The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.

Emmeline Pankhurst

The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia in 1903. The Pankhursts felt that the constitutional efforts of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) had failed and that direct action, and eventually even violent militant action, was necessary to advance the cause of women’s suffrage. The militant campaign of the Suffragettes certainly caught the public’s attention at the time and is one of the best known aspects of the wider suffrage campaign in the popular imagination to this day. As a result of this, and the eventual success of the campaign for votes for women, Emmeline Pankhurst is widely regarded as a heroine of the movement and in 2018 will have a statue raised in her memory in Manchester as part of the centenary celebrations. However, at the time she was a deeply controversial figure. In this blog I aim to look beyond the myth and ask who was the real Emmeline Pankhurst.

The motto of the WSPU was Deeds Not Words. These deeds included Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, disrupting public meetings, damaging property and, when imprisoned for these acts, even going on hunger strikes. Emmeline not only expected her followers to embrace these tactics but took part in them herself.

When on a lecture tour of the United States, speaking at Hartford, Connecticut, Emmeline described herself as having “temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain … what a civil war is like when civil war is waged by a women.”

Later, in her autobiography, My Own Story, published in 1913, she added:

The militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood, and for those deeds of horror and destruction men have been rewarded with monuments, with great songs and epics. The militancy of women has harmed no human life save the lives of those who fought the battle of righteousness. Time alone will reveal what reward shall be allotted to the women.

The reward came in 1918 with the passage of the Representation of the People Act which enfranchised women over 30 who met a property qualification. While a partial victory this was a victory nonetheless and in popular imagination it is often attributed to Pankhurst and the Suffragettes, both for having raised the profile of the women’s cause through militant actions and then suspending these activities to support the war effort in 1914.

However, it is important to remember that not everyone in the WSPU was happy with the militant tactics adopted by Emmeline. Militancy increasingly drove a wedge between Emmeline and more moderate supporters like the Pethick Lawrences, whose home near Dorking in Surrey had served as a weekend headquarters for the WSPU. Emmeline’s strong will and what some have called dictatorial style of managing the movement also led to ruptures, including with her own daugther, Sylvia, who became estranged from her mother and left the WSPU to form the East London Federation of Suffragettes. Finally, the decision to cease the militant campaign and support the war effort also led to splits.

Emmeline continued to battle for women’s rights after 1918. With her daughter Christabel she established the Women’s Party, focusing on issues such as equal pay and reform to marriage and divorce laws. The Party disbanded quickly though after it failed to make headway in the 1918 elections, with Christabel narrowly losing the Smethwick constituency by 778 votes.

Emmeline also ran for Parliament, in 1926, as a Conservative candidate for Whitechapel and St George’s. This marked a significant departure from her original stance toward the political parties. Like her daughter though she too failed to secure a seat. The torch was being passed instead to a new generation of women activists and MPs and Emmeline died a month before the Equal Franchise Act 1928 finally gave women the vote on the same terms as men.

100 years after the Representation of the People Act and 90 years after the Equal Franchise Act it is important to recognise the tremendous contribution Emmeline made to the cause of women’s suffrage. However, as preparations are made to put Emmeline on pedestal in Manchester it is important to not do so uncritically ourselves as historians. Some of the tactics employed by the Suffragettes were counter-productive, especially their more violent actions, and the constitutional efforts of groups like the NUWSS were just as important, if not more important, in securing the vote in 1918. Nevertheless, Pankhurst’s campaign of direct action certainly raised the profile of the cause and kept the matter a live political issue.

As we remember Emmeline on the day of her birth (which she always insisted was the 14th July, Bastille Day, rather than the actual date, the 15th) it is important we acknowledge and thank this militant mother of women’s suffrage for her role in securing the rights women enjoy today.

Elena Rossi is studying for her BA in History at Royal Holloway, University of London.