Assisting in chemist business

32

Married

Station Road, Shirebrook, Mansfield

WSPU

Complies

Alice was born Alice Mary Mills in Liverpool in 1878 where she worked in the post office and was an active suffragette. She married Henry Dax and moved to Eastwood, Nottingham, where he ran a chemist shop. The couple were friends of forward-thinking local socialists such as William and Sallie Hopkin, and D H Lawrence. The character Clara Dawes in the latter’s novel ‘Sons and Lovers’ is thought to be based on Alice Dax. Both Alice and Sallie attended meetings in Nottingham city where Enid Hilton, the Hopkin’s daughter, remembers waving white, purple and green flags and listening to the speakers including the Pankhurst’s who they also had to stay. Alice became a well-known name in the district giving suffrage speeches and initiating various schemes other schemes including local nursing associations and local forms of health insurance. Perhaps because of Alice’s overt political leanings trade dropped off in Eastwood and so by 1911 the couple relocated just north of Nottingham to Shirebrook, Mansfield. This is where we find Alice living in 1911 in Station Road, complying with the census, and listing her occupation as ‘assisting in the business’ (see image). It is not yet clear where exactly on Station Road Alice's residence was and so the current map location is approximate. Alice emigrated to Australia in her seventies, where her son was living, and she died there aged 81. Researched and contributed by Nottingham Women's History group www.nottinghamwomenshistory.org.uk. Sources: No Surrender! Women's Suffrage in Nottinghamshire, Rowena Edlin-White (Ed.) Nottingham Women's History Group ISBN:978-1-900074-31-