Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960), suffragette, political activist, artist and writer

Abstract

In this article, a biographical overview is offered of the life of [Estelle] Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960), suffragette, political activist, artist and writer, in order to provide a context for her 1959 proposal for an Ethiopian women’s college, which is published for the first time in this journal. Sylvia, one of five children born in Manchester, England, grew up in a radical household where she not only attended political meetings but was exhorted to work for a more equal society. As a young woman, she trained as an artist but was soon drawn into the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) founded by her mother in 1903 to campaign for the parliamentary vote for women. Sylvia, a socialist feminist, often found herself at odds with the radical feminist, women‐centred views of her mother and her elder sister, Christabel, the Chief Organiser of the WSPU and their mother’s acknowledged favourite. The tensions between Sylvia and her relatives intensified during the First World War which they supported and she opposed. During the 1920s she became more revolutionary in her politics and in the 1930s increasingly involved in campaigning against fascism, especially in Ethiopia. After Ethiopia was liberated, she went to live there permanently with her son, Richard, in 1956. A crusader all her life, as well as a prolific writer, the publication of her proposal for an Ethiopian women’s college reveals yet another aspect of her diverse interests.

Notes

1. It was Emmeline who joined the ILP first.

2. The second son, ‘Harry’, died in January 1910

3. Christabel initiated this policy of independence from the ILP in 1906. However, many women on the left continued to work for the WSPU, especially at the local level, as in Liverpool. See Cowman (2002)

4. On the feminist approach of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst see, especially, Spender (1982), Sarah (1983) and Purvis (1996).

5. For further contrasts on the representation of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst in these two texts see Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst, Purvis (2003), Purvis and Wright (2005) and Purvis (2005).

6. R. [Pankhurst] to Lord Pethick Lawrence, 28 September 1960, Pethick‐Lawrence Papers, Trinity College, University of Cambridge.