When researching stories of our ancestors one fact remains certain, you will usually find more stories of the men in our family trees than stories about the women.
The stories of the women are there but often hidden so it was lovely to find some newspaper evidence of Adrienne Leevers, who sounds like she was a strong, intelligent, focused woman of her time. She had a varied career in teaching, journalism and politics.
So, who was Adrienne Leevers?
This is Adrienne’s entry from liberalhistory.or.uk in the list of candidates Greater London 1945-2019.
LEEVERS, Adrienne Annie Ellen Marjorie, b 1914, ed Tollington h s, Muswell Hill, London U; Red Cross relief worker 1944-46 with displaced persons in Austria and Italy; tutor at FE centre, Barnet; d 1990; Hornsey 1950
https://liberalhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/CANDIDATES-GREATER-LONDON-1945-2019.pdf
Adrienne was born 15 January 1914 and baptised 22 February 1914 at St Andrew’s Rugby, Warwickshire and had one brother. She was given four Christian names, Adrienne, Annie, Ellen and Marjorie. Her parents were Fredric William, and Annie, living at 62 Regent Street.
Dad, Frederic was an engineer and had spent time working in Japan. His ancestor William Leevers had moved from Nottinghamshire to Liverpool and was involved in the hosiery trade.
Adrienne graduated from the University of London in 1935 with a Bachelor of Arts and became a journalist.
A headline naming Adrienne as the journalist, in 1944.
An article in The Woman Teacher of 20 May 1949 p. 182, shows that Adrienne was the mistress in charge of Social Studies and English at the East Barnet Day Continuation School, Hertfordshire. She received a scholarship to travel to America.
In March 1949 she sailed on the Queen Mary to New York, sailing back on 4th June 1949, again on the Queen Mary. Adrienne had been travelling America on a Page scholarship. She spoke at a meeting in Spokane, Washington (The Spokane Review, 1949).
Adrienne then turned her attention to politics. She stood as a Liberal candidate for the 1950 Hornsey general election. Despite not winning, she achieved 5,122 votes. There is archive footage on YouTube where she gave a short speech and denounced the rowdy behaviour of some of the crowd as not in the tradition of British politics.
One of the comments underneath the video was by a nephew who said that Adrienne went on to become the Headmistress of Corner Hall, one of the first Comprehensive schools, in Hertfordshire.
Between 1963 and 1967 Adrienne was the Principal of the Kenya High School in Nairobi, Kenya.
Quotes from the Facebook page say she was much loved, a kind lady, admired for her dramatics and debating and also that she could be strict or ‘kali’.
Adrienne died in October 1990 at Mayfield, East Sussex.
