Christabel Pankhurst

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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.
Black and white photograph of young Christabel Pankhurst, standing in a garden with roses and other flowering plants behind her. She has her hands behind her back and one knee bent under a long flowing dress with draped skirt over pleated under-skirt, and a thick dark waistband. She has jaw-length wavy hair and her face is turned up as if to look at the sky.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Birth Sylvia Pankhurst
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.
Forster, Margaret. Hidden Lives. Viking, 1995.
234
Her interview with the Principal, Dame Janet Vaughan
Employer Dora Marsden
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 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...
Family and Intimate relationships Dorothy Richardson
DR began a close friendship with Veronica Leslie-Jones , a militant suffragette and friend of the PankhurstsChristabel PankhurstSylvia Pankhurst ; this introduction was the most significant result for her of participating in the Arachne Club .
Fromm, Gloria G. Dorothy Richardson: A Biography. University of Illinois Press, 1977.
43, 50-1
Winning, Joanne. The Pilgrimage of Dorothy Richardson. University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
23
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
Friends, Associates Eva Gore-Booth
In 1901 future suffrage leader Christabel Pankhurst met Esther Roper at a meeting of the North of England Society for Women's Suffrage (NESWS ). Roper introduced Pankhurst to EGB immediately after this, and the...
Friends, Associates Gladys Henrietta Schütze
Through her early mentor W. Pett RidgeGHS met various literary men: W. W. Jacobs , Barry Pain , Jerome K. Jerome , Hugh Walpole , and Ernest Temple Thurston . Pett Ridge (P...
Friends, Associates Evelyn Sharp
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...

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.
11 December 1906
Millicent Garrett Fawcett gave a banquet at the Savoy Hotel in London to celebrate the release from Holloway Prison of suffragists arrested on 23 October.
27 June 1907
The Women's Franchise began weekly publication in London; it featured contributions from major societies within the suffrage movement and from individuals.
October 1907
Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence , wanting to maintain control over the Women's Social and Political Union agenda, removed by fiat dissident members of the executive and cancelled the forthcoming annual conference.
November 1907
Charlotte Despard and Teresa Billington Greig left the Women's Social and Political Union to form the Women's Freedom League .
21 June 1908
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.
Earlier 1913
The Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases was published.
9 October 1915
Christabel Pankhurst , Emmeline Pankhurst , Flora Drummond , and Annie Kenney edited the first issue of Britannia, a weekly suffragette periodical and organ of the Women's Social and Political Union formerly known as The Suffragette.
20 December 1918
Britannia, a suffragette magazine which had opted to support Britain's military efforts during the First World War, ended publication in London.
July 1945
Journalist Barbara Castle was elected a Labour member of the British Parliament , where she served for thirty-four years.
15 October 1964
The Labour Party came to precarious power in the general election by a majority of four seats; next day Harold Wilson became Prime Minister.
14 July 2006
The Bow Street Magistrates Court , one of London's most famous courts, closed after dispensing justice for 267 years.

Texts

Pankhurst, Christabel. Some Modern Problems in the Light of Bible Prophecy. Fleming H. Revell, 1924.
Pankhurst, Christabel. “The Great Scourge and How to End It”. Suffrage and the Pankhursts, edited by Jane Marcus, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987, pp. 187-40.
Pankhurst, Christabel. “The Legal Disabilities of Women”. The Case for Women’s Suffrage, edited by Frederick John Shaw, T. F. Unwin, 1907, pp. 84-98.
Pankhurst, Christabel. “The Militant Methods of the N. W. S. P. U”. Suffrage and the Pankhursts, edited by Jane Marcus, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987, pp. 34-50.
Pankhurst, Christabel, editor. The Suffragette.
Pankhurst, Christabel. The World’s Unrest: Visions of the Dawn. Morgan and Scott, 1926.
Pankhurst, Christabel. Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote. Editor Pethick-Lawrence, Frederick William, Hutchinson, 1959.