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Alice Abadam
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Alice Abadam
Alice Abadam (2 January 1856 – 31 March 1940) was a Welsh suffragist, feminist and public speaker.
Alice Abadam was born in London, England, in 1856 to Edward Abadam and his wife, Louisa (née Taylor) Abadam. Her father was the eldest son of Edward Hamlyn Adams, a Jamaican-born banker and merchant who made his money overseas before settling in Britain. In 1825 Edward Hamlyn Adams bought Middleton Hall in Carmarthenshire following the death of its owner, Sir William Paxton. The Hall was passed down to his son Edward in 1842, who added the old Welsh patronym Ab to the family name. Abadam's cousins included writer Vernon Lee (real name Violet Paget) and poet Eugene Lee-Hamilton, who were the children of her paternal aunt Mathilda Paget (née Adams).
Abadam, by her own account, had a happy childhood and was educated by a governess at Middleton Hall. She was the youngest of seven children, and saw little of her mother who suffered ill-health brought about by post-natal depression. By 1861 her mother was living away from the family in Brighton, and in 1871 was living back at her paternal home in Dorset. Despite living apart, her parents remained married until the death of Edward in 1875.
Her father was a High Sheriff of Carmarthenshire. He held anti-clerical views, but Abadam converted to Catholicism in 1880 as a result of the Oxford Movement.
A musical upbringing led her to becoming the organist and choir master at St Mary's Church on Union Street, in the centre of Carmarthen. Abadam met Dr. Alice Vowe Johnson (1869–1938), a doctor and surgeon, when she was medical officer at Carmarthen's Asylum and they were companions for the rest of their lives.
In 1905 Abadam joined the Central Society for Women's Suffrage. She became a well known speaker and she addressed a number of suffrage societies, including a two-week speaking tour around Birmingham in 1908, and other areas in "the North." She often travelled by bicycle and sketched her experiences.
Abadam had subscribed as an "independent socialist" to the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and Independent Labour Party manifesto in the 1906 elections, and in 1911, the WSPU newspaper Votes for Women called Abadam "that well known speaker on social issues." She attended the Savoy Hotel dinner for the release of WSPU prisoners in 1906, but had moved away from the militant movement the following year. Abadam was one of the signatories (including, among others Edith How Martyn, Charlotte Despard, Theresa Billington-Greig, Marion Coates-Hansen, and Irene Miller) to a letter to Emmeline Pankhurst explaining their disquiet on 14 September 1907, and establishing the alternative Women's Freedom League (WFL).
Abadam took part in a suffragist cycle tour of the north in 1908 and recorded it in watercolour drawings including one of a policeman stating "you are free to hold your meeting... but the last lady to speak in Carlisle was Mary Queen of Scots, and then she went south and was beheaded!".
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Alice Abadam
Alice Abadam (2 January 1856 – 31 March 1940) was a Welsh suffragist, feminist and public speaker.
Alice Abadam was born in London, England, in 1856 to Edward Abadam and his wife, Louisa (née Taylor) Abadam. Her father was the eldest son of Edward Hamlyn Adams, a Jamaican-born banker and merchant who made his money overseas before settling in Britain. In 1825 Edward Hamlyn Adams bought Middleton Hall in Carmarthenshire following the death of its owner, Sir William Paxton. The Hall was passed down to his son Edward in 1842, who added the old Welsh patronym Ab to the family name. Abadam's cousins included writer Vernon Lee (real name Violet Paget) and poet Eugene Lee-Hamilton, who were the children of her paternal aunt Mathilda Paget (née Adams).
Abadam, by her own account, had a happy childhood and was educated by a governess at Middleton Hall. She was the youngest of seven children, and saw little of her mother who suffered ill-health brought about by post-natal depression. By 1861 her mother was living away from the family in Brighton, and in 1871 was living back at her paternal home in Dorset. Despite living apart, her parents remained married until the death of Edward in 1875.
Her father was a High Sheriff of Carmarthenshire. He held anti-clerical views, but Abadam converted to Catholicism in 1880 as a result of the Oxford Movement.
A musical upbringing led her to becoming the organist and choir master at St Mary's Church on Union Street, in the centre of Carmarthen. Abadam met Dr. Alice Vowe Johnson (1869–1938), a doctor and surgeon, when she was medical officer at Carmarthen's Asylum and they were companions for the rest of their lives.
In 1905 Abadam joined the Central Society for Women's Suffrage. She became a well known speaker and she addressed a number of suffrage societies, including a two-week speaking tour around Birmingham in 1908, and other areas in "the North." She often travelled by bicycle and sketched her experiences.
Abadam had subscribed as an "independent socialist" to the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and Independent Labour Party manifesto in the 1906 elections, and in 1911, the WSPU newspaper Votes for Women called Abadam "that well known speaker on social issues." She attended the Savoy Hotel dinner for the release of WSPU prisoners in 1906, but had moved away from the militant movement the following year. Abadam was one of the signatories (including, among others Edith How Martyn, Charlotte Despard, Theresa Billington-Greig, Marion Coates-Hansen, and Irene Miller) to a letter to Emmeline Pankhurst explaining their disquiet on 14 September 1907, and establishing the alternative Women's Freedom League (WFL).
Abadam took part in a suffragist cycle tour of the north in 1908 and recorded it in watercolour drawings including one of a policeman stating "you are free to hold your meeting... but the last lady to speak in Carlisle was Mary Queen of Scots, and then she went south and was beheaded!".
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