Catherine Impey

Catherine Impey (13 August 1847 – 14 December 1923) was a British Quaker activist against racial discrimination.^[1] She founded Britain's first anti-racist journal, Anti-Caste, in March 1888 and edited it until its last edition in 1895. In the first issue, she wrote:^[2]

When the curse of negro slavery lay upon the Southland, when it means danger and even death to agitate against it, and philanthropy was ever busy upon the thousand social evils of the day; when men who were timid or indifferent begged to be let alone – there came from the young man William Lloyd Garrison those grand words that are now engraved upon his monument at Boston: "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard."

Catherine Impey
Born	(1847-08-13)13 August 1847 Street, Somerset, England
Died	14 December 1923(1923-12-14) (aged 76)
Occupation(s)	Activist, publisher
Notable work	Anti-Caste

The journal was inspired^[3] by Booker T. Washington's Southern Letter. Impey visited the United States several times from 1878 and the journal focused largely on issues in America. In 1893, she formed The Society for the Recognition of the Universal Brotherhood of Man, with the American Ida B. Wells, who visited the UK^[4] to campaign against lynching. Impey became a vegetarian in 1879.^[5]

Early life

Impey was born into a Quaker family on 13 August 1847 in Street, Somerset, England. She and her sister Ellen received a Quaker education at Southside House, in nearby Weston-super-mare. Southside required all graduating students to embark on a philanthropic endeavour; Catherine and her sister elected to "help remove oppression among the darker races of the world."^[1] Abstaining from drink her entire life, she was a member of the Street Teetotal Society, the British Women's Temperance Association, and the International Order of Good Templars (IOGT) and made advocation of temperance part of her life's work.^[1]

Travels

Impey made her first trip to the United States in March 1878 when a schizm in the Good Templars over the issue of integration led to the formation of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge (RWGL). A Good Templar lodge in the US state of Kentucky wanted to join the IOGT, but refused to admit negros as members, whereas the IOGT in England was already integrated. The IOGT decided to permit segregated lodges and the British group split off in protest, forming the RWGL. That year, Impey was named the RWGL's Secretary of the Negro Mission for the United States and sent her to Boston to attend the RWGL conference held in Boston's Pythian Hall.^[6]

See also

• Alfred Webb

Further reading

• Dr Caroline Bressey, Anti-Caste: Britain’s First Anti-racist Journal, synopsis on ESRC website (RES-000-22-0522), accessed 27 July 2006. Also abstract from Dr Caroline Bressey in teaching programme at University of Essex, "Departmental Seminars – Abstracts and Bio-notes", accessed 27 July 2006.
• "Catherine Impey, Ida B Wells and Mika Feldman de Etchebéhère". The Left Berlin. Retrieved 26 December 2020. Catherine Impey, Ida B Wells and Mika Feldman de Etchebéhère: Rebellious Daughters of History #15
• "Catherine Impey – Women In Peace". Women In Peace. 11 January 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
• "Quakers against racism: Catherine Impey and the Anti-Caste Journal". quakersintheworld.org. Retrieved 16 January 2024.