Gail Bradbrook

Bradbrook was born in 1972 and grew up in South Elmsall in West Yorkshire. Her father worked at a mine in South Kirkby. She studied molecular biophysics at the University of Manchester, gaining a PhD. She carried out post-doctoral work in India and France.[2][5]

From 2003 to 2017 she was 'director of strategy' at Citizens Online, an organisation promoting wider internet access for disabled users, including launching a 'Fix the Web' campaign in November 2010.[6]

An interest in animal rights led Bradbrook to join the Green Party at the age of 14.[7]

She has been involved in various campaigning groups in Stroud, including a 2010 to 2013 period as voluntary director of Transition Stroud,[8][9] an anti-fracking protest,[10] various actions in opposition to the building of a local incinerator,[11][12] including a naked protest,[13] and an early Extinction Rebellion roadblock in Merrywalks, Stroud.[14] In 2015, with George Barda, she set up the group Compassionate Revolution[15][16][17] (which morphed into Rising Up!, out of which came Extinction Rebellion).[5] "Bradbrook had been involved in the Occupy movement and campaigns around peak oil, but they failed to take off."[18]

In 2016, she went on a psychedelic retreat to Costa Rica, "where she took ayahuasca, iboga and kambo, in search of some clarity in her work."[18][19] That experience "made her change her approach" to campaigning.[19] Soon after returning she met Roger Hallam and together they came up with Extinction Rebellion.[18][19]

Bradbrook wants to raise awareness of the dangers from anthropogenic climate change and believes that only civil disobedience on a large scale can bring about the change that is needed.[20]

In November 2020 she was included in the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power list 2020.[21]

In August 2021, Bradbrook acknowledged that she drives a 1.5l Citroen diesel car. She said she could not afford an electric car and she needed the vehicle to drive her children to sports matches.[22][23]

Bradbrook has been married twice, the first time to Jeffrey Forshaw.[24] She has two sons.[5][25] She lives in Stroud as does her ex-partner Simon Bramwell, who is also a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion.[26][27]

• Gail Bradbrook (2019). "What is our place in these times?". In Extinction Rebellion (ed.). This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook. Penguin Books. pp. 185–186. ISBN 9780141991443.

• Compassionate revolution – Gail Bradbrook – Off grid Festival 2016 – YouTube video by PermanentCultureNow
• Rising Up! How Things Change: The Duty to Disobey – Dr Gail Bradbrook speaks at SOAS University, March 2017 – YouTube video by ExtinctionRebellion