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 depreciatively 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]

In 1906 Alys Pearsall Smith was chairing the St Pancras Mothers' and Infants' Society.^[3] Mayer served as vice-chair and funded the innovative, St Pancras School for Mothers.^[1]

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. 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, JSSGallery, Retrieved 21 April 2016
3. Evelyn M. Bunting, Dora E. L. Bunting, Annie E. Barnes and Blanch Gardiner (1907). A School for Mothers. London: Horace Marshall & Son.
4. Adele Meyer, OxfordDNB, Retrieved 21 April 2016

External links