Isa Craig-Knox (1831–1903)

Isa Craig-Knox was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her father John Craig was a hosier and glover. She lost both parents in childhood and was raised by her grandmother, leaving school in her tenth year. From an early age, she contributed poems to The Scotsman and other periodicals, and published her first collection of poetry in 1856. By 1853, she had obtained a staff position at The Scotsman, writing literary reviews and articles on social questions. A few years later, she met Bessie Rayner Parkes (later Belloc), a journalist , writer, and advocate for women's rights. Together they edited a Glasgow-based women's newspaper, the Waverley Journal. In 1857, they went to London, where Isa was appointed assistant secretary to the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, an influential policy group and advisor to government. In 1866, she married a cousin, John Knox, an iron merchant with whom she had a daughter, and retired from her job. She continued to contribute occasionally to publications such as Fraser, Good Words, and the Quiver, edited Argosy for a short time, and wrote further volumes of poems and some histories for children. These included Duchess Agnes, a Drama and other Poems (1864); Songs of Consolation (1874); and Little Folk's History of England (1872).