Background

Ethnicity: Emmeline Pankhurst was of Manx and English descent.

Emmeline Pankhurst was born Emiline Goulden on either July 14 or 15, 1858, in Manchester, United Kingdom. Her birth certificate said July 15, but the document wasn’t filed until four months after her birth, and Pankhurst always stated she was born on July 14. She was the eldest daughter of 10 children, grew up in a politically active family. Her parents were both abolitionists and supporters of female suffrage; Goulden was 14 when her mother took her to her first women’s suffrage meeting. However, Goulden chafed at the fact that her parents prioritized their sons' education and advancement over hers. Pankhurst's mother, Sophia Craine, was a Manx woman from the Isle of Man who was descended from men who were charged with social unrest and slander. Her father, Robert Goulden, came from a modest politically active Manchester merchant family.

Education

Despite being academically gifted, she did not receive the same education as her brothers. Although her parents supported women's suffrage and the general advancement of women in society, they believed that the most important part of a girl's education were the skills needed to make a home for her family. At age 15, Pankhurst left home to attend the École Normale de Neuilly.

Career

After her return from France and subsequent marriage, despite her children and other household responsibilities, Pankhurst remained involved in politics, campaigning for her husband during his unsuccessful runs for Parliament and hosting political gatherings at their home.

In 1889, Pankhurst founded the Women’s Franchise League, which secured (1894) for married women the right to vote in elections to local offices (not to the House of Commons). From 1895 she held a succession of municipal offices in Manchester, but her energies were increasingly in demand by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), which she founded in 1903 in Manchester. The union first attracted wide attention on October 13, 1905, when two of its members, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, thrown out of a Liberal Party meeting for demanding a statement about votes for women, were arrested in the street for a technical assault on the police and, after refusing to pay fines, were sent to prison.

From 1906 Emmeline Pankhurst directed WSPU activities from London. In 1908-1909 Pankhurst was jailed three times, once for issuing a leaflet calling on the people to "rush the House of Commons." A truce that she declared in 1910 was broken when the government blocked a "conciliation" bill on woman suffrage. From July 1912 the WSPU turned to extreme militancy, mainly in the form of arson directed by Christabel from Paris, where she had gone to avoid arrest for conspiracy. Pankhurst herself was imprisoned, and, under the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act of 1913 (the "Cat and Mouse Act"), by which hunger-striking prisoners could be freed for a time and then reincarcerated upon regaining their health to some extent, she was released and rearrested 12 times within a year, serving a total of about 30 days. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, she and Christabel called off the suffrage campaign, and the government released all suffragist prisoners.

During the war, Pankhurst, who previously had made three tours of the United States to lecture on woman suffrage, visited the United States, Canada, and Russia to encourage the industrial mobilization of women. She lived in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda for several years after the war. In 1926, upon returning to England, she was chosen Conservative candidate for an east London constituency, but her health failed before she could be elected. The Representation of the People Act of 1928, establishing voting equality for men and women, was passed a few weeks after her death. Pankhurst’s autobiography, My Own Story, appeared in 1914.

Achievements

• Emmeline Pankhurst did not live to see it, but on July 2, 1928, Parliament gave women voting rights on par with those of their male counterparts which was due to her efforts.
  
  On February 6, 2018, the United Kingdom commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act with a speech by Prime Minister Theresa May and a series of public exhibitions. However, some felt the tributes weren't enough, with Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn among those calling for official pardons for more than 1,000 suffragettes imprisoned for their activism a century earlier.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Suffragette: The Autobiography of Emmeline Pankhurst

    (Emmeline Pankhurst was a leader of the British suffrage m...)

    1994

Religion

Emmeline Pankhurst was Christian and more specifically Anglican, which impacted her views on politics and morality.

Politics

Emmeline Pankhurst was a member of the Conservative Party (previously running her own Women's Party). Regarding the Liberal government as the main obstacle to woman suffrage, Pankhurst campaigned against the party’s candidates at elections, and her followers interrupted meetings of cabinet ministers.

Views

Coping with straitened circumstances and grief consumed much of Pankhurst’s attention for the next several years. However, she retained a passion for women’s rights, and in 1903 she decided to create a new women-only group focused solely on voting rights, the Women's Social and Political Union. The WSPU’s slogan was "Deeds Not Words."

In 1905, Pankhurst’s daughter Christabel and fellow WSPU member Annie Kenney went to a meeting to demand if the Liberal party would support women’s suffrage. After a confrontation with the police, both women were arrested. The attention and interest that followed this arrest encouraged Pankhurst to have the WSPU follow a more combative path than other suffrage groups.

At first the WSPU’s "militancy" consisted of buttonholing politicians and holding rallies. Still, following these tactics led to members of Pankhurst’s group being arrested and imprisoned (Pankhurst herself was first sent behind bars in 1908). The Daily Mail soon dubbed Pankhurst’s group "suffragettes," as opposed to the "suffragists," who also wanted women to be able to vote in the United Kingdom, but who followed less confrontational channels.

Personality

Emmeline Pankhurst’s strong determination to obtain women’s rights shows that despite the difficulties and societal norms of the time, a woman can achieve a great deal. She is a great example of a woman’s strong-will. Her radical ideas, such as the hunger strikes and the militant tactics, represent her ability to look outside the box and create new forms of protest without harming civilians. These methods drew the public to pay attention to women’s actions.

Interests

• Writers

  Homer, John Bunyan, Thomas Carlyle

Connections

After studying in Paris, Emmeline Goulden returned to Manchester, where she met Doctor Richard Pankhurst in 1878. Richard was a lawyer who supported a number of radical causes, including women’s suffrage. Though he was 24 years older than Goulden, the two married in December 1879, and Goulden became Emmeline Pankhurst. Over the next decade, Pankhurst gave birth to five children: daughters Christabel, Sylvia and Adela, and sons Frank (who died in childhood), and Harry. Her husband encouraged Pankhurst in these endeavors until his death in 1898.

Father:

Robert Goulden

Mother:

Sophia Craine

husband:

Richard Pankhurst

Daughter:

Christabel Pankhurst

Daughter:

Sylvia Pankhurst

Daughter:

Adela Pankhurst

Son:

Frank Pankhurst

Son:

Harry Pankhurst

Acquaintance:

Alexander Kerensky

Friend:

James Hardie

References

• Emmeline Pankhurst
  2017
• Emmeline Pankhurst
  2010
• The Life Of Emmeline Pankhurst: The Suffragette Struggle For Women's Citizenship
  2010
• Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography
  2001
• The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910
  2008
• Emmeline Pankhurst: British Political leader
  2017