Deeds, not words.
—Slogan of the Women’s Social and Political Union
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), an English social activist, was the leading advocate of women’s suffrage in early twentieth-century Britain. Largely thanks to her thirty-year crusade, the British government was forced to grant equal voting rights to women in 1928.
Pankhurst was born in Manchester, England, into a family with radical political leanings. One of her first memories, Pankhurst would later recall, was celebrating the abolition of slavery in the United States. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution and was educated for a time in France.
She returned to England to marry Richard Pankhurst (1834–1898), a radical lawyer and women’s rights advocate who was the author of landmark British legislation protecting the property rights of married women. The couple had five children.
The death of her husband was a devastating blow to Pankhurst, but it led her to intensify her involvement in politics. Along with two of her daughters, she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903.
The group, known as the suffragettes, differed from the existing British suffrage movement in two ways. First, the WSPU did not ally itself with any political party. Second, it did not admit men as members. Pankhurst felt both policies were necessary to keep the movement focused on its sole goal, equal rights for women.
Over the next ten years, the group embarked on a series of high-profile acts of civil disobedience. In 1908, two suffragettes were arrested for throwing stones at 10 Downing Street. Another volunteer, Emily Davison, threw herself under the hooves of the horse of King George V (1865–1936) and was trampled to death in 1913. Although controversial, the movement helped bring attention to the group’s demands.
During World War I, Pankhurst reached a tacit agreement with prime minister David Lloyd George (1863–1945) to suspend the campaign in exchange for voting rights after the end of the war. In 1918, Parliament extended voting rights to women over the age of thirty. Ten years later, the age requirement was dropped to twenty-one—the same as for men.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- The term suffragette was originally coined in 1906 by a newspaper, the Daily Mail, as a term of derision. But the word was proudly embraced by women’s rights advocates, and Pankhurst’s daughter Sylvia (1882–1960) titled her history of the campaign The Suffragette Movement.
- Pankhurst is mentioned in the lyrics to one of the songs in the 1964 Disney movie Mary Poppins, which is set in London during the 1910s.
- Pankhurst was born on July 15, 1858, but usually gave her birthday as July 14—the anniversary of the French Revolution.
