Adela Marion Adam

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Adela Marion Adam
Born
Adela Marion Kensington

(1866-06-10)10 June 1866
London
Died12 August 1944(1944-08-12) (aged 78)
Cambridge
NationalityBritish
EducationGirton College
OccupationAcademic
SpouseJames Adam

Adela Marion Adam (10 June 1866 – 12 August 1944) was an English classicist, editor and Fellow of Girton College.

Career[edit]

Adela Marion Adam taught Classics intermittently at Girton College and at Newnham College from c.1890 to at least 1920.[1] She also returned to her former school, Bedford College in London, to teach twice a week after the death of her husband in 1907.[2] During the First World War she delivered Classics lectures on behalf of the University of Cambridge.[1] She was a Research Fellow at Girton from 1920–3.[3] In 1912 she became Treasurer at Girton of the Frances Buss Fund, designed to help poorer students.[4]

  • Girton College, 1910s
    Girton College, 1910s
  • Girton College, 1910s
    Girton College, 1910s
  • Girton College, 1910s
    Girton College, 1910s

Adam was a committed Platonist and published a study of Plato's morals, as well as several articles; some regard her most important work to be her 1918 article attacking A E Taylor and J Burnet's idea of Platonic Socrates.[1] Adam believed that Plato embodied Socrates in the metaphysics of the theory of forms, as well as through the doctrine of immortality, not just in moralistic thought.[1] As well as her excellence in Latin and Greek, Adam was proficient in French, German and Italian.[5]

Collaborator and Editor[edit]

Adam's husband James was also a Platonist and their collaborations supported his research.[3] In 1893 they co-authored an edition of Protagoras.[6] This is seen particularly clearly in the editions of his work that Adam produced after her husband's early death.[3]

In editing and ensuring publication of her husband's work, Adam made an additional significant contribution to classical scholarship.[7] Adam edited her husband's Gifford Lectures into a volume entitled Religious Teachers Of Greece, which she prefaced with a memoir of her husband.[8] She also edited an additional volume of her husband's lectures after his death, entitled The Vitality of Platonism.[9] These lectures illustrated his thoughts on Plato during what were to be the final years of his life.[3]

Publications[edit]

Family life[edit]

Adela Marion Kensington was born on 10 June 1866 in London.[1] Her father was Arthur Kensington, who was a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Rebecca le Geyt Kensington;[18] Adela was the youngest of ten children;[19] as such she was almost named 'Decima'.[5] She was educated at Bedford College, London from 1882–5.[1] She then studied the Classical Tripos at Girton College from 1885–9, gaining first class honours.; she was also the first Girtonian to be awarded a special distinction in the tripos.[1] Adam's contemporaries at Girton included Ella Edghill, Marie Williams and Dorothy Tarrant.[1] Whilst at Girton she met her future husband James Adam, who was teaching the female students.[19] Their courtship partly took place on a tour of Greece and they were married at St Mary's, Paddington, in London in July 1890.[20] They settled in Cambridge and had three children: Neil Kensington Adam (born 1891, chemist), Arthur Innes Adam (born 1894, classicist and soldier) and Barbara Adam (born 1897, sociologist and criminologist, later Baroness Wootton).[19]

In 1900 the family moved into a house that was part of Emmanuel College.[19] Both Neil and Barbara recalled a happy, if highly educational childhood, where all three were taught Latin and Greek by their mother from a very young age.[19] Even the family's cat was called Plato.[21] After the death of her husband in 1907, Adam continued to bring up her family.[19] Both her sons were on active service during the First World War: Neil in the Royal Naval Air Service; Arthur, who was killed in France in 1917.[19] After Arthur's death, Adam used his family letters to write and publish a record of his life, which was published in 1920.[16]

Adam was a committed suffragist and her daughter recalled suffrage meetings often being held in their home; although her mother would have nothing to do with the militant faction.[22] Adam was on the committee of the Cambridge branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.[23] In 1917 she was the lead signature on a letter to the local Cambridge press expressing disappointment that the local electoral reform committee continued to resist the enfranchisement of women.[23]

Later life[edit]

Adam retired as a Governor of Girton in 1932. In later life she travelled widely, including a trip to Russia, to the Near-East and up the Amazon River.[24] She died of a heart attack on 12 August 1944.[24]

Legacy[edit]

