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Adeline Bourne

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Adeline Bourne
Born
Selina "Lena" Manson

8 January 1873
British India
Died8 February 1965(1965-02-08) (aged 92)
Thurston, Suffolk, England
Occupation(s)actress, suffragette and charity worker
EmployerQueen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps
Organization(s)Actresses' Franchise League, Royal Star and Garter Home

Adeline Bourne (8 January 1873 – 8 February 1965) was a British Anglo-Indian actress, suffragette and charity worker.[1][2]

Early life

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Bourne was born Selina "Lena" Manson[3] in British India in 1873. She was sent to private schools in Eastbourne and Blackheath, though after expulsion from three schools was educated by a governess.[4]

Acting career

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She studied drama under Sarah Thorne and adopted the stage name Adeline Bourne.[3] She became a member of Thorne's company before leaving to tour America with Mrs Patrick Campbell. She then worked for J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker at the Court Theatre, and for Olga Nethersole.[5]

At the start of the 20th century Bourne appeared in avant-garde and feminist plays.[4] She was known for playing "orientalist" heroines,[6] such as titular character Salome in Oscar Wilde's play,[7][8] who she played as an "emancipated virago" and "political princess";[9] Antistia in John Masefield's The Tragedy of Pompey the Great;[10] and Ftatateeta and later Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.[11][12] Other roles included Gertrude in Hamlet.[13]

Activism

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Actresses Franchise League Badge

Bourne was interested in the women's suffrage movement and attended some early National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) meetings,[14] but was initially "frightened of the militants" and concerned about how activism could impact her acting career.[6] She became a constitutional suffragist and campaigned for the cause.[15]

In 1908 she founded the Actresses' Franchise League (AFL) with Gertrude Elliott, Winifred Mayo and Sime Seruya.[16] She served as the League's honorary secretary,[17] until resigning in 1912 due to travelling to America.[18] When in England, she was often seen advertising AFL performances on the streets of the West End.[15] She took part in the Pageant of Great Women in 1910, playing a Woman who appeals to Justice against the tyranny of Prejudice and calls upon witnesses including the Learned Women, the Artists, the Saintly Women, the Rulers and The Warriors.[19] Bourne also set up the New Players Society in 1911.[citation needed]

In 1915, Bourne founded the British Women's Hospital, which raised £150,000 to establish the Royal Star and Garter Home for disabled soldiers. During World War I she served abroad as an officer in Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps,[4] organising entertainment for soldiers on leave at the British Empire Leave Club in Cologne, which had been founded by Decima Moore.[20]

Between 1915 and 1963 Bourne raised over £750,000 for different causes. For example, she raised £37,500 for the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. In 1928 she was Vice President of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene's Josephine Butler Appeal Fund. After World War II she started a women's employment organization to help women return to civilian jobs. In the mid-1950s she established the Wayfarers' Trust, a nursing home and hospital for older people.[4]

On her 90th birthday she gave interviews to newspapers, including the Daily Mail and Evening Standard, about her memories of being a suffragette.[3]

Death and legacy

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Bourne's died in Thurston, Suffolk,[1] and was buried in the village churchyard.[21]

In 1965 a fire destroyed her former home in Thurston. Though her papers were rescued from the fire, they were subsequently destroyed in 2013.[22]

In 2018, Helen Geake, former Time Team presenter and Green Party candidate for Bury St Edmunds, tracked down her grave and planted violet primroses with local residents for International Women's Day.[21][23]

References

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  1. ^ a b 'Miss Adeline Bourne: Actress and suffragette', The Times, 10 February 1965
  2. ^ Burroughs, Catherine; Gainor, J. Ellen (29 September 2023). The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Taylor & Francis. p. 245. ISBN 978-1-000-81598-6.
  3. ^ a b c Hamilton, Isobel (9 March 2018). "100 years ago, my ancestor was an actress fighting for the same thing Time's Up wants today". Mashable. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d Law, Cheryl (2000). Women: A Modern Political Dictionary. I.B.Tauris. pp. 31–2. ISBN 978-1-86064-502-0.
  5. ^ Paxton, Naomi (2018). Stage Rights!: The Actresses' Franchise League, Activism and Politics 1908-58. Oxford University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-5261-1478-5.
  6. ^ a b Fell, Alison S. (18 May 2023). Warrior Women: The Cultural Politics of Armed Women, c.1850–1945. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-08031-6.
  7. ^ Tydeman, William; Price, Steven (28 August 1996). Wilde: Salome. Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-521-56545-5.
  8. ^ D'Monte, Rebecca (23 April 2015). British Theatre and Performance 1900-1950. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 222. ISBN 978-1-4081-6565-2.
  9. ^ The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication. St. Jerome Publishing. 2003. p. 4.
  10. ^ Moses, Montrose J. (1 May 2008). Representative British Dramas. Wildside Press LLC. p. 716. ISBN 978-1-4344-7101-7.
  11. ^ Shaw, George Bernard (2021). Arms and the Man, The Devil's Disciple, and Caesar and Cleopatra. Oxford University Press. pp. li. ISBN 978-0-19-880071-2.
  12. ^ Kelly, Katherine E. (6 October 2015) "The After Voice of Ellen Terry." In Ellen Terry, Spheres of Influence. Routledge. pp. 65-76. ISBN 9781315655772.
  13. ^ Joannou, Maroula; Purvis, June (1998). The Women's Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives. Manchester University Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-7190-4860-9.
  14. ^ Holledge, Julie (11 April 2013). Innocent Flowers: Women in the Edwardian Theatre. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-1-4055-2573-2.
  15. ^ a b Hirshfield, Claire (1985). "The Actresses' Franchise League and the Campaign for Women's Suffrage 1908–1914". Theatre Research International. 10 (2): 129–153. doi:10.1017/S030788330001066X. ISSN 0307-8833.
  16. ^ Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-135-43402-1.
  17. ^ Robins, Elizabeth; Hamilton, Cicely; Bensusan, Inez; John, Chris St; Chapin, Alice; Nevinson, Margaret W.; Nightingale, Helen M.; Phibbs, L. S. (30 April 2018). Votes for Women: and Other Plays. Aurora Metro Publications Ltd. p. 1905. ISBN 978-1-906582-75-3.
  18. ^ Gardner, Vivien (1985). Sketches from the Actresses' Franchise League. University of Nottingham, Department of English. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-906129-09-8.
  19. ^ Engle, S. (25 December 2007). New Women Dramatists in America, 1890-1920. Springer. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-230-60936-5.
  20. ^ Foley, Michael (9 September 2017). The British Army of the Rhine. Fonthill Media.
  21. ^ a b Gibbons, Amy (7 March 2018). "Green Party members track down suffragette buried in Suffolk churchyard in time for International Women's Day". East Anglian Daily Times. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
  22. ^ Paxton, Naomi (2018). Stage Rights!: The Actresses' Franchise League, Activism and Politics 1908-58. Oxford University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-5261-1478-5.
  23. ^ "Violet primroses planted on Thurston suffragette's grave". Suffolk News. 11 March 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
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