tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/sylvia-pankhurst-49249/articlesSylvia Pankhurst – The Conversation2018-08-24T08:48:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1019182018-08-24T08:48:59Z2018-08-24T08:48:59ZAdela Pankhurst: the forgotten sister who doesn’t fit neatly into suffragette history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232885/original/file-20180821-149493-kg0gqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The third Pankhurst sister Adela (left) with fellow suffragettes Jessie and Annie Kenney in 1910.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suffragettes_Adela_Pankhurst,_Jessie_and_Annie_Kenney_1910.jpg">By Colonel Linley Blathwayt, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the centenary year of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, women’s struggle to obtain the right to vote in the UK has been strongly identified with its leading protagonists, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2018/25/emmeline-pankhurst-making-of-a-militant">Pankhurst</a> family. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/pankhurst-sisters-the-bitter-divisions-behind-their-fight-for-womens-votes-91086">rifts</a> between Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia have become almost as famous as the <a href="https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-role-of-british-women-in-the-twentieth-century/womens-social-and-political-union/">Women’s Social and Political Union</a> (WSPU), the organisation they founded in 1903. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232881/original/file-20180821-149469-4k0sgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Adela Pankhurst, the youngest daughter of Emmeline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pankhurst-adela.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
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<p>However, more often than not, Emmeline Pankhurst’s youngest daughter, Adela, is missing from the discussion. Adela was born in Manchester in 1885, the third Pankhurst daughter. She enjoyed a thoroughly genteel middle-class upbringing, like the rest of her siblings, and by the early 20th century, despite her mother’s objections, trained to be a teacher. In 1903, along with her mother and sisters, she helped to form the WSPU and the militant campaign for suffrage was born. </p>
<p>Like many campaigning women, Adela spent time in prison for the cause. She was one of several suffragettes arrested and imprisoned in Dundee in 1909. She was incarcerated for breaking the peace as she tried to disrupt a government meeting. Dundee Prison, controlled by the secretary for Scotland rather than the English Home Office minister, was one of the few to resist the new policy of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-42943816/suffragettes-the-truth-about-force-feeding">force feeding</a> hunger strikers. </p>
<p>Adela, unlike her mother and sister Christabel, spoke and wrote often against violent tactics and approved of a more co-operative relationship between the prisoners and prison staff. Later that same year, speaking on behalf of other suffragettes who had been released following a hunger-strike at the prison, Adela reported to the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch newspaper that the prison warders had “all showed great consideration and kindness”.</p>
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<span class="caption">Adela Pankhurst’s letter to the governor of Dundee Prison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Barry Godfrey.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>As testament to the good treatment she and the Scottish suffragettes had received at the hands of the authorities, she wrote personally to the governor of Dundee Prison inviting him and his staff to a nearby meeting where her mother was scheduled to speak.</p>
<p>As World War I approached, Adela and her sister Sylvia strongly disagreed with WSPU strategy which they considered unnecessarily violent. As punishment for breaking with the fold, in February of 1914, her mother gave Adela a one-way ticket to Australia (which already had female <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/wright.htm">suffrage</a>), where she remained politically active for the rest of her life.</p>
<h2>Militants? Martyrs? Myths?</h2>
<p>Her sisters and mother have become synonymous with the movement that won votes for women, and the Pankhurst family are rightly celebrated for their leading role in women’s suffrage, but Adela has all but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/24/wayward-suffragette-adela-pankhurst-and-her-remarkable-australian-life">disappeared</a> from history.</p>
<p>Adela’s disappearance from collective memory cannot simply be explained by her “banishment” to Australia. After all, her sister Sylvia lived and campaigned against colonialism in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36322972">Ethiopia</a> and remains one of the most famous faces of the suffrage movement. </p>
<p>The key to Adela’s fall from grace lies perhaps not in her contribution to the campaign for votes for women in the UK, but in the more controversial causes she gravitated towards once the battle was won. She <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/148270386?searchTerm=%22Motherhood%20Endowment%22%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20&searchLimits=l-state=Western+Australia%7C%7C%7Cl-decade=192%7C%7C%7Cl-year=1924%7C%7C%7Cl-month=4">denounced</a> contraception, abortion and even nursery schools for undermining maternal instincts and responsibilities. She campaigned heavily against Australian participation in World War I (the WSPU had suspended its activities, in order to support the war effort).</p>
