Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), Suffragette Leader and Single Parent in Edwardian Britain

Abstract

This article explores the life of Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), the suffragette leader in Edwardian Britain, as a single parent, especially in regard to her youngest surviving child, Harry. After her husband’s death in 1898, Emmeline Pankhurst became an impoverished single parent with four dependent children to support—seventeen‐year‐old Christabel, sixteen‐year‐old Sylvia, thirteen‐year‐old Adela, and eight‐year‐old Harry. Five years later she founded and led the Women’s Social and Political Union, a militant women‐only organisation that campaigned for the parliamentary vote for women, and became a feminist public figure. The conflicts that she faced between her public duty to a cause she passionately believed in and her private role as a single parent are discussed.

Notes

[1] Christabel Pankhurst (1959) Unshackled: the story of how we won the vote (London: Hutchinson), p. 298. In this article I draw particularly upon my own book, June Purvis (2002) Emmeline Pankhurst: a biography (London: Routledge).

[2] Christabel Harriette was born on 22 September 1880, Estelle Sylvia on 5 May 1882, Henry Francis Robert (‘Frank’) on 27 February 1884, Adela Constantina Mary on 19 June 1885, and the last son, also called Henry Francis but known as ‘Harry’, on 7 July 1889.

[3] New York Herald and Evening Standard, 15 and 14 June 1928, respectively.

[4] The Times, 16 June 1928.

[5] Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled, p. 69.

[6] On this point see especially Leah Leneman (1991) A Guid Cause: the women’s suffrage movement in Scotland (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press), p. 52; Sandra Stanley Holton (1996) Suffrage Days: stories from the women’s suffrage movement (London and New York: Routledge), ch. 5; Krista Cowman (2002) ‘Incipient Toryism’? The Women’s Social and Political Union and the Independent Labour Party, 1903–14, History Workshop Journal, 53, pp. 129–148; Krista Cowman (2004) ‘Mrs. Brown is a Man and a Brother!’: women in Merseyside’s political organisations 1890–1920 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press).

[7] Quoted in Richard Pankhurst (1979) Sylvia Pankhurst: artist and crusader (New York and London: Paddington Press), p. 191.

[8] ‘“Eugenic” Baby Sensation. Sylvia Pankhurst’s Amazing Confession’, News of the World (8 April 1928); ‘Sylvia Pankhurst’s Baby Sensation. “Free Union” Secret of Suffragette. Revelation of Birth of a “Eugenic” Baby. Foreign Father. Sylvia Pankhurst Defends Her Love Compact’, Sunday Chronicle (8 April 1928).

[9] News of the World (8 April 1928). Unknown to Sylvia, news of her son’s birth had been kept from the increasingly frail Emmeline Pankhurst, for fear of its consequences.

[10] See June Purvis & Maureen Wright (2005) Writing Suffragette History: the contending autobiographical narratives of the Pankhursts, in June Purvis (Ed.) The Suffragette and Women’s History, Special Double Issue of Women’s History Review, 14 (3 & 4), pp. 416–421.

[11] E. Sylvia Pankhurst (1911) The Suffragette: the history of the women’s militant suffrage movement 1905–1910 (New York: Sturgis & Walton).

[12] E. Sylvia Pankhurst to Mary Gawthorpe, 12 June 1931, Mary Gawthorpe Papers, Tamiment Library, New York University.

[13] Hilda Kean (1994) Searching for the Past in Present Defeat: the construction of historical and political identity in British feminism in the 1920s and 1930s, Women’s History Review, 3(1), pp. 73–74.

[14] E. Sylvia Pankhurst (1931 and 1977) The Suffragette Movement, an intimate account of persons and ideals (London: Longman Group, reprint Virago), p. 264.

[15] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 320.

[16] George Dangerfield (1966, first published 1935) The Strange Death of Liberal England (London: MacGibbon & Kee); Roger Fulford (1957) Votes for Women (London: Faber & Faber).

[17] For a questioning approach see, for example, Kean, ‘Searching for the Past in Present Defeat’ and Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst.

