Ada Summers

Ada Jane Summers (née Broome; 1861–1944) was the first British woman to sit as a magistrate, and one of the first women in England to become a Justice of the Peace. She was also the first female councillor, mayor and freeman of Stalybridge near Manchester. She was also a philanthropist.

Early and personal life She was born in Oldham in 1861, where her father George Broome owned a textile mill.

In 1881, she married John Summers JP, of the John Summers & Sons steelworks. Their son Gerald Summers (1885-1969) became a painter. Her husband died in 1910. She was then elected mayor in November 1919, and served until 1921. In October 1920 she was appointed a Justice of the Peace in the borough in her own right, again the first woman in Britain to be so appointed. and became an honorary Freeman of the borough in 1939.

Philanthropy Summers used the wealth inherited from her husband to pursue philanthropic aims, including funding a maternity and child welfare centre, and an employment centre in Stalybridge, the Ladies Work Society.