was a British communist activist. Born in Tyneside, England, Brown attended Sunderland Teacher Training College and won a scholarship. Brown was a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and one of only five women delegates to attend its first congress in 1920. Brown died on 22 October 1984 after an injury in an air raid in December 1940.

Early life Isabel was the youngest of three sisters born into a working-class family in Tyneside. Despite the family's limited means, she was able to obtain a high school education, and won a scholarship to Sunderland Teacher Training College. In 1920, she was a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), one of only five women delegates to attend its first congress. In 1921 she married Ernest Brown, a local communist. She lost her teaching post the following year when she became pregnant. She stood unsuccessfully in Motherwell in the 1929 general election, and for her skill at responding to audience questions.

Injury and death In 1939, Brown was appointed National Women's Organiser for the CPGB. She stood in the 1940 Bow and Bromley by-election, taking only 4.2% of the vote even though she faced only one opponent. Brown was seriously injured in a December 1940 air raid. She was hospitalized for six months and never fully recovered. and from the Central Committee in 1947. She stood in her final election at Kilmarnock in 1948, but again failed to come near winning the seat. Despite increasingly poor health, Brown continued to speak on behalf of the CPGB, and to teach and attend conferences until her death in October 1984.