Adele Meyer

Adele Meyer

"Mrs. Carl Meyer and her Children" by John Singer Sargent
Born Adele Levis
1855
London
Died 1930
Nationality British
Religion Jewish
Spouse(s) Sir Carl Meyer
Children two

Adele Meyer or Adele Meyer, Lady Meyer; Adele Levis (1855 – 1930) was a British campaigner for social reform. She was the editor of a suffrage journal and a philanthropist to good causes including an early school for mothers in London.

Life

Meyer was born in Belsize Park in London in 1855. She married the wealthy banker Carl Meyer in 1883. She deprecatingly described herself as a social worker and she did visit the poor. Mayer however was able to fund operas.[1]

Meyer and her two children were models for an award winning painting by the American painter John Singer Sargent. The painting shows Mayer in luxorious surroundings giving minimal attention to her son Frank and her daughter Elsie Charlotte. It was exhibited in 1896[2]

She was on the more active wing of the suffrage movement. She supported women refusing to pay their taxes on the grounds that they had no vote. From 1906 she was a member of the NUWSS serving on their executive committee and becoming editor of their journal "The Common Cause".[1]

A lesson on the cradle at a School for Mothers

In 1907, she funded a School for Mothers on Charlton Street, London, and served as its vice-chair alongside Alys Pearsall Smith.[1] This provided a model for infant welfare centres, bring together a range of services focused towards reducing infant mortality.[3]

In 1910 her husband was knighted and she became Lady Meyer.[1]

She was a founder and funder of the London hostel that became Queen Mary College.[1]

Meyer died in 1930.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Ellen Ross (2007). Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860-1920. University of California Press. pp. 53–56. ISBN 978-0-520-24905-9.
  2. ↑ Mrs Carl Meyer and her children Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., JSSGallery, Retrieved 21 April 2016
  3. ↑ Davies, Sue (30 May 2014). "The St Pancras School for Mothers". Wellcome Library. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Adele Meyer, OxfordDNB, Retrieved 21 April 2016

External links

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