Isaacs was born in 1885 in Turton, Lancashire, the daughter of William Fairhurst, a journalist and Methodist lay preacher, and his wife, Miriam Sutherland.[1] Her mother died when she was six years old. Shortly afterwards she became alienated from her father after he married the nurse who had attended her mother during her illness. Aged 15, she was removed from Bolton Secondary School by her father because she had converted to atheistic socialism;[2] her father refused to speak to her for 2 years.