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About the Pankhursts
by Virginia Holbrook
When Urban Splash obtained the
The Pankhurst family were middle class and political. Richard Pankhurst, the father, was a talented lawyer and framed several pieces of legislation which advanced the position of women in Victorian England, The Municipal Corporation Bill amendment (1869), which allowed women householders to vote in local elections and more importantly The Married Womans Property Act (1882), which recognised women and their property rather than considering them to be possessions of their husband or father.
Emmeline and Richard had a happy marriage and were busy in one campaign after another reforming conditions for the poor, representing working people politically and they campaigned ceaselessly on the issue of women's suffrage. When Richard died in 1898 Emmeline was devastated. Richard's lifetime of ethical and campaigning work meant that he had not made much money and in fact several high paying clients had sacked him directly because of his politics. Left alone with five children, Mrs Pankhurst had it all to do. As well as running a shop "Emmersons" on King St, Manchester and acting as part time registrar, she threw herself into her political work not just because she believed in it but as a distraction from her own pain.
In 1901 Christabel Pankhurst - born 1880 and generally supposed to have been Emmeline's favourite child - met Eva Gore-Booth who was agitating to get working class women to campaign for the vote. Christabel joined Eva in the North of England Society for Women's Suffrage and encouraged her mother and sister Sylvia (born 1882) to do the same. The family were living in Nelson St off Oxford Rd; the building still stands housing the Pankhurst Centre on the site of the Manchester Royal Infirmary.
Frustrated by the lack of progress towards womens suffrage, Christabel and Emmeline formed the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, a women only organisation not affiliated to any political party with the motto "Deeds, not Words". The Pankhurst family and Richard in particular had been very closely connected to the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and although initially there was mutual support between the two organisations, the WSPU was never affiliated to the ILP and in the years that followed the distance between the two organisations would grow into separation and hostility.
As a family the Pankhursts seem to have been driven in their reforming and campaigning zeal. Once fixed upon an issue they would fight their way forward socially, politically, and in the case of womens suffrage, physically with scant regard for their own welfare, safety or security. Mrs Pankhurst who had been to finishing school in France, was enthusiastic about all things French and seems to have identified with the courage and self sacrifice of the individuals of the French Revolution. She even chose 14th July (Bastille Day) as her birthday (even though she was probably born close to midnight on 15th) as a portent of her campaigning nature. In a not very flattering assessment of Mrs Pankhurst, the socialist Annie Cobden Sanderson said "Mrs Pankhurst would walk over the dead bodies of all her children except Christabel and say 'See what I have given for the cause'."
In 1905 Christabel and Annie Kenney, a working class mill girl from Oldham, heckled a political meeting at Manchester's Free Trade Hall and were arrested. Christabel spat at a policeman which made sure she was imprisoned for a week, Annie Kenney for three days. This provided huge publicity for the cause and Mrs Pankhurst who was very politically savvy used her experience from previous campaigns and spoke to a crowd of a thousand people in Stevenson Square, Manchester protesting at the women's imprisonment. When they were released from Strangeways Prison there was a huge welcome meeting in the Free Trade Hall.
In the years up to 1914, Emmeline, Sylvia and huge numbers of the WSPU membership joined Christabel in taking direct action. Suffragettes destroyed property, broke windows and chained themselves to railings for which they were imprisoned and tortured. They were also imprisoned for distributing leaflets and talking in public meetings or in the precincts of courts of law. Their behaviour completely shocked and scandalised the establishment of the day. The "Suffragettes", as they became known, were viewed as mad or bad and definitely not ladies. Notions of womanliness did not include independence of thought or action and so these brave and angry women were often described and treated as less than human by the police, the courts and the prisons who were determined to silence their protests and bring them back into line. Even the cartoons of the day make (what even then must have seemed) lame jokes often showing a picture of a pretty girl with a conventional view point in comparison to an ugly, mannish or mad looking suffragette with a progressive viewpoint.
In order to further frustrate prison authorities and draw additional attention to their cause, some imprisoned Suffragettes refused to eat. Initially this resulted in women being released but attitudes amongst the establishment hardened and force feeding was introduced. Sylvia was force fed during imprisonment and there are many horrific accounts of this practice recorded at the time. At least one woman died when the tube was inserted into her lung and not her stomach. Emmeline embarked on ten hunger strikes in a period of eighteen months from 1907 and there were times when she also refused to sleep or to sit or lie down.
The events of November 18th 1910 were perhaps some of the most frightful incidents of the whole campaign. Prime Minister Asquith had promised that the issue of women's suffrage would be addressed via the Conciliation Bill. The bill, however, disappeared from the government agenda and so Mrs Pankhurst and others marched to the Strangers Entrance of Parliament. During the next few hours small groups of women attempted to join her at the entrance but under the direction of Home Secretary Winston Churchill, the women were beaten by police and plain clothes men. There were more than one hundred women arrested all of whom were released without charge the following day.
In 1913 the Liberal government passed the Prisoners Discharge for Ill Health Act which came to be known as the Cat and Mouse Act - women hunger strikers would be released from prison, sick and weak only to be rearrested when they had regained their health. The prison brutalities that the suffragettes experienced following questionable convictions was shocking then and certainly is now. Class and gender expectations worked in the campaigners favour and rather than silencing the WSPU a good deal of publicity for the cause was obtained by the persecution of the suffragettes who were perceived by the public and the establishment as "ladies" and the vile treatment of the protesters was regarded by many as bullying and unchivalrous.