<p>After dabbling in the newly emerged Australian Communist Party and subsequently rejecting the ideology, Adela’s politics shifted to the right, and she went on to be <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pankhurst-adela-constantia-9275">associated</a> with the <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs28.aspx">Australia First</a> movement, an anti-communist, anti-immigration political party. In the 1930s, Australia First was an anti-semitic and proto-fascist organisation which <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2680185?searchTerm=%22adela%20Pankhurst%22%20AND%20%22Australia%20First%22%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20&searchLimits=">favoured an alliance</a> with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Due to her activities with Australia First, Adela was interned in a camp for political prisoners in March 1942 where she remained for several months.</p>
<p>She died in Australia in 1961, having had, seemingly, a very happy <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/WpankhurstA.htm">family life</a> there. Yet despite being named alongside 58 others on a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43868925%22%22">statue of Millicent Fawcett</a> recently unveiled in London, Adela Pankhurst has been largely ignored by popular histories of suffrage.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232908/original/file-20180821-149487-1ssnsx1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">G. Ware.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Acknowledging the huge debt that society owes to the Pankhursts and the women who campaigned with them to deliver universal suffrage does not mean that historians and researchers should “iron out” uncomfortable truths. It isn’t always easy to reconcile the reality of the suffragettes as people with the way society wants to remember the movement. </p>
<p>Women like Adela Pankhurst are difficult to place, problematic to commemorate, and often easier to just remove from our collective history. However, the very reasons that she has been partly erased from history are exactly the reasons why she should be included. When we fail to acknowledge that campaigns for social change are often riddled with contradictions, flawed heroes, arguments over strategy, and many false turns before success, we risk producing sanitised versions of history. The full story of Adela and the other Pankhursts reminds us that messier but more complete histories of such struggles are worth recording and commemorating.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barry Godfrey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Emmeline Pankhurst’s youngest daughter fought for women’s right to vote, but she’s more problematic to commemorate.Lucy Williams, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of LiverpoolBarry Godfrey, Professor of Social Justice, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/915202018-02-08T15:17:31Z2018-02-08T15:17:31ZShould the suffragettes be pardoned? A legal expert discusses the options<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205528/original/file-20180208-180801-1loox47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The arrest of Flora Drummond, and Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst in 1908.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/132844921@N08/37573025544/in/photostream/">LSE Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 100th anniversary of women over 30 being <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/100-years-of-votes-for-women-49248">given the vote</a> in the UK, there have been <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/suffragettes-including-leader-emmeline-pankhurst-should-be-pardoned-on-100th-anniversary-of-women-a3758876.html">calls</a> for women convicted of crimes committed while engaged in direct action as part of their campaign to be given pardons.</p>
<p>The Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has gone so far as to promise that if his party wins power <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/06/labour-pledges-posthumous-pardons-for-suffragettes">it will pardon those women</a> who had been “treated appallingly by society and the state” and whose convictions were “politically motivated”.</p>
<p>Just as many voices have been raised in opposition to the move, however. Feminist and campaigner <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/02/dont-pardon-suffragettes-100-years-votes-corbyn-rudd">Caroline Criado-Perez wrote recently</a>: “They were the Nasty Women of the early 20th century. They don’t deserve to be whitewashed and made more palatable.”</p>
<h2>Correcting errors</h2>
<p>So how do pardons work? In a system governed by the rule of law, the extra-judicial power to pardon should be unnecessary. At times, however, it has provided a useful “safety valve” where the legal system had no means of correcting errors – remember the <a href="http://netk.net.au/CrimJustice/CriminalAppeals.pdf">Court of Criminal Appeal</a> was not established until 1907. </p>
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<span class="caption">A suffragette is arrested outside Buckingham Palace in 1914.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31363949@N02/7726529620">Leonard Bentley via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>It could be used where a mandatory death sentence was seen as too harsh, or if exculpatory evidence could not be used as part of a normal appeal for legal reasons. Posthumous pardons were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8556721.stm">given to Timothy Evans</a> who had been wrongly executed for the murder of his wife and daughter at 10 Rillington Place. Derek Bentley <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/142351.stm">was also pardoned</a>. His was a more ambiguous case: he was hanged when his accomplice, who was too young to receive the death penalty, shot a police officer during a burglary. </p>
