Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Christabel Pankhurst
-
Standard Name: Pankhurst, Christabel
Birth Name: Christabel Harriette Pankhurst
CP
's early writing career was devoted to advancing the cause of militant suffragism; the second half of her career marked a shift to religious radicalism formed in part by her experience of the first world war.
"Christabel Pankhurst" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Christabel_Pankhurst%2C_c.1913._%2822322829053%29.jpg/709px-Christabel_Pankhurst%2C_c.1913._%2822322829053%29.jpg.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
SP
was born, the middle daughter in a famous family; her four siblings included Christabel
, Adela
, and two brothers who died relatively young.
Romero, Patricia W. E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical. Yale University Press, 1987.
7
Mitchell, David J. The Fighting Pankhursts: A Study in Tenacity. MacMillan, 1967.
254
death
Ethel Smyth
She appointed Christopher St John
as her literary executor. At the request of Christabel Pankhurst
, St John downplayed ES
's role in the suffrage movement when she wrote her biography.
Mitchell, David J. The Fighting Pankhursts: A Study in Tenacity. MacMillan, 1967.
306
St John, Christopher. Ethel Smyth. Longmans, Green, 1959.
xvii
Education
Margaret Forster
She found Girton unexpectedly ugly, vast and chilling and gloomy.
Forster, Margaret. Hidden Lives. Viking, 1995.
233
It felt like a prison, whereas Somerville was merely disappointingly modern-looking but at least quite unthreatening.
By this time Marsden was earning an annual salary of £108. She resigned from the Union after one of its central committees (which included Christabel Pankhurst
, Emmeline Pankhurst
, and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
) refused...
Family and Intimate relationships
Emmeline Pankhurst
EP
's husband, Richard Pankhurst
, died suddenly from perforated stomach ulcers while she and her daughter Christabel
were visiting Geneva.
Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst. Kraus Reprint, 1969.
40-1
Mitchell, David J. The Fighting Pankhursts: A Study in Tenacity. MacMillan, 1967.
26
Family and Intimate relationships
Emmeline Pankhurst
EP
gave birth to five children in all, four of them within five years. The two eldest, Christabel Harriette
(born in September 1880) and Estelle Sylvia
(born in May 1882), became, like their mother, high-profile...
Family and Intimate relationships
Emmeline Pankhurst
By 1913, EP
had moved to live with composer Ethel Smyth
at her cottage in Woking. The latter hints at a sexual relationship in her book Female Pipings in Eden and suggests that this...
Family and Intimate relationships
Emmeline Pankhurst
She intended to spearhead a campaign to provide a better start in life for the illegitimate children of soldiers and reluctant mothers. (Ethel Smyth
tried to dissuade her, took it philosophically when she was...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sylvia Pankhurst
SP
was officially expelled from the WSPU
for her socialist activities, an exclusion which she fought in various ways; this cemented her split from her mother
and sister
.
Winslow, Barbara, and Sheila Rowbotham. Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics and Political Activism. UCL Press, 1996.
66-7
Family and Intimate relationships
Sylvia Pankhurst
SP
's mother was the famous suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst
. She was twenty years younger than her husband, and joined in his enthusiastic political campaigns before becoming involved in politics on her own. Sylvia always...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sylvia Pankhurst
SP
had a serious falling-out with her mother and her elder sister Christabel
when they supported Britain's military efforts during the First World War. Her views on socialism and feminism, which diverged considerably from her...
She became a close friend of Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson
, of Hertha Ayrton
, physicist and suffragist, and of Ayrton's daughter, Barbara Gould
. These two women, mother and daughter, embodied a thread linking...
Friends, Associates
Mary Gawthorpe
During her time with the WSPU, MG
worked with Christabel Pankhurst
(who was twenty-four when Gawthorpe first met her, before she had yet met Isabella Ford
), whom, like Ethel Snowden
, she knew from...
Timeline
1866
The Royal Society of Arts established a scheme (believed to be the first in the world) for setting up commemorative plaques on buildings associated with famous people.
Quinn, Ben. “Plaque blues. Cuts hit heritage scheme”. Guardian Weekly, p. 16.
The Women's Franchise began weekly publication in London; it featured contributions from major societies within the suffrage movement and from individuals.
The Women's Social and Political Union
organised a Woman's Sunday which involved (according to the Times estimate) between 250,000 and 500,000 people, mostly women. The WSPU called it Britain's largest-ever political meeting.
27 July 1911
The Women's Franchise, which featured contributions from major societies within the suffrage movement and from individuals, ceased publication in London.