Ethel Snowden

Ethel Snowden, Viscountess Snowden (born Ethel Annakin; 8 September 1881 – 22 February 1951), was a British socialist, human rights activist, suffragist and feminist. From a middle-class background, she became a Christian Socialist through a radical preacher and initially promoted temperance and teetotalism in the slums of Liverpool. She aligned to the Fabian Society, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and later the Independent Labour Party, earning an income by lecturing in Britain and abroad. Snowden was one of the leading campaigners for women's suffrage before the First World War, then founding The Women's Peace Crusade to oppose the war and call for a negotiated peace. After a visit to the Soviet Union she developed a strong criticism of its political system, which made her unpopular when relayed to the left-wing in Britain.

Snowden married the prominent Labour Party politician and future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden. She rose up the social scale in the 1920s, much to her pleasure, and she welcomed appointment as a Governor of the BBC and as a Director of the Royal Opera House. Although her husband received a Viscountcy, money became tight and she led the way in caring for him; after his death in 1937, she resumed temperance campaigning as well as journalism. She tended to be a controversial public speaker, who would fill with enthusiasm for a project and pursue it to the disregard of anything that stood in her way; it was said of her that "tact or discretion were foreign to her nature".