Emily Pankhurst Biography
"Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; we won't do it ourselves, but we will put the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death."
- Emmeline Pankhurst From Freedom or Death (1913)
Short Bio Emily Pankhurst
Emily Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1858. Her family had a tradition of radical politics and she stepped into that mould becoming a passionate campaigner for women's right to vote.
She married Richard Pankhurst who supported the women's suffrage movement and his death in 1898, was a great shock to Emily.
After his death, she threw herself into the women's suffrage movement forming the Women's Franchise league in 1898. In 1903 she formed the more militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). It was through the WSPU that the political action gained the group the term women's suffragette movement. She led a passionate group of women who were willing to take part in drastic action such as tying to railings, smashing windows and launching demonstrations.
The government and establishment were somewhat shocked at the tactics of the women and many were arrested. When they went on hunger strike they were force fed or released only to be rearrested - something known as cat and mouse. In 1912 Emily Pankhurst was convicted or breaking windows and sent to Holloway Prison. In prison she went on hunger strike in protest about the appaling conditions, prisoners were kept in.
She described her time in prison. "like a human being in the process of being turned into a wild beast"
Before, the First World War, the women's suffrage movement gained increased exposure polarising public opinion. It was in 1913 that Emily Davison was killed when throwing herself under the King's horse. However, at the outbreak of war in 1914, Emily Pankhurst used her campaigning tactics to support the war effort - announcing a temporary truce in the women's suffrage campaign. She considered the menace of German aggression to be greater. The government and the suffragettes declared a truce and political prisoners were released.
In the war effort, women were drafted into factories and took on many jobs previously the preserve of men such as bus drivers and postmen. The radical social change of the first world war helped to diminish the opposition to women getting the vote and in 1918, women over the age of 30 were given the vote.
In 1929, the voting age for women was reduced to the same age as men.
Emily died shortly after her life's goal was achieved.
Related
- Emily Pankhurst a Conservative revolutionary