Ada Flatman

Ada Susan Flatman (1876 – 1952) was a British suffragette in the UK and in the US.

Flatman was born in Suffolk in 1876. She was on independent means and she became interested in women's rights. She lived in the same Twentieth Century Club Notting Hill rooms as fellow activist Jessie Stephenson.

Flatman was sent to Holloway Prison after she took part in the "raid" on the Houses of Parliament in 1908. The following year she was employed by the WSPU to organise their activities in Liverpool taking over from Mary Phillips.

Flatman worked with Dr Alice Stewart Ker, but it was Ada who was trusted by Emmeline Pethick when Liverpool requested that they be allowed to open a WSPU shop. The shop was set up for her by Patricia Woodlock and became a success and it raised substantial funds for the cause. Flatman organised the publicity surrounding the release of Patricia Woodlock who had completed a prison term in Holloway. A 1909 copy of Votes for Women depicted "Patricia" as a Dreadnought.

The first world war started in 1914 and the leading suffrage organisations agreed to suspend their protest until the war was over. Many activists disagreed and Ada Flatman was one. She decided to carry on her work in the US and she emigrated to the US to work Alice Paul's The Suffragist newspaper in 1915. She became their Business and Advertising manager. After the war was completed she was keen to carry on the work but organisations in America and South Africa did not accept her offer of assistance.Flatman supported the work of Edith How-Martyn in later documenting the movement in the Suffragette Fellowship.

Flatman died in Eastbourne in 1952.

Flatman's reminiscences were recorded by the BBC. She had also kept a scrapbook of her suffrage adventures and that book is held by the Museum of London.