Adela Pankhurst

Adela Constantia Mary Walsh (née Pankhurst /.pæŋkhərst/; 19 June 1885 – 23 May 1961) was a British-born suffragette who worked as a political organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Scotland. In 1914 she moved to Australia where she continued her activism and was co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement.

Pankhurst was born on 19 June 1885 in Chorlton upon Medlock, Manchester, Lancashire, England, into a politicised family: her father, Richard Pankhurst, was a socialist and candidate for Parliament, and her mother, Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden), and sisters, Sylvia Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst, were leaders of the British suffragette movement. She was the youngest of the Pankhurst children. Her mother was of Manx descent.

Pankhurst attended the all-woman Studley Horticultural College near Studley inWarwickshire then Manchester High School for Girls. She also attended a period of teaching training, but did not complete the course. After finishing her education, she accompanied Helen Archdale to Italy.

As a teenager, Pankhurst became involved in the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), which had founded by her mother and sisters in 1903.

In June 1906, Pankhurst disrupted a Liberal Party meeting and was sentenced to seven days in prison. Later that year, she was part of a group who entered the House of Commons, wishing to speak with members. Nine women were arrested, including Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Anne Cobden-Sanderson, Charlotte Despard, Teresa Billington-Greig, Mary Gawthorpe, Dora Montefiore. Pankhurst and Jessie Kenney formed The Young Hot Bloods in 1907 who were an inner secret branch of the suffragettes involved in "danger duty". She was "recklessly dedicated" to the suffrage movement.

Pankhurst was active in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, from 1908 and protested during the visit of Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary for the Liberal government, who was giving a talk at the Scarborough Liberal Association. She worked with Marion Mackenzie to build a local WSPU branch in Scarborough, and gave talks in York organised by the local WSPU branch secretary Annie Coultate.

In November 1909 Pankhurst joined a protest that interrupted a talk by Winston Churchill at his constituency in Dundee, Scotland. She was arrested for "breaking the peace" along with Helen Archdale, Catherine Corbett and Maud Joachim. Pankhurst had slapped a policeman who was trying to evict her from the building. Although she went on hunger strike there, she was not force-fed as prison governor and medical supervisor assessed her "heart's action as violent and laboured".

Eagle House near Bath in Somerset had become an important refuge for suffragettes 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 including Pankhurst's mother and sister, Christabel as well as Annie Kenney, Charlotte Despard, Millicent Fawcett and Lady Lytton. The trees were known as "Annie's Arboreatum" after Annie Kenney. There was also a "Pankhurst Pond" within the grounds. Pankhurst was invited to Eagle House in 1909 and 1910. She planted a Himalayan Cedar on 3 July 1910. A plaque was made and her photograph was recorded again by Colonel Linley Blathwayt.