<p>The pardon has been used as a quick means of correcting administrative errors (such as a miscalculated release date from prison) or when a batch of convictions has been rendered unsafe – for example by faulty speed measuring equipment. Two <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/memo-shows-unease-among-british-officials-at-royal-pardon-for-iras-kelly-and-mcfarlane-34993993.html">IRA members</a> were pardoned quietly for some offences so that the Dutch authorities would agree to their extradition. </p>
<p>Pardons have also been used as a reward. In <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/1396040.stm">2002</a>, two men were pardoned for saving the life of a prison officer who was being attacked by a boar on the prison farm.</p>
<h2>Quality of mercy</h2>
<p>There has always been a political dimension to the <a href="https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice-points/the-royal-prerogative-of-mercy/5052062.article">Royal Prerogative of Mercy</a> – a power that has existed since at least the seventh century. A free pardon removes “all pains, penalties and punishments whatsoever that from the said conviction may ensue”. It does not eliminate the conviction though – only judges can do this. There are no legal criteria for its exercise. The Justice Secretary exercises the power on behalf of the Queen.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hundred-years-of-votes-for-women-how-far-weve-come-and-how-far-theres-still-to-go-91169">Hundred years of votes for women: how far we've come and how far there's still to go</a>
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<p>Pardons are also used as a means of “dealing with the past”. Historically, the reigning monarch could use the power to grant pardons after battles to promote reconciliation or to spare favoured subjects from punishment. </p>
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<span class="caption">Worthy of a pardon? Christabel Pankhurst in 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christabel_Pankhurst_1918.jpg">US Library of Congress</a></span>
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<p>There have been calls for pardons for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/aug/16/military.immigrationpolicy">soldiers executed for cowardice or desertion</a> during World War I. Alan Turing, famous for his work as the Enigma codebreaker at Bletchley Park in World War II received a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315">posthumous pardon in 2013</a>. He killed himself in 1954 following his conviction for gross indecency. The “Alan Turing Law” (part of the <a href="http://moderngov.staffordshire.gov.uk/documents/s94033/PCP%2026%2004%2017%20Policing%20Crime%20Act%20Appdx%201.pdf">Policing and Crime Act 2017</a>) provides pardons for men convicted of homosexual acts that are no longer criminal offences – in essence it was accepted that they should not have been convicted because the law itself was wrong.</p>
<h2>The Law’s an ass</h2>
<p>The use of the pardon is relatively straightforward in cases of wrongful conviction. With the soldiers, it could be argued that the convictions were unsafe because their mental states were not considered. There is a practical reason for removing the gross indecency convictions in that men were still suffering the effects of having a criminal record and the pardon was an official statement that the law itself had been wrong – it was a form of apology.</p>
<p>Quashing the convictions of the suffragettes is more problematic. Smashing windows and setting fire to letterboxes is still criminal conduct. The women’s suffrage movement <a href="https://theconversation.com/militant-suffragettes-morally-justified-or-just-terrorists-52743">split over direct action</a> and the majority of women did not break the law. Christabel Pankhurst wanted to be arrested – as she saw suffragette appearances in court and hunger strikes in prison as part of their campaign. They suffered physically – and undoubtedly many faced social or familial disapproval. </p>
<p>A blanket pardon, however, airbrushes a difficult debate about direct action and would posthumously remove a criminal record that many wore as a badge of honour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Quirk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Justified or not, some of the suffragettes’ actions were still criminal. And many would consider a conviction a badge of honour.Hannah Quirk, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Law and Justice, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/910932018-02-05T12:42:41Z2018-02-05T12:42:41ZHow 17,000 petitions helped deliver votes for women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204816/original/file-20180205-19918-1foijgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/39253760154/">LSE library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 50 years before women gained the vote in 1918, almost 17,000 petitions for women’s suffrage were sent to the House of Commons, containing over 3.3m signatures. Other petitions were sent to the House of Lords, the king, and the prime minister.</p>
<p>Most people know about the famous examples of suffragette activity, such as window breaking and street demonstrations. By contrast, petitions show a different side of the campaign: the patient, behind the scenes activity that helped deliver votes for women. </p>
