[3] Her brother, Algernon George (Tommy) (b.1886), was killed on 28 April 1918 while a Major in the Royal Field Artillery.

[2] When the First World War broke out, she replaced her brother as a director at the Heaton Works of C. A. Parsons and Company in Newcastle upon Tyne.

In particular, she oversaw the recruitment and training of women to replace the men who had left to join the armed forces.

She became a leading member of the National Council of Women, and campaigned for equal access for all to technical schools and colleges, regardless of gender.

[4] Following her brother's death, Rachel Parsons did not resume her role as a director of the Heaton Works, possibly because of a rift with her father.

That year she became one of the few women members of the London County Council, representing Finsbury for the Municipal Reform Party, and sat on the Electricity and Highways Committee.

[2] In 1940 she moved into the countryside at Sunningdale, Berkshire, purchasing Little Court, a Georgian-style house with twenty-five acres of land.

Defended by Michael Havers, a future attorney-general, Pratt was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.

[18] A blue plaque was unveiled in her honour in October 2023 at 6 Windsor Terrace, where Parsons lived during the First World War.