Rosalind Rusbridge

Rosalind Rusbridge (née Bevan, 15 April 1915 – 9 July 2004) was a teacher and a peace campaigner. She was known for her peace activism in Swansea, where she lost her job over her pacifism. Her account is told in the Swansea Conchie Controversy. Later, she moved to Bristol, where she continued her activism. She also continued to teach until she was nearly 70 and worked in the church. She continued to campaign for human rights until her death.

Biography The daughter of Sidney Bevan DCM (1878–1935) and Emily Sarah Bevan (née Hemming, 1878–1974), Rosalind grew up in Swansea and was educated at Swansea High School for Girls. Her family were Baptists. As a teenager, Rosalind, who defined herself as a socialist and Christian-pacifist before even leaving the school, was influenced by the Reverend Howard Ingli James, a pacifist minister at Pantygwydr Baptist Church (1923–31). She also was one of the first women to become a member of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU). Later, the council rescinded the suspension, but Rusbridge was already teaching at Chester Boys' Grammar School, and refused to come back to Swansea.

She met her husband, Ewart Rusbridge, in Chester and they married in 1942. In 1948 they moved to Bristol. She continued to teach, most often at Clifton High School for Girls, and worked until she was nearly 70. She continued to be active in human rights and peace activism. She was a representative for the southwest at the national body of the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CCND), protested at United States bases at Aldermaston and Greenham Common, was active in the Baptist church and once ran in a Parliamentary election. She died of cancer in 2004 and was remembered at Horfield Baptist Church in Bristol before her body was cremated.

Her memories of the Swansea anti-pacifist campaign were recorded in the Swansea Conchie Controversy (1988) and in Parachutes and Petticoats (1992).