His mother Bessie Rayner Parkes (1829–1925) was a writer, activist, and a major force in efforts to gain greater equality for women, being a co-founder of the "English Woman's Journal" and the Langham Place Group. Belloc himself campaigned against women's suffrage; he was a member of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. Belloc's maternal grandfather was Joseph Parkes (1796–1865), a prosperous solicitor and a liberal with Radical sympathies. Belloc's grandmother, Elizabeth Rayner Priestley (1797–1877), was born in the United States, a granddaughter of the polymath Joseph Priestley. In 1867, Bessie married attorney Louis Belloc, son of the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc. In 1872, five years after they wed, Louis died, but not before being wiped out financially in a stock market crash. The young widow then brought her children back to England.