Emmeline Pankhurst was born to a wealthy and politically active family in Manchester, England. Her parents were abolitionists and supporters of female suffrage. Growing up, she read her mother’s Women’s Suffrage Journal, and at 14, she started going with her to meetings. For her higher education, she attended the École Normale de Neuilly in Paris, where she learned chemistry, bookkeeping, and “feminine arts” such as embroidery.
In 1878, at the age of 20, she met Richard Pankhurst, a 44 years old barrister who also advocated for women’s suffrage and other social causes, including education reform and freedom of speech. They married in the following year, and within ten years, they had five children. The couple agreed that Pankhurst would not become “a household machine” and remained active at the Women’s Suffrage Society.
In 1886, the family moved to London, where Pankhurst and her sister opened a fabric shop while her husband unsuccessfully ran for Parliament. At the time, their house became a meeting place for activists and intellectuals, from socialists and suffragists to anarchists and radicals.
In 1889, after inside conflicts within the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, Pankhurst and her husband founded the Women’s Franchise League (WFL). The WFL focused on more aspects of equal rights for women, like divorce and inheritance. 4 years later, the family returned to Manchester, where 30 years old Pankhurst continued to promote women’s suffrage and became involved with the Women’s Liberal Federation, an adjunct organization of the Liberal Party. In the same year, Pankhurst resigned from the WFL to join the newly formed Independent Labour Party (ILP) but got denied by the local branch because of her gender, eventually joining the ILP nationally.
In 1894, Pankhurst was appointed as the Poor Law Guardian in Chorlton-on-Medlock, overseeing the economic, nutrition, and hygienic needs of the poor residences in the area. Witnessing the harsh conditions at the workhouses – an accommodation and employment facilities for the poor, pushed her to promote reform in the Board of Guardians who was in charge of the institutions.
In 1898, when she was 39 years old, her husband died, leaving her with debts. Pankhurst moved with her children to a small house and started working for the Registrar of Births and Deaths in Chorlton. There, she gained insight into the conditions of the women and the different treatment men and women received for the same issues, such as illegitimacy. As a member of the Manchester School Board, she saw more examples of injustice towards girls and women and the unequal treatment they receive compared to boys and men. At the time, she re-opened her fabric store to have an additional income.
Throughout the years, Pankhurst’s children had different approaches to her activism. Still, after her husband died, all of them became involved with the suffrage movement, especially her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. By 1903, at 44, Pankhurst realized that moderate speeches and polite methods yielded no progress from the members of Parliament, coming to believe that only militant actions would provide results. On 10 October 1903, Pankhurst, Christabel, and other activists founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), which later became the Women’s Party – a women-only organization devoted solely to voting rights, guided by the motto – Deeds Not Words.
At first, the WSPU took non-violent actions, such as lectures, rallies, petition signing, talking to parliament members, and publishing a newsletter. Over time, their activities became more radical, including harassing parliament members, provoking the police, vandalizing public art, window-breaking, and arson. These tactics led to recurring arrestments of the WSPU members, including Pankhurst herself, who got imprisoned seven times. Their imprisonments were sometimes deliberate, believing that it would bring publicity to the cause. In 1909, the imprisoned WSPU members began to engage in hunger strikes, which often led to violent force-feeding.
During WW1, Pankhurst decided to moderate the WSPU’s activities and support the government as well as the cause by encouraging women to engage with the war efforts, taking the place of the men on factory jobs while they were fighting on the war front. Women’s contributions during wartime led to the passage of the Representation of the People Act of 1918, which gave women over the age of 30 limited voting rights. Within a few months, another bill granted women the option to be elected to Parliament.
After the war, Pankhurst became concerned about the rise of Bolshevism, and she joined the Conservative Party and ran for a seat in the Parliament. Her campaign ran short due to poor health, a result of years of lecture tours, imprisonments, and hunger strikes. Eventually, she moved into a nursing home, where she died at the age of 69. Less than a month later, Pankhurst’s 40 years campaign paid off when the British Parliament gave women full equality voting rights.
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