Adela Walsh | |
|---|---|
 Adela at the Suffragette's Rest | |
| Born | Adela Constantia Mary Pankhurst (1885-06-19)19 June 1885 Chorlton upon Medlock,Lancashire, England |
| Died | 23 May 1961(1961-05-23) (aged 75) Wahroonga,New South Wales, Australia |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Political party | Independent Labour Party Communist Party of Australia Australia First Movement |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5 |
| Parent(s) | Richard Pankhurst Emmeline Goulden |
| Relatives | Christabel Pankhurst (sister) Sylvia Pankhurst (sister) Richard Pankhurst (nephew) Helen Pankhurst (great-niece) Alula Pankhurst (great-nephew) |
Adela Constantia Mary Walsh (néePankhurst; 19 June 1885 – 23 May 1961) was a British-bornsuffragette who worked as a political organiser for theWomen's Social and Political Union (WSPU) inScotland. In 1914 she moved toAustralia where she continued her activism and was co-founder of both theCommunist Party of Australia and theAustralia First Movement.[1][2]
Pankhurst was born on 19 June 1885 inManchester, England, into a politicised family: her father,Richard Pankhurst, was a socialist and candidate forParliament, and her mother,Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden), and sisters,Sylvia andChristabel, were leaders of the British suffragette movement. Her mother was ofManx descent.[3] Pankhurst attended the all-womanStudley Horticultural College inWarwickshire, andManchester High School for Girls.
As a teenager, Pankhurst became involved in the militantWomen's Social and Political Union (WSPU) founded by her mother and sisters.
In June 1906, Pankhurst disrupted aLiberal Party meeting and was sentenced to seven days in prison. Later that year, she was part of a group who entered theHouse of Commons, wishing to speak with members. Nine women were arrested, includingEmmeline Pethick-Lawrence,Anne Cobden-Sanderson,Charlotte Despard,Teresa Billington-Greig,Mary Gawthorpe,Dora Montefiore.[4] Pankhurst andJessie Kenney formedThe Young Hot Bloods in 1907 who were an inner secret branch of the suffragettes involved in "danger duty".[5]
Pankhurst was active inScarborough, North Yorkshire, from 1908 and protested during the visit ofSir Edward Grey,Foreign Secretary for the Liberal government, who was giving a talk at the Scarborough Liberal Association.[6] She worked with DrMarion Mackenzie to build a local WSPU branch in Scarborough,[7] and gave talks inYork organised by the local WSPU branch secretaryAnnie Coultate.[8]
In November 1909 she joined a protest that interrupted a talk byWinston Churchill at his constituency inDundee. She was arrested for "breaking the peace" along withHelen Archdale,Catherine Corbett andMaud Joachim.[6][9] Pankhurst had slapped a policeman who was trying to evict her from the building. Although she went on hunger strike there,[10] she was not force-fed as prison governor and medical supervisor assessed her "heart's action as violent and laboured".[11]
Eagle House nearBath inSomerset had become an important refuge forsuffragettes who had been released from prison.Mary Blathwayt's parents planted trees there between April 1909 and July 1911 to commemorate the achievements of suffragettes includingPankhurst's mother andsister, Christabel as well asAnnie Kenney,Charlotte Despard,Millicent Fawcett andLady Lytton.[12]The trees were known as "Annie's Arboreatum" after Annie Kenney.[13][14] There was also a "Pankhurst Pond" within the grounds.[15] Pankhurst was invited toEagle House in 1909 and 1910. She planted aHimalayan Cedar on 3 July 1910. A plaque was made and her photograph was recorded again by Colonel Linley Blathwayt.[16]
Her mother's favorite was Christabel and the two of them took theWomen's Social and Political Union as their own organization.[17] They fell out with many of their leading volunteers and supporters and this includedSylvia Pankhurst and Adela Pankhurst. Both of the latter believed in socialism whereas Emmeline and Christabel were pushing for the vote for middle-class women. Sylvia was ejected from the party and she set up her own splinter group in east London. Christabel is reported to have said to Sylvia "I would not care if you were multiplied by a hundred, but one of Adela is too many." Pankhurst was given £20, a ticket to Australia and a letter introducing her toVida Goldstein.[18] Pankhurst was among the first group of suffragettes to go on hunger strike when in prison. She was being targeted by the police, as a high-profile activist. Pankhurst had been given aHunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by WSPU.
Pankhurst emigrated to Australia in 1914 following estrangement from her family and frequent incarceration. Her experience of activism enabled her to be recruited duringWorld War I as an organiser for theWomen's Peace Army inMelbourne byVida Goldstein.[19] Pankhurst wrote a book calledPut Up the Sword, penned a number of anti-war pamphlets,[18] and addressed public meetings, speaking against war and conscription.[6] In 1915, With Cecilia John from the Women's Peace Army, she toured Australia, establishing branches of the Women's Peace Army. In 1916 she travelled throughNew Zealand addressing large crowds, and again touredNew South Wales andQueensland arguing the importance of feminist opposition to militarism.[20]
In 1917, she spearheaded a protest in Melbourne against rising food prices. She was arrested for her involvement in the protest but released on bail until her trial. During this period of remand, she married her husbandTom Walsh. Reverend Fredrick Sinclaire married the couple on 30 September 1917.Prime Minister Billy Hughes offered to commute her sentence under the condition that she never gave a speech again. Pankhurst refused Hughes' terms and only weeks after being married returned to jail to serve her four-month sentence. A petition was signed by other suffragettes advocating on behalf of her release, but it was ineffective and she served her full sentence.[21]
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Upon being released in January 1918, the Walsh family moved from Melbourne to Sydney. In Sydney, Adela gave birth to their son and four daughters: Richard (born 1918), Sylvia (born 1920), Christian (born 1921), Ursula (born 1923), and Faith (born and died 1926).[22] Her husband had three daughters from his previous marriage. In 1920, Pankhurst became a founding member of theCommunist Party of Australia, from which she was later expelled.[23][24]
She became disillusioned with communism and founded the anti-communist Australian Women's Guild of Empire in 1927.[18] In 1941 Pankhurst became one of the founding members of the far-right nationalistic,Australia First Movement. She visitedJapan in 1939, and was arrested and interned in March 1942 for her advocacy of peace with Japan. She was released in October.[19]
Tom Walsh died in 1943; afterwards, Pankhurst withdrew from public life. In 1960, she converted toRoman Catholicism.[25] She died on 23 May 1961, and was buried according to Catholic rites.[19]
Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on theplinth of thestatue of Millicent Fawcett inParliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.[26][27][28]
Pankhurst Crescent, in theCanberra suburb ofGilmore, is named in her honour.[29]
Brian Harrison recorded an oral history interview about Adela Pankhurst with her granddaughter, Susan Hogan, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titledOral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.[30] The interview includes details of Pankhurst's family life in Australia and of her later life. The collection also contains an interview about her mother, Emmeline Pankhurst.
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