Emmeline Pankhurst

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Standard Name: Pankhurst, Emmeline
Birth Name: Emmeline Goulden
Married Name: Emmeline Pankhurst
EP 's writings, produced during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, range from published political speeches to autobiography. All concern her lifelong struggle for women's emancipation.
Sepia photograph of Emmeline Pankhurst, seated in a carved high-backed chair. She is wearing a white lacy button-up shirt with a high neck and bow at the collar, tucked into a black skirt with a high waist. She is wearing a long necklace, has short curly hair, and holds a pen in the hand which rests on her lap. Her expression is challenging.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Amber Reeves
Born a New Zealander, she clearly regarded herself later in life as English. Her parents were highly educated professionals. Her mother was a suffragist, and both parents became members of the Fabian Society (founded three...
Cultural formation Gladys Henrietta Schütze
GHS involved herself with the Liberal Party in about 1906, and the Women's Social and Political Union soon afterwards. She worked with the Pankhursts and militant suffragettes. During World War One, prejudice against her husband's...
Education Phyllis Bentley
Bentley was the first person in her family to receive such an extensive and expensive education: none of her brothers went beyond the secondary school level, and it was understood that Cheltenham was preparation for...
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 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 Lydia Becker
One of LB 's allies in Manchester suffrage politics was Richard Pankhurst . Her letters suggest that she found him congenial and entertaining. Possibly hostile rumours later suggested that she hoped to marry him, and...
Family and Intimate relationships Katharine Bruce Glasier
Largely because of KBG 's feelings on the subject, the couple initially planned not to have children, so that they could both continue to devote their lives to the socialist cause. But KBG's mind was...
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
Because of political differences and the scandalous birth of her illegitimate child, SP was not permitted to visit when her mother was dying; Emmeline never met her grandson.
Romero, Patricia W. E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical. Yale University Press, 1987.
5-7, 16-17, 25, 168
Family and Intimate relationships Sylvia Pankhurst
From this point the East London Federation of Suffragettes dropped its connection with the WSPU. In 1916, on hearing about an anti-conscription rally organized by Sylvia, Emmeline Pankhurst cabled from America: Strongly repudiate Sylvia's foolish...
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 Muriel Spark
MS 's maternal grandparents lived over her grandmother's shop at 288 High Street, Watford, where Muriel spent summer holidays as a child. This grandmother, Adelaide Uezzell , had been a suffragette and an acquaintance...
Family and Intimate relationships Christabel Pankhurst
CP adopted Betty (Elizabeth Tudor), one of the four war babies previously adopted by her mother .
Purvis, June. Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge, 2002.
300
Mitchell, David J. Queen Christabel: A Biography of Christabel Pankhurst. Macdonald and Jane’s, 1977.
250, 261-3
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Gawthorpe
Just before this family drama MG had acquired a boyfriend. He has been identified as T. B. (Tom) Garrs , a compositor on the Yorkshire Post and an enthusiast about music, whom she had met...
Family and Intimate relationships Christabel Pankhurst
CP 's mother was the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst . CP enjoyed a very close relationship with her mother, which had the effect of excluding her next sister, Sylvia .
Castle, Barbara. Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst. Penguin, 1987.
18
Mitchell, David J. The Fighting Pankhursts: A Study in Tenacity. MacMillan, 1967.
40

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.
18 August 1882
The Married Women's Property Act gave women the right to all the property they earned or acquired before or during marriage.
10 December 1884
The Representation of the People Act, sometimes called the Third Reform Act, extended the male-only franchise.
25 July 1889
The Women's Franchise League , an organisation committed to including married women in future women's suffrage proposals, was formed in London by Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy , Alice Scatcherd , and Harriet M'Ilquham and others.
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.
18 September 1909
Women's Social and Political Union members Mary Leigh and Charlotte Marsh , imprisoned in Winson Green , Birmingham, began fasting; they were ordered by Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone to be forcibly fed.
27 July 1911
The Women's Franchise, which featured contributions from major societies within the suffrage movement and from individuals, ceased publication in London.
25 April 1913
The Cat and Mouse Act (Prisoners' Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act) received royal assent; the Act empowered authorities to release hunger-strikers from prison long enough for them to regain their health, after which they were...
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.
November 1917
The Women's Social and Political Union became the Women's Party .
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.
6 July 1928
Four days after the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act received the royal assent, a celebratory breakfast was held at the Hotel Cecil in London.