Adam's edition of The Apology of Socrates was republished by Cambridge University Press in 1964.[25]

References[edit]

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Adela Marion Adam
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Todd, Robert B. (2004). "Adam, Adela Marion (née Kensington: 1866–1944)". Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers. doi:10.5040/9781350052536-0002. ISBN 9781350052536. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  2. ^ Wootton, Barbara (1967). In a world I never made : autobiographical reflections. Internet Archive. London : Allen & Unwin. pp. 29.
  3. ^ a b c d Giles, Peter; Schofield, Mark J. "Adam, James (1860–1907), classical scholar and philosopher". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30331. Retrieved 2020-03-04. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ Oakley, Ann (2011-06-08). A Critical Woman: Barbara Wootton, Social Science and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 49. doi:10.5040/9781849664769. ISBN 978-1-84966-476-9.
  5. ^ a b Wootton, Barbara (1967). In a world I never made : autobiographical reflections. Internet Archive. London : Allen & Unwin. pp. 19.
  6. ^ a b Plato; Adam, Adela Marion; Adam, James (1893). Protagoras; with introd., notes and appendices by J. Adam and A.M. Adam. Robarts - University of Toronto. Cambridge University Press.
  7. ^ "James Adam". The Gifford Lectures. 2014-07-08. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  8. ^ a b Adam, Adela Marion (1908). Religious Teachers Of Greece.
  9. ^ a b Adam, James; Adam, Adela Marion (1911). The vitality of Platonism, and other essays. Robarts - University of Toronto. Cambridge, The University press.
  10. ^ Kennett, R. H. (Robert Hatch); Adam, Adela Marion (Kensington) Mrs; Gwatkin, Henry Melvill (1910). Early ideals of righteousness; Hebrew, Greek, and Roman. University of California Libraries. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark.
  11. ^ Adam, Adela Marion. (2011). Plato : moral and political ideals. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-40186-0. OCLC 740862766.
  12. ^ Adam, A. M. (1914). The apology of Socrates: the Camrbidge University Press.
  13. ^ Adam, Adela Marion (1916). "The Mysticism of Greece". The Expository Times. 27 (10): 460–463. doi:10.1177/001452461602701005. ISSN 0014-5246. S2CID 221059582.
  14. ^ Adam, Adela Marion (1916). "The Mysticism of Rome". The Expository Times. 27 (11): 491–492. doi:10.1177/001452461602701103. ISSN 0014-5246. S2CID 170186413.
  15. ^ Adam, Adela Marion (1918). "Socrates, 'Qvantvm Mvtatvs Ab Illo'". The Classical Quarterly. 12 (3–4): 121–139. doi:10.1017/S0009838800012544. ISSN 1471-6844. S2CID 170121547.
  16. ^ a b Adam, Arthur Innes; Adam, Adela Marion. (1920). Arthur Innes Adam, 1894-1916. A record founded on his letters. Cambridge Eng.: Bowes & Bowes.
  17. ^ Adam, Adela Marion (1922). "The Value of Plato's Laws Today". Philosophical Review. 31: 424.
  18. ^ "Surname=ADAM; Forename=adela".
  19. ^ a b c d e f g "Neil Kensington Adam, 1891-1973". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 20: 1–26. 1974-12-31. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1974.0001. ISSN 0080-4606.
  20. ^ Oakley, Ann (2011-06-08). A Critical Woman: Barbara Wootton, Social Science and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 26. doi:10.5040/9781849664769. ISBN 978-1-84966-476-9.
  21. ^ Wootton, Barbara (1967). In a world I never made : autobiographical reflections. Internet Archive. London : Allen & Unwin. pp. 17.
  22. ^ Wootton, Barbara (1967). In a world I never made : autobiographical reflections. Internet Archive. London : Allen & Unwin. pp. 21.
  23. ^ a b Oakley, Ann (2011-06-08). A Critical Woman: Barbara Wootton, Social Science and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 33. doi:10.5040/9781849664769. ISBN 978-1-84966-476-9.
  24. ^ a b Oakley, Ann (2011-06-08). A Critical Woman: Barbara Wootton, Social Science and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 207. doi:10.5040/9781849664769. ISBN 978-1-84966-476-9.
  25. ^ Plato (1964). The apology of Socrates (in Greek). CUP Archive.
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