Edith was the daughter of Mary Sophia born Edkins and her husband William Clarke.
[citation needed] Walter Bethel the father of her child divorced his wife, Eva Louisa Brierly, in 1895 and married her.
[2] Edith Bethel took an interest in the Australian Labor Party and she came to notice when she became the founding secretary of the Women's Central Organising Committee (WCOC) in September 1904.
The WCOC was part of New South Wales' Political Labor League and she attended their next annual conference in February 1905.
The other five were Kate Dwyer, Harriet Powell, the 1903 parliamentary candidate Selina Siggins, the American born A. E. Gardiner, Mary Anne Grant, and Maggie Hall.