Adela Pankhurst

Adela Pankhurst Walsh (1885-1961) was a British-Australian suffragette, political organizer, and co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement.

Adela was born on 19 June 1885 in Manchester, UK, into a politicized family: her father, Richard Pankhurst was a socialist and candidate for Parliament, and her mother Emmeline Pankhurst and sisters Sylvia and Christabel were leaders of the British suffragist movement. Adela attended the all-woman Studley Horticultural College in Warwickshire, and Manchester High School for Girls. As a teenager, Adela became involved in the militant Women's Social and Political Union founded by her mother and sisters.

Following estrangement from her family, Adela emigrated to Australia in 1914. She was recruited during World War I as an organiser for the Women's Peace Army in Melbourne by Vida Goldstein. Pankhurst wrote a book called "Put Up the Sword" and addressed public meetings on her opposition to the war and conscription. She married Tom Walsh of the Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia in 1917. In 1920, Pankhurst became a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia, from which she was later expelled.

She became disillusioned with communism and founded the anti-communist Australian Women's Guild of Empire in 1928. In 1941 Adela became one of the founding members of the right wing and nationalistic Australia First Movement. She visited Japan in 1939 and was arrested and interned in 1942 for her advocacy of peace with Japan.

References

* "The Wayward Suffragette 1885-1961" by Verna Coleman. Melbourne University Press, 1996
* Joy Damousi, "The Enthusiasms of Adela Pankhurst Walsh", "Australian Historical Studies", April 1993, pp.442-436
* Anne Summers, "The Unwritten History of Adela Pankhurst Walsh", in Elizabeth Windschuttle (editor), "Women, Class and History", Fontana / Collins, 1980, pp.388-402

External links

* [http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0097b.htm Biographical summary] at the National Foundation for Australian Women
* [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120729b.htm A more detailed biography]

Persondata
NAME=Pankhurst, Adela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=
DATE OF BIRTH=1851
PLACE OF BIRTH=United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH=1961
PLACE OF DEATH=Australia