[18] Martin Pugh (2002) The Pankhursts (Hardmondsworth: Penguin); Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled.

[19] Jill Craigie in a telephone conversation with June Purvis, 18 September 1998.

[20] Adela Pankhurst Walsh (1933) My Mother, an Explanation & Vindication, Adela Pankhurst Walsh Papers, National Library of Australia, Canberra, p. 2.

[21] Elsa Gye to Adela Pankhurst Walsh, 10 November 1934, Thomas Walsh and Adela Pankhurst Walsh Papers, National Library of Australia.

[22] Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled, p. 25.

[23] See Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst, chapters 3 and 4, pp. 25–50.

[24] Rebecca West (1931) Mrs. Pankhurst, in The Post Victorians, with an Introduction by The Very Rev. W. E. Inge (London: Ivor Nicholson), p. 483.

[25] Interview with Mrs. Pankhurst, The Women’s Herald (7 February 1891), pp. 241–242.

[26] Emmeline Pankhurst (1914) My Own Story (London, Eveleigh Nash), pp. 12–13.

[27] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, pp. 99 and 101.

[28] Ibid., p. 101.

[29] Ibid., p. 102.

[30] Ibid., p. 103.

[31] Ibid., p. 146.

[32] Ibid., p. 147.

[33] Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, p. 49.

[34] Ibid., pp. 17–18.

[35] Ibid., p. 4.

[36] Verna Coleman (1996) Adela Pankhurst: the wayward suffragette 1885–1961 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press).

[37] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 151.

[38] Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst, p. 54.

[39] Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled, p. 38.

[40] Jill Liddington (2006) Rebel Girls: their fight for the vote (London: Virago), p. 21, notes that according to the 1901 census, these persons, apart from Mary Clarke, were listed as living at 62 Nelson Street as well as a fourteen‐year‐old nephew, also called Herbert; Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst, p. 56.

[41] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 155.

[42] Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, p. 25.

[43] Ibid., p. 29.

[44] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 154; Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, pp. 28–29.

[45] Dr. Pankhurst Fund, List of subscriptions. The Dr. Pankhurst Fund, the Hon. Treasurer’s account of receipts and payments to 31 December 1899, lists the receipt as just over £1153; both in June Purvis, Private Suffrage Collection.

[46] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 27 November 1902, Purvis Collection.

[47] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 18 November 1902, Purvis Collection.

[48] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 27 November 1902, Purvis Collection.

[49] Mr Nodal to Emmeline Pankhurst, 29 November 1902, E. Sylvia Pankhurst Archive, the Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.

[50] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 29 November 1902, Purvis Collection.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 1 December 1902, Purvis Collection.

[53] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 28 December 1902, Purvis Collection.

[54] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 26 January 1903, Purvis Collection.

[55] Emmeline Pankhurst to Mr Nodal, 11 February 1903, Purvis Collection.

[56] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, pp. 154, 173 and 215; Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, pp. 28–29.

[57] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 155.

[58] Ibid., pp. 155–156.

[59] Report of the Executive Committee of the North of England Society for Women’s Suffrage, Presented at the annual meeting, 29 November 1901 (Manchester: Taylor, Garnett & Co.), p. 18, lists Emmeline’s and Christabel’s subscription at 5 shillings and 10 shillings, respectively; Report of the Executive Committee of the North of England Society for Women’s Suffrage, Presented at the annual meeting, 24 November 1902 (Manchester: ‘Guardian’ General Printing Works), p. 10.

[60] Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story, p. 37.

[61] Ibid., p. 36.

[62] Ibid., p. 38.

[63] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, pp. 215–216; E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst: the suffragette struggle for women’s citizenship (London: T. Werner Laurie), p. 60.

[64] Adela Pankhurst Walsh (n.d.) The Philosophy of the Suffragette Movement, National Library of Australia, Canberra, p. 15; Adela Pankhurst Walsh, Looking Backwards, Stead’s Review, 1 February 1929, p. 6.

