Socialist and reformer, born on 20 July 1866 at Raunds, Northamptonshire, into a Wesleyan Methodist family. Her parents, Samuel and Sarah (née Ekins) were farmers; one brother, Richard Ekins Brown (1867-1943; e.m. 1892) became a Wesleyan minister. Ada was an active Wesleyan and Liberal, identifying with the party's Radical wing.

In 1896 Ada moved to London and joined Katherine Price Hughes' Sisters of the People. A year later she transferred to the Bermondsey Settlement, sharing a flat with Grace Hannam and taking responsibility for the Settlement's Girls' Clubs. At the Settlement she met Alfred Salter (1873-1945), then an agnostic and socialist, also with a Wesleyan background. Under Ada’s influence he became a Christian and a Liberal. They married in August 1900 and Alfred set up his medical practice in Jamaica Road, Bermondsey.

In 1906 Ada resigned from the Liberal Party over their failure to grant votes for women. Already involved with the fledgling Women's Labour League, Ada joined the Independent Labour Party. In 1909 she was elected to the Bermondsey Borough Council as the first woman and first Labour councillor. Although her first term was brief (1909-12), she returned to the Council in 1919 and was re-elected for three further terms. She was the first woman and Labour mayor both in London and in the British Isles. Her political priorities were public health, slum clearance, and the improvement of the urban landscaoe through the 'greening' of Bermondsey, creating open spaces and planting thousands of trees.

Ada was an 'associate member' of the Deptford Friends' Meeting from 1903. Her strong pacifism led her to identify fully with the Quakers from the beginning of the First World War.

Ada and Alfred Salter's only child, Joyce, was born in June 1902 and died of scarlet fever in June 1910.

Ada died in Balham, London, on 4 December 1942.

Entry written by: DCD
Category: Person
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