Pankhurst, Adela (1885 - 1961)

Adela Pankhurst was a feminist and pacifist whose political affiliations shifted from communism to strong anti-communism over her lifetime of activism. Born in England, the daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, Adela was involved with the British suffrage movement from her teenage years and then the Women's Social and Political Union which was founded by her mother and sisters in 1904. She later became estranged from her family and moved to Melbourne in 1914 partly for health reasons. Once there she worked with Vida Goldstein and the Women's Political Association and campaigned against conscription particularly with the Women's Peace Army. She also joined the Victorian Socialist Party. She married Tom Walsh, a fellow anti-conscriptionist, in 1917. After the war they moved to Sydney and had five children. They were foundation members of the Communist Party of Australia, but soon withdrew. Adela’s evolving anti-communism became starkly apparent when, in 1928, she founded the Australian Women's Guild of Empire. Pankhurst used this conservative patriotic organisation as a platform to advocate the need for industrial cooperation, and she frequently spoke out against strikes. She ended her public life in 1943 with her husband’s death.

• Walsh, Adela Pankhurst (married name)

Adela Pankhurst toured Australia in 1915 with Vida Goldstein and Cecilia Johns to set up branches of the Women's Peace Army, in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Colleague

• Todd, Ellen Joy (1860 - 1948)

Founder

• Australian Women's Guild of Empire (1928 - 1940)

  [1928 - ]

Related Corporate Bodies

• The United Associations of Women (1929 - )
• Women's Peace Army (1915 - 1919)

Books

• Coleman, Verna, Adela Pankhurst: The wayward suffragette 1885-1961, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996. [ Details... ]
• Pankhurst, Adela, After the war what?: Being papers on The Duties of labor, and, The Unity and morality of the nation, Socialist Party of Victoria, Melbourne, 1917. [ Details... ]
• Walsh, Adela Pankhurst, Australia and the Empire, Guild of Empire, Sydney. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Castle, Josie, 'The Australian Women's Guild of Empire', in Elizabeth Windschuttle (ed.), Women, class and history: feminist perspectives on Australia, 1788-1978, Fontana/Collins, Sdney, 1980, pp. 287-312. [ Details... ]
• Smart, Judith, 'Feminists, food and the fair price: The cost of living demonstrations in Melbourne, August/ September 1917', in Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake (eds), Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century, 274-301 edn, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/Melbourne, 1995. [ Details... ]
• Stone, Janey, 'Brazen hussies and God's police fighting back in the depression years. [Revised version of article published in Hecate, v.8, no.1, 1982]', in Sandra Bloodworth & Tom O'Lincoln (ed.), Rebel Women in Australian Working Class History, Interventions, Melbourne, 1998, pp. (39)-60. [ Details... ]
• Summers, Anne, 'The Unwritten History of Adela Pankhurst Walsh', in Elizabeth Windschuttle (ed.), Women, class and history: feminist perspectives on Australia, 1788-1978, 388-402 edn, Fontana/Collins, Sydney, 1980. [ Details... ]

Journal Articles

• Damousi, Joy, 'The Enthusiasms of Adela Pankhurst Walsh', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 25, no. 100, 1993, pp. 422-436. [ Details... ]

Newspapers

• 'The Empire Gazette', "Edited by Adela Pankhurst Walsh", Australian Women's Guild of Empire, Sydney, 1929-1940. [ Details... ]
• The voice of the people: The people's welfare is the nation's strength, Adela Pankhurst Walsh, Sdyney, 1940. [ Details... ]

Pamphlets

• Walsh, Adela Pankhurst, Is communism possible in Australia?: Special to " Advance! Australia", "Reprint from Advance! Australia, April 1, 1929", Publicity Press, Sydney, 1929?, 7 pp. [ Details... ]
• Walsh, Adela Pankhurst, Industrial co-operation: Policy speech of the Australian Women's Guild of Empire, "Delivered at the Sydney Town Hall, November 30, 1931"., Australian Women's Guild of Empire, Sydney, 1931, 11 pp. [ Details... ]
• Walsh, Adela Pankhurst, Conditions in Japan: Lecture, R. Dey, Son & Co, Sydney, 1940, 29 pp. [ Details... ]

Online Resources

• Papadopoulos, Sophie, 'Walsh, Adela Pankhurst (1885 - 1961)', in Australian Trade Union Archives, University of Melbourne, 2002, http://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE1124b.htm. [ Details... ]

See also

• Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, 2006, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au. [ Details... ]
• Radi, Heather (ed.), 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Women's Redress Press, Sydney, 1988, 258 pp. (Also available at http://www.200australianwomen.com/) [ Details... ]