<p>The suffrage campaign was, itself, founded by a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/collecting-the-signatures/">petition</a> signed by over 1,500 women, including leading activists <a href="https://victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/the-first-humble-beginnings-of-an-agitation-the-womens-suffrage-petition-of-7-june-1866/">Barbara Bodichon and Emily Davies</a>. This was presented to the House of Commons by the liberal philosopher <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/john-stuart-mill/">John Stuart Mill</a> on June 7 1866. </p>
<p>As the right to vote was linked to property, the petition claimed that propertied women had a right to the franchise. Though a limited demand that did not include married women (who could not own property at this time), the petition provided a rallying point for a new movement. </p>
<p>While women (and the majority of men) could not vote at this time, <a href="https://www.dur.ac.uk/history/research/research_projects/petitionsandpeople/">all British subjects had the right to petition</a>. Petitioning was one of the few political rights women possessed and had proved an effective strategy in earlier campaigns. Women had been active both as petitioners and canvassers who collected signatures in the movement for the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rgeFAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=women+against+slavery&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI0tjJ6ITZAhVCYlAKHdpoAJwQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=petitioning&f=false">abolition of slavery</a>, for example. So when suffrage bills were debated in parliament in the 1870s and 1880s, the National Society for Women’s Suffrage encouraged petitions in support.</p>
<p>The architect of the movement’s petitioning strategy was the Manchester feminist <a href="https://radicalmanchester.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/lydia-becker-1827-1890-the-fight-for-votes-for-women/">Lydia Becker</a>. In Ireland, the Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association, led by <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/century/century-women-and-the-vote/standing-up-for-women-in-politics-1.553520">Anna Haslam</a>, orchestrated petitioning activity.</p>
<p>Petitions were a good way of raising public awareness, getting media coverage and keeping suffrage on the political agenda. For example, in the 1890s, campaigners organised a <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/petitions-committee/petition-of-the-month/the-1896-womens-suffrage-petition-/">“special appeal”</a> for the vote, signed by 257,000 women. This was one of the largest petitions of the 19th century. The appeal was displayed to MPs in a special exhibition in May 1896.</p>
<p>At the January 1910 general election, suffragists organised petitions from male voters in many constituencies. This was an attempt to use petitions to hold an <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/petitions-committee/petition-of-the-month/the-1910-the-1910-petitions-on-womens-suffrage/">unofficial referendum</a> on women’s suffrage. During the 1913 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/jul/11/join-great-suffrage-pilgrimage">“pilgrimage”</a>, which saw women gradually descend on <a href="http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/pilgrimage-map.jpg">London after starting from different locations</a>, pilgrims sent petitions along their way.</p>
<h2>Patience and results</h2>
<p>The groups fighting for women’s suffrage did not, however, see eye to eye on the role petitions should play. Suffragette leaders Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst believed that petitioning a parliament of men was a waste of time. The failure of traditional constitutional tactics showed that new, militant methods of campaigning were necessary.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204799/original/file-20180205-19925-i8f34h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMrs_Emmeline_Pankhurst%2C_Leader_of_the_Women's_Suffragette_movement%2C_is_arrested_outside_Buckingham_Palace_while_trying_to_present_a_petition_to_King_George_V_in_May_1914._Q81486.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But suffragettes never entirely abandoned petitioning. In May 1914 Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested on her way to presenting a petition to the king, generating one of the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mrs_Emmeline_Pankhurst,_Leader_of_the_Women%27s_Suffragette_movement,_is_arrested_outside_Buckingham_Palace_while_trying_to_present_a_petition_to_King_George_V_in_May_1914._Q81486.jpg">iconic suffrage images</a>. </p>
<p>At a time when women were excluded from parliament and voting, petitions were a way to directly engage with male politicians. For Irish suffragists, petitioning allowed them to challenge the British Parliament as well as supporting the wider campaign. Women asserted their right to citizenship through petitions, while petitioning demonstrated their capacity for political participation. </p>
