Norah Elam | |
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| Born | 5 March 1878 |
| Died | 2 March 1961 (aged 82) London, England,United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Suffragette |
Norah Elam, also known asNorah Dacre Fox (néeNorah Doherty, 5 March 1878 – 2 March 1961), was an Irish-born militantsuffragette,anti-vivisectionist,feminist andfascist in the United Kingdom.
Norah Doherty was born on 5 March 1878 at 13 Waltham Terrace inBlackrock, Dublin to John Doherty, a partner in a paper mill, and Charlotte Isabel Clarke. She moved to England with her family and by 1891 was living in London. Norah married Charles Richard Dacre Fox in 1909.
Norah Dacre Fox was a prominent member of theWomen's Social and Political Union and, by 1913, served as general secretary. Dacre Fox was an effective propagandist, delivering rousing speeches at the WSPU weekly meetings and writing many ofChristabel Pankhurst's speeches.[1]
In May 1914Flora Drummond and Norah Dacre Fox besieged the homes ofEdward Carson andLord Lansdowne, both prominentUlster Unionist politicians who had been inciting militancy in Ulster against theHome Rule Bill then going through Parliament. Drummond and Dacre Fox had both been issued with summonses to appear before magistrates for 'making inciting speeches' and encouraging women to militancy. Their response to journalists who interviewed them was that they thought they should take refuge with Carson and Lansdowne who had also been making speeches and encouraging militancy in Ireland, but who appeared to be safe from interference from the authorities for doing so. Both women appeared before a magistrate, were sentenced to imprisonment and taken toHolloway Prison where they immediately commencedhunger and thirst strikes and enduredforce-feeding.[1] From May to July 1914 she was imprisoned three times[2] in Holloway for "acts of terrorism"; she received a WSPUHunger Strike Medal with threebars.[3]
In the1918 United Kingdom general election she stood as an independent candidate inRichmond (Surrey); she received 20% of the votes but was not elected.[4] The same year she campaigned for the internment ofenemy aliens in collaboration with theBritish Empire Union and theNational Party.[1] Norah Elam stated inThe Times that she was never a member of theWomen's Freedom League (contrary to some reports).[1]
Elam was a member of theLondon and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society (LPAVS).[5] During 1916 and 1917, Elam obtained work as supervisor of a typewriting pool at theMedical Research Council (MRC), gaining information she was to use in articles published under the auspices of the LPAVS during 1934 and 1935. In March 1921, Elam advertised inThe Times and chaired a public meeting of LPAVS at theAeolian Hall in London to discuss 'The Dog's Bill' (a bill to prohibit thevivisection of dogs) that was being debated in Parliament at that time.[1] In 1932, the MRC had produced a paper called "Vitamins, A Survey of Present Knowledge". Elam's 1934 response was entitled "The Vitamin Survey, A Reply" and was a critical appraisal of that survey and its results. This was followed in 1935 by "The Medical Research Council, What it is and how it works" based on the same arguments about MRC research practices and remits as the first paper, but distilled and argued more cogently on a broader front. Elam's argument was that 'powerful vested interests' had managed to 'entrench' themselves behind 'State-aided research', and had managed to make themselves unaccountable. These papers were widely distributed and copies could be found in libraries throughout the UK.[1]
By the 1930s, she had separated from her husband, and was living with Edward Descou Dudley Vallance Elam whose surname she generally adopted. They lived in Sussex where they were active in the localConservative Party. However they defected toOswald Mosley'sBritish Union of Fascists (BUF) soon after its creation in 1932 and she became prominent in the women's section. During this time, she encounteredWilfred Risdon, Director of Propaganda 1933–4, who was later a colleague in the LPAVS. She was a frequent contributor to the fascist press and in November 1936 was put forward as the BUF'sprospective parliamentary candidate for theNorthampton constituency,[2] but no general election was held during the Second World War. Mosley used her suffragette past to counter the criticism thatNational Socialism was anti-feminist saying that her prospective candidacy "killed for all time the suggestion that National Socialism proposed putting British women back in the home".[2]
In May 1940 Norah and Dudley Elam were detained underDefence Regulation 18B and she was interned inHolloway Prison with several other female fascists includingDiana Mosley.[2] After her release, Norah and Dudley Elam escortedUnity Mitford to see Diana and Oswald Mosley in Holloway on 18 March 1943.[1]
Elam had one son, Evelyn (born 1922). Her granddaughter, Angela McPherson, described in a 2010BBC Radio 4 documentary,Mother Was a Blackshirt, that she had no idea until 2002 of the role Elam played in the fascist movement. McPherson knew that Elam had been a suffragette who claimed to have been close to the Pankhursts; a decision to search online for information about Norah Elam started to throw up information she had not been aware of. McPherson felt that she had subconsciously blocked out disturbing memories of the stories her grandmother told her as a child, which were to affect her family. She described Elam as a "dreadful racist" who emotionally damaged her son, turning him into a "bullying misogynist" imitation of Norah's own father.[6] A biography,Mosley's Old Suffragette, written by Susan McPherson and Angela McPherson, was published in 2011.[1]
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