Emmeline Pankhurst

Statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament, Westminster. (January 2006)

Emmeline Pankhurst (or Emily Dufton)(July 14, 1858 – June 14, 1928) was one of the founders of the British suffragette movement and one of Britain's most influential women. More than any other, the name "Mrs Pankhurst" is associated with the struggle for the enfranchisement of British women in the period immediately preceding World War I.

Early Years

She was born Emmeline Goulden in Manchester, England to abolitionist and successful businessman Robert Goulden and feminist Sophia Crane. Emmeline's mother began taking her to suffrage meetings when she was a young teenager.

Even though her parents had very progressive ideas in the political arena, their ideas about education were conventional. After attending school in Manchester, at the age of fifteen her parents sent her to a finishing school in Paris.

Adult Life

Emmeline returned to Manchester from Paris in 1878. Shortly there after, she met Dr.Richard Marsden Pankhurst, a lawyer and committed socialist. Dr. Pankhurst was already a supporter of the women's suffrage movement. He had drafted an amendment to the Municipal Corporation Bill of 1869 that gave unmarried women heads of househod the right to vote in local elections and had been the author of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882.

In spite of a twenty one year age difference, Richard and Emmeline were attracted to one another. Her father, Richard Goulden gave his blessing and the couple married in Salford in 1879.

Four children were born to Richard and Emmeline in the first six years of their marriage. They were Christabel, (born 1880), Sylvia (born 1882), Friank (born 1884 and Adela (born 1885).

Leadership Role in Suffrage

In 1889, Mrs. Pankhurst founded the Women's Franchise League, a pressure group. As a Poor Law Guardian, Emmeline made regular visits in 1895 to a local workhouse. She was shocked by the miserable conditions and suffering of the inmates. Her concern about the treatment of the women served to reinforce her conviction that women's suffrage was the answer to solving these societal problems.

Both Richard and Emmeline were very active in the Independent Labour Party. Richard ran unsuccessfully several times for the House of Commons. Sadly, his political career, Emmeline's activism and their life together was interrupted when Richard fell ill and died of a perforated ulcer in 1898.

In 1903 she founded the better-known Women's Social and Political Union. The organization was most famous for its militancy which began in 1905. 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 Smyth. She was joined in the movement by her daughters, Christabel Pankhurst and Sylvia Pankhurst, both of whom made a substantial contribution to the campaign in different ways.

Pankhurst's younger daughter, Adela Pankhurst emigrated to Australia where she was politically active first in the Communist Party of Australia and then the fascist Australia First Movement.

Mrs Pankhurst's tactics for drawing attention to the movement led to her being imprisoned several times. Because of her high profile, at first she did not endure the same deprivations as many of the imprisoned working-class suffragettes. However, she did experience force-feeding after going on hunger strike on various occasions. 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.

In 1914, the First World War broke out, and she 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 back up from David Lloyd George, she organised a parade of 30,000 women, using £2,000 funding from the government, to encourage employers to let women take over men's jobs in industry. In 1916, this allowed the government to draft all able-bodied men into the armed services. It is frequently alleged that suffragettes had earlier been involved in the "White Feather Campaign" which involved shaming of men in the UK to fight in the First World War in which 702,000 men from the UK died and many more were injured; however, there is no concrete evidence of this.

"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" (Pankhurst, Sylvia 593).

Enlistment of the unenlisted was of the highest priority. As Sylvia Pankhurst points 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:

On September 8, 1914, Christabel re-appeared at the London Opera House, after her long exile, to utter a declaration, not on women’s enfranchisement, but on "The German Peril". Mrs. Pankhurst toured the country, making recruiting speeches. Her supporters handed the white feather to every young man they encountered wearing civilian dress, and bobbed up at Hyde Park meetings with placards: "Intern Them All".

Britain started to implement voting rights for women, in the same year as Ireland, in March 1918. While the Representation of the People Act 1918 only gave voting rights to women over 30, and that with a property qualification, while 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. This led to a situation where a woman could be an MP even though she was too young to vote. Women finally achieved equal voting rights to men in the UK in 1928.

Emmeline Pankhurst died at the age of 69, ten years after seeing her most ardently pursued goal come to fruition.

Writings (selection)

• 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 in the redwoods hehe Publishing Group, 1985.

Secondary literature

• 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

Rockstars have kidnapped my son!!

See also

• Pankhurst Centre in Manchester
• Marriage to Dr Richard Pankhurst, 1879

References

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