<p>Many of the petitions called for the right to vote to be extended to women on the same terms “as it is, or may be” given to men. But suffrage petitions addressed other issues too. For example, the 1902 petition signed by women undergraduates argued that the vote was the only way to ensure the equal educational status of women. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204805/original/file-20180205-19915-1xc7nbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Men fought for the cause too.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/23185471083/in/album-72157660822880401/">LSE library</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In response to anti-suffragist claims that women didn’t want the vote, petitions showed that there was in fact popular support for suffrage. They came from <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/23185471083/in/album-72157660822880401/">men</a> and women and became a way to organise and mobilise a broad, diverse, popular coalition for women’s suffrage. Petitions came from all over the UK and from different types of people, such as women university students in 1902, or women farmers in 1883. Getting people to sign petitions was a first step to recruiting them as active members of the movement. Suffragists preferred to work at local level, gradually spreading their message through the process of <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/26550633856">gathering signatures</a>. </p>
<h2>The modern petition</h2>
<p>These days, e-petitioning has emerged as a popular form of political engagement. Critics complain that the lack of impact of e-petitions shows that they are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/30/unsubscribe-avaaz-change-38-degrees-pointless-e-petitions">pointless</a>. Others have argued that e-petitions encourage a lazy, disengaged <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/12/clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism">clicktivism</a> in the place of real, active political engagement. </p>
<p>But as the history of suffrage petitioning shows us, focusing on the lack of immediate results misses the point of petitioning. The majority of petitions throughout history have been unsuccessful. Petitioning has remained a popular form of political activity because of the numerous advantages it has, even if authorities reject or ignore the demands of petitioners. Petitions keep a topic on the political agenda even when politicians would rather avoid the issue. Petitioning raises public awareness and attracts media coverage. Petitions identify support and channel it behind a national campaign, and can act as a first step for further activity on an issue. </p>
<p>The suffrage movement also suggests that petitioning is most effective when it is embedded within, rather than divorced from, other forms of political activity, such as such as public meetings, demonstrations, or elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Miller receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:ciara.e.stewart@durham.ac.uk">ciara.e.stewart@durham.ac.uk</a> receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>The women’s suffrage campaign shows the advantages of petitioning, even when demands are rejected.Henry Miller, Senior Research Fellow, Leverhulme Trust Rethinking Petitions project, Durham UniversityCiara Stewart, PhD candidate, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/910862018-02-05T12:04:04Z2018-02-05T12:04:04ZPankhurst sisters: the bitter divisions behind their fight for women’s votes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204395/original/file-20180201-123826-tjc6hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst: a family at war with itself.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABritain_Before_the_First_World_War_Q81490.jpg">Imperial War Museum/Wikipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Emmeline Pankhurst, her eldest daughter Christabel and some local socialist women founded, in 1903, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Womens-Social-and-Political-Union">Women’s Social and Political Union</a> (WSPU). Their goal was to campaign for the parliamentary vote for women.</p>
<p>The women-only WSPU, whose members were called “suffragettes”, became the most notorious of the various groupings campaigning for the vote – and the name “Pankhurst” synonymous with the suffrage struggle.</p>
<p>Emmeline Pankhurst, the inspirational leader of the WSPU, and Christabel, its key strategist, worked closely together during the suffrage campaign, always putting the women’s vote first. Both were charismatic figures and powerful orators who, with their cry of “Rise up women!”, roused thousands of women to demand their democratic right.</p>
<p>Yet the story about the suffragette campaign is not just a story about first wave feminism. It’s also a tale about family rifts and differing strands of feminism. </p>
<p>The dominant narrative about Pankhurst family life and the suffragette campaign is Sylvia Pankhurst’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Suffragette-Movement-Intimate-Account-Persons/dp/1446510433">The Suffragette Movement</a>, first published in 1931 and then republished in paperback in 1977. Written from a socialist feminist perspective, it reflects on her unhappy childhood when her sister Christabel was recognised as their mother’s favourite and also on her disagreements with her relatives about WSPU tactics.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204398/original/file-20180201-123843-qqwhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sylvia Pankhurst: dominant narrative of a movement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASylvia-Pankhurst_1.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>The three Pankhurst women were all members of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/17/guardian190-independent-labour-party-foundation">Independent Labour Party</a> (ILP) but Emmeline and Christabel became disillusioned with the way the ILP never gave priority to the women’s issue, despite its claim to support gender equality. When they resigned from the ILP in 1907, Sylvia was deeply upset. She wanted to link the WSPU to the socialist movement. Sylvia subsequently portrayed her sister in The Suffragette Movement as an evil Svengali who led their easily swayed mother away from the true path of socialism. She labelled separatist feminist Christabel a Tory.</p>
