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The Great Leader Series No. 23 - Emmilene Pankhurst
As a young woman in the 1970s and the age of ‘Women’s Lib’, it would have been impossible for me to have not been aware of the battle for ‘equality for women, the symbolic burning of bras and the fight for equal pay and pensions. However it seemed then, that many campaigners were unaware of the battles that had gone before paving the way for their freedom to campaign. Although there are still many battles left to fight, we at least have a small voice in parliament. The 15 July 2009 will see a wreath laying at the statue of one of the great leaders of the suffragette movement to mark the anniversary of her birth. My Great Leader this time is Emmeline Pankhurst.
Emmeline Goulden was born in Manchester in July1858, the daughter of Robert Goulden and Sophia Crane. Her parents held radical views. He father took part in campaigns against slavery and the Corn Laws and her mother was an ardent feminist and she took her daughter to women’s suffrage meetings in the early 1870s.
After a short period of education in Manchester, Emmeline was sent to Paris, to finishing school, at the age of fifteen. After her return from school, in 1878, she met lawyer, Richard Marsden Pankhurst. He was a prominent lawyer, some twenty four years older than she. He was a committed socialist and a supporter of women’s suffrage. He had been responsible for drafting an amendment to the Municipal Corporation Bill of 1869. This meant that unmarried women householders were allowed to vote on local elections. He was also the main person responsible for the drafting the women’s property bill which passed by Parliament in 1870.
There was a mutual attraction between Richard and Emmeline and Robert Goulden gave permission for them to marry.
In the first six years of the marriage Emmeline gave birth to four children: Christabel, Sylvia, Frank and Adela. Sadly Frank died as a child. During these years Richard and Emmeline continued with their involvement in the struggle for women’s rights and in 1889 helped form the Women’s Franchise League, a pressure group. Four years before that Emmeline became a Poor Law Guardian. This work involved making regular visits to the Work House. What she saw on the visits deeply shocked her. She was particularly distressed by the way women were treated and this compounded her feelings that Women’s Suffrage was the only way the problem could be solved. Richard and Emmeline were active members of the Independent Labour Party and Richard made several attempts to be elected as an MP, unsuccessfully.
Sadly in 1898 Richard developed a perforated ulcer and died.
Emmeline continued her involvement with politics, becoming gradually disillusioned with the existing women’s political movements. In 1903 she started a new and, hopefully more vigorous organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union [WSPU], her aim being to recruit working class women to fight for the vote.
In1905, when the media was showing a distinct apathy for votes for women, the WSPU decided that different ways of attracting public attention were needed. A meeting was held 13 October 1905, with a speech given by a British minister, Sir Edward Grey. Throughout the meeting Cristabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney two members of the WSPU, heckled the speaker asking if a Liberal government would give votes to women? When they refused to be quiet or leave the hall voluntarily the police were asked to remove them. They did not go without a fight, which resulted with them being arrested and charged with assault.
 They refused to pay the fine of five shillings [25p] and were sent to prison. The event shocked the country as never before had British women used violence to try to obtain the vote.
Around this time, [there is difference in the source materials 1905 or 1906] Emmeline moved to London to be nearer her daughters and to join the struggle in London. From the London Headquarters of the WSPU, with her daughters Cristabel and Sylvia, she organised military exploits to gain attention for their cause. During the next seven years she imprisoned many times, inspiring other women to join the fight.
Many of the suffragettes, when imprisoned, went on hunger strike. To begin with the authorities attempted to force feed these women, which was very unpleasant for both sides but the authorities were concerned that women would become seriously unwell or even die whilst in custody, gaining sympathy for the suffragettes.
Their next tactics became known as ‘cat and mouse’. Hunger strikers were released when they became unwell to allow them to regain their health. They were watched. When they had recuperated, the police rearrested them, returned them to prison until they had served their sentence. This could result in repeated arrests and releases for one sentence. The women’s health suffered badly. In one eighteen month period Emmeline went through ten hunger strikes.
From 1912 the WSPU became ever more violent. Cristabel directed arson attacks, window smashing, picture slashing and hunger strikes from Paris, where she had fled to avoid arrest for conspiracy.
When the First World War broke out, the suffragettes’ leaders put their own hostilities to one side in order to help the war effort. The government released all suffragette prisoners.
During the war Emmeline visited the USA, Canada and Russia to encourage the mobilisation of women. After the war she lived for a while in the USA, Canada and Bermuda.
In 1917 the WSPU became known as the Women’s Party and the following year the Representation of the People’s Act gave women over thirty the vote.
1926 saw Emmeline return to England were she was adopted as the Conservative candidate for an east London seat but her health failed before she could be elected.
She died on 14 June 1928 just a few weeks after the Representation of the People’s Act established voting equality for men and women.
So why did I choose my heroine to be this month’s Great Leader. Unlike other great leaders of modern times, [Ghandi and Martin Luther King], she advocated violence. Emmeline Pankhurst was fighting social injustice and an intransigent government, run by men for men. For years only a few people were prepared to take up the cudgel to fight for common decency for a gender who barely managed to survive through dirt, starvation and degradation.
Emmeline Pankhurst was inspirational. She inspired women of middle and upper classes to help those less fortunate. They were law abiding citizens, subservient the men in their lives and they risked their names, status, imprisonment, violence from prison staff, divorce and, the case of Emily Davison, death.
Emmeline fought almost single mindedly for what she believed. This does not mean that I approve of violence or aggravated protests but I have admiration for the tenacity and the inspiration Emmeline Pankhurst displayed. Fighting against a chauvinistic establishment when everything you have belongs to men must have been a daunting prospect. Shock tactics must have appeared the only solution.
Bibliography
Story By: Anne Walker
Date : 22-07-2009
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