BACKGROUND:
Together with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. Already prominent in the women’s movement, Emmeline had become frustrated with the slow progress towards suffrage. The WSPU’s motto, ‘Deeds, not words’, sums up the Pankhurst approach, and in 1905, the WSPU’s campaign of militancy began. All three women were jailed after refusing to pay fines for such offences as arson attacks and window- breaking. Once in jail, hunger strikes and force-feeding drew further attention to their cause.

The outbreak of war in 1914 brought about a radical change, with the WSPU switching its energies into patriotic support of the war effort. Women were urged to take men’s jobs, and the WSPU’s newspaper changed its name from The Suffragette to Britannia. By this time, the WSPU was completely in the hands of Emmeline and Christabel; Sylvia, still a socialist and also a pacifist, was appalled at the war and the WSPU’s jingoism. In 1918, women aged 30 and over were given the vote; however, it was not until the 1928 Equal Franchise Act that women were given an equal vote. I

INFLUENCE:
Emmeline’s mother had been an ardent feminist, and introduced her to women’s suffrage meetings. In 1879, Emmeline married Richard Pankhurst – a leading radical lawyer, who was active in women’s rights and drafted the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882. Despite having five children, she remained politically active, becoming a Poor Law Guardian in 1895. Christabel was very like Emmeline – a born leader, who could be dictatorial in her methods. She took a law degree, but was prevented from practising as a barrister because she was female. Sylvia, a gifted artist and writer, was more like her father and always remained true to his socialist principles.

IMPACT:
There is no doubt that WSPU’s militant actions gave enormous publicity to the cause of women’s suffrage – a movement that had existed for years without making much progress. The fact that the Pankhursts were known in society made their actions even more newsworthy. The three commanded enormous respect for their bravery, e.g. in withstanding the cruelty of the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, which enabled the authorities to free prisoners on hunger strike, then arrest them again once they had regained their health. The brutality of the suffragettes’ treatment in jail shocked the public, many of whom had been unaware of the harsh conditions experienced by working class, poor female offenders. Sylvia wanted to focus her efforts on the poor, but Christabel convinced her mother that the way to political success  was to marshal support from prosperous, not working class women.

The WSPU had a darker side, however. During the war, members were active in the ‘white feather campaign’, whereby women would hand out white feathers to men in civilian dress to shame them into going to war. This undoubtedly led many men to their deaths. What became of the Pankhurst women? Emmeline, despite her earlier radicalism, became a Conservative MP in 1925, with an anti-trade union platform. Christabel went to the US, where she became an evangelist and lectured on the Second Coming.

Sylvia remained a socialist throughout her life, was friendly with labour leader Kier Hardy, and was influential in the international communist movement. She started her own newspaper, Women’s Dreadnought, which had a wide circulation. Anti-marriage, she refused to marry her son’s father and thereby fell out permanently with her mother. An ardent anti-fascist and anti-colonialist, Sylvia opposed the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and supported Haile Selassie, eventually moving to Addis Ababa.

LEGACY:
Women today, who expect equality as a right, owe a debt of gratitude to the Pankhursts. Emmeline’s and Christabel’s demands for ‘equal pay for equal work, equal marriage and divorce laws, the same rights over children for both parents, equality of rights and opportunities in public service, and a system of maternity benefits’ (1917) seem remarkably modern.

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