Alys Pearsall Smith
{{Short description|American-born British Quaker relief organiser}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{infobox person
| name =
| image = Alyssa_Whitall_Pearsall_Smith.png
| caption = Alyssa Pearsall Smith in 1892
| birth_name = Alyssa Whitall Smith
| birth_date = {{birth date|1867|07|21|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1951|01|22|1867|07|21|df=yes}}
| death_place = London, England
| education = Bryn Mawr College
| parents = Robert Pearsall Smith
Hannah Whitall Smith
| spouse = {{marriage|Bertrand Russell
|13 December 1894|1921|reason=div}}
| relations = Logan Pearsall Smith (brother)
Mary Berenson (sister)
M. Carey Thomas (cousin)
}}
Alyssa Whitall "Alys" Pearsall Smith (21 July 1867 – 22 January 1951) was an American-born British Quaker relief organiser and the first wife of Bertrand Russell. She chaired the society that created an innovative school for mothers in 1907.
Early life
File:Bringing baby to be weighed, Bunting, A school for mothers Wellcome L0007059.jpg
File:Mothers and Babies welcome, Bunting, A school for mothers Wellcome L0007064.jpg
Pearsall Smith was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whitall Smith, prominent figures in the Holiness movement in America and the Higher Life movement in Great Britain. She was the sister of essayist and critic Logan Pearsall Smith and the cousin of Martha Carey Thomas. Pearsall Smith graduated from Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia.{{cite book|title=The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914|date = 23 April 2014|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dVBpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72|location=New York|page=72|publisher=Routledge|isbn = 9781317835042}}
Pearsall Smith's family lived in England from 1873 to 1875 and then again from 1888 onward. In England, the family came into contact with George Bernard Shaw, Henry James, and Bernard Berenson, who married her sister, Mary.
Personal life
On 13 December 1894, Smith married Bertrand Russell, son of the Viscount and Viscountess Amberley{{cite web|title=The Wedding of Bertrand Russell and Alys Pearsall Smith|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw211992/The-Wedding-of-Bertrand-Russell-and-Alys-Pearsall-Smith|publisher=National Portrait Gallery}} in the Quaker Meeting House in St. Martin's Lane, London, England. They separated in 1911 and divorced in 1921.{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=the New York Times Company Special Cable To the New York |title=MRS. BERTRAND RUSSELL WINS DIVORCE DECREE; Former Miss Alys Smith of Philadelphia Separated From Well Known Socialist. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1921/05/06/archives/mrs-bertrand-russell-wins-divorce-decree-former-miss-alys-smith-of.html |accessdate=13 March 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=6 May 1921}}
According to Russell's autobiography, she was also an intimate friend of Walt Whitman.{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell |pages=Chapter 4}} Alys, who never remarried, died in London on 22 January 1951.{{cite news |title=Mrs. Alys Russell |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1951/01/22/archives/mrs-alys-russell.html |accessdate=13 March 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=22 January 1951}}
=Volunteer work=
Pearsall Smith chaired the Italian Refugees' Relief Committee to help people fleeing Benito Mussolini's Italy.
Pearsall Smith also chaired the general committee of the St Pancras Mothers' and Infants' Society, which set up a School for Mothers (also known as Mothers' & Babies' Welcome) in Charlton Street, London, N.W. in 1907.Evelyn M. Bunting, Dora E. L. Bunting, Annie E. Barnes and Blanch Gardiner (1907). A School for Mothers. London: Horace Marshall & Son. This centre provided a range of services aimed at reducing infant mortality, such as weighing babies, providing expectant and nursing mothers with meals, and medical and mothering advice.{{Cite web|url=http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2014/05/the-st-pancras-school-for-mothers/|title=The St Pancras School for Mothers|last=Davies|first=Sue|date=30 May 2014|website=Wellcome Library|access-date=5 August 2016}} The vice-chair was Adele Meyer, who largely funded the enterprise.{{cite book|author=Ellen Ross|title=Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860-1920| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s4tmA23htLMC&pg=PA53 |year=2007|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24905-9|pages=53–56}}
Pearsall Smith was said to be involved in the women's suffrage activism during 1908.{{Cite book|last=Burch|first=Stuart|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1107880828|title=London and the politics of memory : in the shadow of Big Ben|date=June 2019|isbn=978-1-315-59291-6|location=Abingdon, Oxon|pages=84|oclc=1107880828}}
References
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Category:People from Philadelphia