Adela Constantia Mary Pankhurst Walsh was a British-Australian suffragette, political organiser, and co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement.
Background
Adela was born on 19 June 1885 in Manchester, England, into a politicised 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 suffragette movement.
Education
Adela attended the all-woman Studley Horticultural College in Warwickshire, and Manchester High School for Girls.
Career
Her mother was of Manx descent. 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, penned a number of anti-war pamphlets and addressed public meetings on her opposition to the war and conscription.
In August of 1917, Pankhurst was arrested during a march against rising food prices in Melbourne, which had been part of a series of sometimes violent demonstrations, unusual for the time in that they were spearheaded by women. She visited Japan in 1939 and was arrested and interned in 1942 for her advocacy of peace with Japan.
Politics
She became disillusioned with communism and founded the anti-communist Australian Women"s Guild of Empire in 1927.
Membership
In 1920, Pankhurst became a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia, from which she was later expelled. In 1941 Adela became one of the founding members of the right wing and nationalistic Australia First Movement.