In terms of reform, for some it was as though there was a choice between socialism and womens suffrage - as though the two were incompatible. A large number of WSPU campaigners were middle class, therefore women's suffrage was regarded by some as a "bourgeois" issue. The Independent Labour Party didn't see why middle class women (who would not necessarily support the ILP) should be empowered to vote before working class men.
Emmeline and Christabel have been criticised for abandoning their socialist roots but that is to lose sight of their goal. Certainly they established themselves as "Queen" and "Prime Minister" respectively of the WSPU and ran the organisation in a shamelessly autocratic fashion ousting anybody who disagreed with them. They had no time for committees or resolutions or even alliances with other organisations. Their aim was votes for women and they intended to achieve it whatever the cost, in any case it seems that large numbers of women were content to be lead in this way. They felt that women were dominated by men in every sphere and in every home whatever the class. They wanted women to stand up and be counted and for the state to recognise them as capable individuals with a full panoply of human rights and responsibilities, hence the women only organisation with no affiliations to political parties where male permission or cooperation was required.
Sylvia on the other hand never lost sight of her father's vision and commitment to all aspects of reform and progress. In the early years of the twentieth century, Sylvia established the East London Federation of Suffragettes which confronted class issues as well as suffrage issues for men and women. Christabel saw this as a dilution of WSPU aims and was very angry about it. Nevertheless, Sylvia remained loyal to the WSPU and despite their differences took steps to maintain a united front with her mother and sister including taking action resulting in imprisonment and torture. Sylvia felt that the issue of women's suffrage was a necessary step in terms of progress for working people but only one of many necessary steps. She maintained her links to the ILP and supported their causes and also formed a loving and mutually supportive bond with Kier Hardie (1856 - 1915) a prominent labour leader of the day. Emmeline may not have known the depth of their relationship but she did know that Hardie was a married man and would not have approved of Sylvia's very close connection to him. With today's perspective Sylvia seems by far the most sympathetic character, but she too was very driven and focussed and in her later campaigns had no hesitation in ditching organisations she could not dominate.
Sylvia was expelled from the WSPU in 1914. The differences between her East End of London campaign which was firmly allied to the ILP and the single issue WSPU was too much for the autocratic Christabel who called Sylvia to Paris and expelled her from the movement. Reading about the struggles between Christabel and Sylvia it's hard to ignore the notion of an intense sibling rivalry adding fuel to their differences.
At the outbreak of The Great War the WSPU (that is Christabel and Emmeline) abandoned the fight for women's suffrage and instead supported the government in the war effort and used its considerable resources to encourage army recruitment and women into war work. This decision certainly did not meet with the approval of all the membership at the time, some wrote angry letters about WSPU funds being used for this purpose. The prospect of women doing war work, that is the jobs usually done by men was certainly ammunition for the votes for women cause - in so far as, if women were interchangeable with men as workers then where was the justification for inhibiting these vital contributors to the war effort from voting?
Sylvia however, was strongly opposed to the war and vehemently disagreed with her mother and sister and with her East End organisation campaigned against the war. When from 1917 onwards the WSPU campaigned for voting rights of property owning women and also for the abolition of Trades Union, the rift between Sylvia and her mother and sister became even more entrenched.
In 1918 The Representation of The People Act gave voting rights to women over thirty and all men. In 1928 just weeks after the death of Emmeline Pankhurst, the same Act (amended) gave voting rights to all women and men over 21.
Emmeline Pankhurst undertook lecture tours of America after the First World War and eventually stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate. She died in London and is commemorated by a statue in Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.
Christabel also toured America lecturing and took up religion, becoming and Adventist Preacher. She was created Dame of the British Empire in 1936. She died in 1958 in the United States of America.
Sylvia continued to campaign with her East End of London Federation and took up anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-fascist causes. In 1929 she scandalised her mother and a great many others by having a baby, Richard and not marrying the father. She remained in the East End throughout the Second World War during which time she took up the cause of Ethiopia which had been invaded by Italy under the Fascist leader Mussolini. Her interest in and commitment to Ethiopia continued and she moved there in 1956. She died in Ethiopia in 1960 and was given a state funeral.
Argument continues, reflecting the divisions within the family, as people are "for" or "against" one or other of the Pankhursts. For all their differences the Pankhurst women shared traits of loyalty to the cause, unswerving passion, creativity and seriousness about their work, together with drive and commitment and preparedness to sacrifice their health, welfare, freedom and even their lives for the cause.
The achievements of Sylvia, Emmeline and Christabel ensured that each generation of women since 1928 has been more assured of their places in this democracy. Urban Splash have employed a creative flair and a long view in recognising their contribution and naming the towers after the Pankhursts. The towers will be a lasting monument to Sylvia, Christabel and Emmeline and their unique contribution to women's history which started here, in Manchester.
On a personal note, the 1901 census records that my great-grandmother, Grace Garvey was living in Harrowby Street, a stone's throw from where the 3 Towers now stand and less than three miles from the foment of the Pankhurst home on Nelson Street. A tiny, bold woman Grace is listed as head of the household as her husband Thomas, a private soldier, was serving with his regiment. At the time of the census she had three small children and she was probably expecting my Granddad born March 1902. She raised five intelligent, contributing children in difficult and impoverished circumstances. No family stories survive as to her opinion of the suffragettes but she did live long enough to get the vote and she took the whole business very seriously, dressing up in her "funeral coat" to go and make her mark.
Grace Garvey might have imagined a granddaughter or even a great granddaughter. She is unlikely to have imagined tower blocks round the corner from where she lived and it is certain that she never would have imagined that her great granddaughter would get to name the buildings - I hope she would be as chuffed as I am.