Ray Strachey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Strachey

Ray Strachey, born Rachel Pearsall Conn Costelloe (4 June 1887 London – 16 July 1940), was a British feminist politician and writer.

Early life

She was the elder of the two girls in her family. Her younger sister was Karin Stephen, née Costelloe, who married Adrian Stephen, Virginia Woolf's younger brother, in 1914. Ray was educated at Kensington high school and at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she achieved third class in part one of the mathematical tripos (1908).

Career

For most of her life, Strachey worked for women's suffrage organisations. Most of her publications are non-fiction and deal with suffrage issues. She is most often remembered for her book The Cause (1928). Papers of Rachel Pearsall Conn Strachey (also known as Ray Strachey, née Costelloe) (1887–1940) are held at The Women's Library at London Metropolitan University. She worked closely with Millicent Fawcett, sharing her Liberal feminist values and opposing any attempt to integrate the suffrage movement with the Labour Party. In 1915 she became parliamentary secretary of the NUWSS, serving in this role until 1920. After the Great War when women were granted the vote and permitted to stand for parliament, she stood as an Independent parliamentary candidate at Brentford and Chiswick on the General Elections in 1918, 1922 and 1923, without success.