[65] David Mitchell interview with Teresa Billington‐Greig, 12 September 1964, David Mitchell Collection, Museum of London, ‘I always said—I could be cruel sometimes—that he [Harry] was the only girl in the family’.

[66] Labour Record, April 1907.

[67] ‘Mrs. Pankhurst’s Post’, Daily Chronicle (23 March 1907); Registrar General to Emmeline Pankhust, 4 March 1907, Jill Craigie Collection, The Women’s Library (WL), London Metropolitan University.

[68] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 273.

[69] Ibid., pp. 273–274; Antonia Raeburn (1973) The Militant Suffragettes (London: Michael Joseph), p. 125; Shirley Harrison (2003) Sylvia Pankhurst: a crusading life 1882–1960 (London: Arum Press), p. 96.

[70] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 274.

[71] Ibid., p. 306.

[72] Emmeline Pankhurst to Dr Mills, 1 April 1909, WL.

[73] Emmeline Pankhurst to Dr Mills, 7 May 1909, WL.

[74] Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled, p. 147.

[75] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 306.

[76] Mary Richardson (1953) Laugh A Defiance (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson), p. 1.

[77] Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst, p. 129. Sylvia’s claim in The Suffragette Movement, p. 306, that Emmeline ‘brushed’ aside advice from Dr Mills that Harry was ‘too delicate’ to return to the hard toil of the farm must be questioned. As we have seen, Emmeline in her letter dated 1 April 1909 to Dr Mills sought his advice and was unlikely to have acted against it.

[78] Emmeline Pankhurst to Miss Birnstingl, 30 July 1909, Craigie Collection, WL.

[79] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 320. Sylvia in her chapter titled ‘Sylvia Pankhurst’, in The Countess of Oxford and Asquith (Ed.) (1938) Myself When Young (London: Frederick Muller), p. 295, gives a different account of this event, stating ‘A telegram summoned me to London’.

[80] Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, p. 48.

[81] Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled, p. 137.

[82] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 320. Harrison, Sylvia Pankhurst, p. 108, supports Sylvia’s account, suggesting that Emmeline Pankhurst was ‘Not a natural carer and uneasy with the sick, she managed to salve her conscience by persuading herself that the trip would raise funds for Harry’s health care’.

[83] Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, pp. 47–48.

[84] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst, p. 93.

[85] Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story, p. 160.

[86] The Woman’s Journal (Boston), 30 October 1909.

[87] Christabel Pankhurst to Dr Mills, 4 October 1909, WL.

[88] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst, p. 94.

[89] Votes for Women (17 December 1909), p. 181.

[90] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 321.

[91] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst, p. 94.

[92] Votes for Women (31 and 24 December 1909), pp. 210 and 200, respectively.

[93] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 323.

[94] Jill Craigie interview with Grace Roe [1975?], Craigie Collection.

[95] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 323.

[96] Emmeline Pankhurst to Miss Robins, 31 December 1909, Robins Papers, Harry Ranson Humanities Research Centre (HRHRC), University of Texas at Austin.

[97] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 324.

[98] Quoted in Elizabeth Crawford (1999) The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide 1866–1828 (London: UCL Press), p. 506.

[99] Patricia W. Romero (1987) E. Sylvia Pankhurst, portrait of a radical (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), p. 51; Pugh, The Pankhursts, p. 206.

[100] E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, p. 324.

[101] Evelyn Sharp (1930) Emmeline Pankhurst and Militant Suffrage, Nineteenth Century, April, p. 516.

[102] Una Dugdale (n.d.) Memories of Mrs. Pankhurst, Purvis Collection.

[103] Andrew Rosen (1957) Rise up Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union 1903–1914 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p. 130.

[104] Emmeline Pankhurst to Elizabeth Robins, 3 February 1910, Robins Papers, HRHRC.

[105] Emmeline Pankhurst to Elizabeth Robins, 6 February 1910, Robins Papers, HRHRC.

[106] Adela Pankhurst Walsh, ‘My Mother’, pp. 48–49.