Edith Archibald

Edith Archibald
Born	1854 St. John's, Newfoundland
Died	1936 (aged 81–82)
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	suffragist, writer
Spouse(s)	Charles Archibald (m. 1874)

Edith Jessie Archibald (1854–1936) was a Canadian suffragist and writer who led the Maritime Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the National Council of Women of Canada and the Local Council of Women of Halifax. She was designated a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada in 1997.

Born in St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1854, Edith Archibald belonged to a very prominent family with a history of public service. She received some of her early education in London and New York City, where her father, Sir Edward Mortimer Archibald, was British Consul General. At the age of twenty, she married her second cousin Charles Archibald, a mining engineer posted to Cow Bay and then Halifax - where he became vice-president of the Bank of Nova Scotia. Living in Cow Bay with the help of servants and boarding school, Edith raised four children. As a woman of means with relatively few housekeeping and childcare duties she had ample free time and used it to carry out social activism.

Archibald became involved with the WCT in the 1880s and was Maritime Superintendent of the Parlour Meetings Department, which encouraged social events in members' homes as a method of organizing temperance activities and educating women. Enthusiastic about the benefits of parlour meetings, she surveyed the 54 local unions to find their assessment of the meetings, published a circular letter in the official national paper of the WCTU, and also printed it as a leaflet. Archibald realized that local action was necessary to achieve the national goals of the organization. She even led members on raids of three illicit saloons in Cow Bay.

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