Ada Wells née Pike was a feminist and social worker in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

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Biography

Ada Pike was born near Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, about 10 miles downstream and north-east from Reading, 10 miles upstream and west from Maidenhead...

, South Oxfordshire

South Oxfordshire

South Oxfordshire is a local government district in Oxfordshire, England. Its council is based in Crowmarsh Gifford, just outside Wallingford....

, England. Her parents emigrated to New Zealand with their four girls and one boy in 1873, arriving on the Merope in Lyttelton

Lyttelton, New Zealand

Lyttelton is a port town on the north shore of Lyttelton Harbour close to Banks Peninsula, a suburb of Christchurch on the eastern coast of the South Island of New Zealand....

 on 31 October of that year. She attended Avonside School

Christchurch East School

Christchurch East School is located in the central city of Christchurch, New Zealand.-History:The school was founded in 1873 and had its centennial celebrations from 5 to 7 October 1973...

 from 1874, and Christchurch West High School

Christchurch West High School

Christchurch West High School existed prior to 1965 on the site of Hagley Community College in Hagley Avenue. In that year 'West' amalgamated with Technical High School to become Hagley High School...

 in 1876, where she then worked as a student-teacher from 1877 to 1881.

Wells attended Canterbury College

University of Canterbury

The University of Canterbury , New Zealand's second-oldest university, operates its main campus in the suburb of Ilam in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand...

. In the 1880s she became active in the women's suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

 movement. In 1892 she established the Canterbury Women's Institute, an organization similar to the Women's Franchise League

Women's Franchise League

The Women's Franchise League was an organisation created by the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst together with her husband Richard in 1889, fourteen years before the creation of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903....

s in other parts of the country. She was a founding member of the National Council of Women of New Zealand

National Council of Women of New Zealand

The National Council of Women of New Zealand is a lobbying group for women's rights. The Council was established in 1896.-Establishment of the Council:...

 and served as the first secretary. In 1917 she was the first woman to be elected to the Christchurch City Council

Christchurch City Council

The Christchurch City Council is the local government authority for Christchurch in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority elected to represent the people of Christchurch. Since 2007, the Mayor of Christchurch is Bob Parker, who stood as an independent candidate...

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The Ministry for Culture and Heritage now offers an Ada Wells Memorial Prize for Undergraduate Students.