<p>The ideological differences between the Pankhurst women didn’t end there. Sylvia sought to fuse her feminism and socialism by forming, in 1913, a working-class grouping in the East End of London. Her <a href="https://www.eastlondonsuffragettes.com/">East London Federation of the Suffragettes</a>, although formally linked to the WSPU, followed its own independent line. It would not attack the Labour party nor Labour parliamentary candidates unsympathetic to women’s suffrage. Such a policy was too much for her mother and Christabel to stomach. In early 1914, Sylvia was expelled from the WSPU, a bruising encounter that she describes in great detail in The Suffragette Movement. She painted the WSPU as elitist and unattractive to working-class and socialist women.</p>
<h2>Rethinking Christabel</h2>
<p>Sylvia’s book, written as a rejected daughter and an angry socialist, was readily welcomed in the 1970s by left-leaning feminist historians who were influential in developing women’s history in the UK. The Suffragette Movement became the standard reading of events, accepted uncritically and rarely questioned. But there are other stories to tell.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204396/original/file-20180201-123826-1j619ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Christabel Pankhurst: flying the flag for women’s votes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AChristabel_Pankhurst%2C_1909._(22524148738).jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>In my most recent book, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Christabel-Pankhurst-Biography-Womens-History/dp/0815371497">Christabel Pankhurst: a biography</a>, I contend that Christabel was not a Tory, as Sylvia claims. She was a feminist who believed that the subordinate status of women in Edwardian society was due to the power of men (including socialist men). Consequently she saw the separatist, women-only WSPU as an important vehicle for women to foster a sense of sisterhood. It would enable them to stand on their own two feet and articulate their demands.</p>
<p>Christabel was a forerunner of “radical feminism”, a category of feminist thought that became pronounced in the second wave of the women’s movement in Western Europe and the US from the late 1960s. Thus, like second wave feminists who came after her, Christabel emphasised the power of men in a male-defined world and the importance of a women-only movement as a means for raising women’s consciousness. She prioritised the commonalities that all women share despite their differences, and believed in putting women first rather than considerations of social class, political affiliation or socialism.</p>
<p>Expressions of this feminist perspective can be found in many of the articles Christabel published during the suffrage campaign and in her own memoir, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unshackled-Story-Vote-Womens-Voices/dp/0091728851">Unshackled: the Story of How We Won the Vote</a>, which first appeared in 1959, one year after her death. Unshackled, with its matter-of-fact prose, was no literary match for Sylvia’s The Suffragette Movement. Nonetheless, Christabel wrote with passion and determination about her wish to free women from the stigma of inferiority that the denial of the vote embodied. She emphasised the uniting of all women as “one independent force” as the key reason why the formal link between the ILP and the WSPU was broken, at least at central level. Further in Unshackled, Christabel understated her own importance and emphasised the valiant role of her mother, to whom she was devoted.</p>
<p>Negotiating around these memoirs, when I was researching for biographies of both <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emmeline-Pankhurst-Biography-Womens-History/dp/0415325935">Emmeline</a> and Christabel, was not easy. But from consulting a wide range of primary sources, a number of themes became clear. Emmeline Pankhurst was never the weak leader that Sylvia portrayed. Strong, passionate fiery and determined, she endured 13 imprisonments during the turbulent years of the suffragette campaign. And the charming, witty Christabel, with her wish to attract women of all political persuasions into the WSPU was not a Tory. Nor did the WSPU fail to attract working-class women and socialist women.</p>
<p>The twists and turns of the strong-minded Pankhurst women have fascinated people for many years, perhaps because it is within this family that we find the strands of thinking that have divided feminists in the past, and still do so today. But their memoirs also raise important issues about how rivalry among sisters can shape the stories they tell.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91086/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>June Purvis received financial support from the Centre for European and International Studies at the University of Portsmouth and the British Academy's Small Grant Scheme for Emmeline Pankhurst: a biography (Routledge, 2002) and Christabel Pankhurst: a biography (Routledge, 2018). She has edited 14 collections including Women's History Britain, 1850-1945 (UCL Press, 1995), The Women's Suffrage Movement: new feminist perspectives (with Maroula Joannou, 1998 & 2009), Votes for Women (with Sandra S Holton, Routledge 2000) and Women's Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the Present (with Francesac de Haan et al, Routledge,2013). </span></em></p>Sylvia Pankhurst’s book is the dominant narrative of the time, but was she unfair to her sister Christabel?June Purvis, Emeritus Professor of Women's and Gender History, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.