EMMELINE PANKHURST

Emmeline Pankhurst is considered one of the leaders of the suffragette movement in Great Britain.

.

She was born in Moss Side, Manchester in 1858. 

Robert Goulden, her father, was a successful businessman with radical political beliefs and Sophia Crane, her mother, was a passionate feminist.

Emmeline’s parents had conventional ideas about education and after a short spell at a school in Manchester, Emmeline was sent to finish the school in Paris at the age of fifteen.

When she returned to Manchester in 1878, she met a lawyer, Richard Pankhurst. Richard was a strong advocate of women’s suffrage.

Richard Pankhurst

Richard and Emmeline got married. In the first six years of the marriage Emmeline had four children. Christabel in 1880, Sylvia in 1882, Frank in 1884, and Adela in 1885. 

Christabel Pankhurst

In 1885, Emmeline became a Poor Law Guardian. This involved regular visits to the local work houses and she was shocked by the suffering of the inmates. Richard and Emmeline were both active members of the Independent Labour Party. But Richard's political career ending when he died of a ulcer in 1898.
Emmeline continued her involvement in politics and in 1903, she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).

In 1907, Emmeline moved to London to join her two daughters in the struggle for voting rights. There she was imprisoned a few times.

                                                   

 The Emmeline’s actions inspired many other women to follow her example. 

Emmeline Pankhurst

In 1914, England declared war on Germany. The WSPU talked with the British government, and the government released all suffragettes from prison, then the WSPU helped in the war. Two days later the WSPU suspended all political activity until the war end.

After World War, Emmeline spent several years in the United States of America and Canada lecturing for the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease. When she returned to Britain in 1925, she joined the Conservative Party and continued her life’s work championing for the right of women to vote. Emmeline died three years later in 1928, a few weeks after British women got full voting rights. She was 70 years old.