Emmeline Pankhurst (born Emmeline Goulden) (14 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was one of the leaders of the British suffragette movement (the WSPU - Women's Social and Political Union). It is the name of "Mrs. Pankhurst", more than any other, which is associated with the struggle for the enfranchisement of women in the United Kingdom immediately preceding the First World War.
Early years
Emmeline Goulden was born in Sloan Street, Moss Side, Hulme, Lancashire, the eldest daughter of a family of 10 children.[1] She attended school at the Ecole Normale in Paris from 1873–1877 after attending school in Manchester for a number of years. Education of girls was still not considered of particular importance, even in the upper classes.
After returning to Manchester she met Dr Richard Marsden Pankhurst, a prominent local barrister. Pankhurst was a strong supporter of the movement for women's suffrage, and author of the first parliamentary bill proposing that the vote should be extended to women—the Women's Disabilities Removal Bill—presented in the House of Commons in 1879, the same year, that he and Goulden were married.[2] They had four children in their first six years of marriage: Christabel in 1880, Sylvia in 1882, Frank in 1884 and Adela in 1885. They had another son, Harry, in 1890.[1]
Foundation of suffrage organizations
In 1889, Emily Pankhurst founded the Women's Franchise League, but her campaign was interrupted by her husband's death in 1898.[3] In 1903 she founded the better-known Women's Social and Political Union, an organization most famous for its militancy which began in 1905. [4] Its members included Annie Kenney, Emily Wilding Davison who was killed by the King's horse in the 1913 Epsom Derby as the result of a suffragette protest, and the composer Dame Ethel Mary Smyth.[5][6][7] Pankhurst was joined in the movement by her daughters Christabel Pankhurst and Sylvia Pankhurst, both of whom would make a substantial contribution to the campaign in different ways but then were arrested.[8] Her other daughter, Adela Pankhurst emigrated to Australia where she was politically active in first the Communist Party of Australia and then the fascist Australia First Movement.[9] At one point, Pankhurst lived in an apartment that was located at 159 Knightsbridge, London. The address still exists, but is now operating as The Knightsbridge Green Hotel. There is a memorial plaque at the London School of Economics commemorating the first meeting of the Suffragette movement.
Pankhurst being arrested (1914)
Pankhurst's tactics for drawing attention to the movement led to her being imprisoned 13 times between 1908 and 1914, but because of her high profile, she did not endure the same privations as many of the imprisoned working-class suffragettes for she was not force fed. Her approach to the campaign did not endear her to everyone, and there were splits within the movement as a result. Her autobiography, My Own Story, was published in 1914.
After the First World War broke out, in 1914, Pankhurst felt that nothing should interfere with her country's efforts to win. All attempts to gain votes for women were put on hold, and her efforts were instead directed to urging women to take over men's jobs, so that the men could go and fight in the war. With support from David Lloyd George, she organised a parade of 30,000 women, funded by £2,000 of government money, to encourage employers to let women take over men's jobs in industry. On 8 September 1914, Christabel re-appeared at the London Opera House, after her long exile, to utter a declaration on "The German Peril". Pankhurst toured the country, making recruiting speeches. Her supporters handed white feathers to every young man they encountered wearing civilian dress, and bobbed up at Hyde Park meetings with placards: "Intern Them All".
Enlistment of the unenlisted was of the highest priority. As Sylvia Pankhurst pointed out in her chronicle, The Suffragette Movement, her mother and sister rallied their followers in an effort to reroute the militant momentum which they had so successfully orchestrated in the struggle for suffrage:
Characteristically, Mrs. Pankhurst threw all her energies and all her influence into the effort, which now, designated itself pro-war and pro-conscription. Although not all of the members of the suffrage movement backed the war, Mrs. Pankhurst’s influence swayed many to follow her lead. Giving its energies wholly to the prosecution of the War, it rushed to a furious extreme, its Chauvinism unexampled amongst all the other women’s societies.[10]
The British government started to implement voting rights for women, across the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in March 1918. Although the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave voting rights to women over 30—subject to a property qualification—even though all men over 21 were enfranchised, the Suffragettes nevertheless saw it as a great victory. In November 1918, women over 21 were given the right to become Members of Parliament, resulting in the anomaly that a woman could be an MP but still not be allowed to vote. Women in the United Kingdom finally achieved equal voting rights with men on 2 July 1928.
After the First World War, Emmeline Pankhurst toured the USA and Canada, lecturing about venereal disease. She gradually lost her socialist beliefs, unlike her daughter Sylvia, who remained a staunch socialist. On Emmeline's return to Great Britain in 1925, she joined the Conservative Party and stood as a general election candidate in the East End of London constituency of Whitechapel, an action which appalled Sylvia who was the only remaining Pankhurst who still stuck to their socialist beliefs. Conversely, Emmeline was upset that Sylvia had a child out of wedlock, and refused to speak to Sylvia again or see the child. Emmeline died in 1928, a month before her 70th birthday.
Writings (selected)
- The Powers and Duties of Poor Law Guardians in Times of Exceptional Distress, 1895.
- The Present Position of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in: The Case for Women’s Suffrage, hg.v. B. Villiers, 1907.
- The Importance of the Vote, 1908.
- Suffrages Speeches from the Dock, 1912.
- My own Story (1914), Reissued by Greenwood Publishing Group, 1985.
Secondary literature
- Piers Brendon, Eminent Edwardians (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980) ISBN 0-395-29195-X
- Linda Hoy, Profiles: Emmeline Pankhurst, 1985
- Martin Pugh, The Pankhursts, Penguin 2002
- Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement: An Intimate Account of Persons and Ideals, Reissued in 1984 by Chatto & Windus
- June Purvis Emmeline Pankhurst: a biography Routledge, 2002
Popular culture
- "Shoulder to Shoulder" is a 1974 six-part series from the BBC on the British women's suffrage movements focusing on Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Sylvia and Christabel. The series aired the following year in the United States as part of PBS's "Masterpiece Theater." The title "Shoulder to Shoulder" comes from the song "The March of the Women" by composer Dame Ethel Smyth.
- In the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Smith and Jones", the Tenth Doctor told his companion Martha Jones that Emmeline Pankhurst had stolen his laser spanner, while discussing the sonic screwdriver, and referred to her as a "cheeky woman".
- In Disney's Mary Poppins, Mrs. Banks sings "Take heart for Mrs. Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again!" in the song Sister Suffragette.
- In Helen Fielding's novel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Tom tries to convince Bridget to vote and says, "Go on then. Remember Mrs. Pankhurst."
- On the album Lifeblood by Manic Street Preachers, the song Emily pays tribute to her.
- Urban Splash named three blocks of ex-council flats close to Manchester city centre, "Emmeline", "Sylvia" and "Christabel" after the Pankhurst family
See also
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References
Notes
Bibliography
- Messinger, Gary S. (1985), Manchester in the Victorian age: the half-known city, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719018439
External links
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