Adams, Miss Sophie, Rose Bank, Rumsam, Barnstaple
Sophie Margaret Adams[1] (1872–1971) was born in Barnstaple on 15 September 1872. She was the younger daughter of Samuel Norrish Adams and Elizabeth, formerly Rodger, the daughter of a bank manager in Greenock.[2]
Samuel Adams was the owner and manager of Barnstaple’s largest tannery, on Bear Street, which had been founded by his father, and Sophie and her elder sister Alexandra spent their childhood in a house on Bear Street. The family later moved out to a nine-room house in the more rural setting of Rumsam, originally in Bishop’s Tawton parish but later incorporated into Barnstaple. Her sister Alexandra married a local accountant, Harry Ashton, in 1896, and in 1899 Samuel himself died.
Sophie Adams lived on at Rose Bank with her mother and a resident servant. It is difficult to be certain whether the reference to a ‘Miss Adams’ in newspaper reports is to Sophie, but there are various references to a Miss Adams, together with a Mrs Adams or a Mrs Ashton, in church and civic charitable activities. It was certainly she who became a governor of the North Devon Infirmary; she tried to persuade the governors to appoint a second woman to the House Committee in 1914, but was defeated by the protocol that the outgoing committee’s nominations could only be challenged by a motion to remove a specific nominee, which Adams was reluctant to do.[3]
Adams became involved in suffrage activity once the Barnstaple branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was formed and was a member of the committee from December 1911.[4] In July 1913 she and Miss E.L. Leach (her cousin, daughter of her father’s sister) were described as joint secretaries of the branch, and both Miss Adams and the Misses Leach contributed financially towards the funds raised for the Great Pilgrimage in 1913.[5] Adams also chaired a public meeting of the Barnstaple branch held in January 1914 and later supported Councillor J.T. White who chaired a public meeting where Muriel Matters spoke.[6]
During the war Adams and her mother offered to house Belgian refugees.[7] Mrs Adams died in August 1915.[8] After that Adams took on additional roles, such as a place on the board of management for the Barnstaple Domestic Science College, and the secretaryship of the Barnstaple District Voluntary Association for the Care of the Mentally Defective.[9]
After the passing of the Representation of the People Act 1918 Sophie Adams became the first Treasurer of the Barnstaple Women Citizens’ Association.[10]
She lived on in Barnstaple, although she had moved to Kingston House by 1939, and died there in June 1971.
Entry created by Marilyn Smee and Julia Neville, December 2018
[1] Census and family information from www.ancestry.co.uk
[2] North Devon Journal, 26 Aug 1915, information from her obituary.
[3] North Devon Journal, 30 Jul 1914.
[4] North Devon Journal, 14 Dec 1911.
[5] Common Cause, 4 Jul; Aug 1913.
[6] North Devon Journal, 22 Jan; 12 Mar 1914
[7] North Devon Journal, 22 Oct 1914.
[8] North Devon Journal, 26 Aug 1915.
[9] North Devon Journal, 23 Nov 1916; 21 Jun 1917.
[10] North Devon Journal, 6 Jun 1918; 25 Sep 1919.