Adela Pankhurst, born on this day in 1885, was a British suffragette and pacifist who advocated for class-conscious feminism. Pankhurst founded the Communist Party of Australia and, decades later, the fascist "Australia First" movement.

Adela was born into a left-wing family - her father was socialist Richard Pankhurst and her mother was militant suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Her sisters Sylvia and Christabel also became leaders of the British suffrage movement.

As a teenager, Adela became involved in the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded by her mother and sisters. She was arrested after interrupting Winston Churchill during a protest and slapping a policeman who was trying to evict her from the building.

Both Sylvia and Adela were socialists, while Emmeline and Christabel were more focused on winning the vote for affluent women. After Sylvia was ejected from the WSPU, Christabel is quoted by author Jeff Sparrow as telling her "I would not care if you were multiplied by a hundred, but one of Adela is too many."

In 1914, Adela emigrated to Australia and advocated for peace during World War I. In 1920, Pankhurst co-founded the Australian Communist Party, although she was later expelled.

Despite organizing on behalf of working class women, Adela grew disillusioned with socialist movements and co-founded two nationalist, anti-communist organizations, the Australian Women's Guild of Empire and the fascist "Australia First" movement. Pankhurst also expressed sympathies for both fascist Germany and Japan during World War II, for which she was imprisoned.

In 1949, Pankhurst stated the following on her disillusionment with communism: "So long did I warn my supporters that co-operation with Russia, and all those who supported the Bolsheviks, was the way to disaster and I was ruined and interned for my pains...Communism has not brought home the bacon...Taken on achievement, Fascism did very much better while it lasted."