Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928,) born Emmeline Goulden, was a British feminist and leader of the militant campaign for women’s suffrage in the years before World War I. Her agitation methods and campaigns are still controversial and far-reaching.
Born in Manchester, Emmeline husband Richard Marsden Pankhurst was an extremist barrister who had authored the first women’s suffrage Bill in Britain and the 1870 and 1882 Married Women’s Property Acts.
In 1889, Emmeline Pankhurst created the Women’s Franchise League. In 1903, Emmeline, along with her daughters Christabel and (Estelle) Sylvia, founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, with the motto “Votes for Women.” Her personal experience of hunger strikes and forcible feeding in prison inspired many women to support women’s cause. For her militant tactics, she was jailed regularly, most notably in 1913, when she was sentenced to three years for arson.
Pankhurst’s 40-year crusade achieved success in the year of her death—British women finally obtained full equality in the voting franchise.
Pankhurst’s autobiography, My Own Story, appeared in 1914. Her third daughter, Adela Constantia Pankhurst (1885–1961,) was active in the women’s movement in Australia.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Emmeline Pankhurst
Better that we should die fighting than be outraged and dishonored. Better to die than to live in slavery.
—Emmeline Pankhurst
Topics: Dedication, Risk, Commitment
We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.
—Emmeline Pankhurst
Topics: Protest
There is something that Governments care for far more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy. Be militant each in your own way. I incite this meeting to rebellion.
—Emmeline Pankhurst
Topics: Revolution
You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under, if you are really going to get your reform realized.
—Emmeline Pankhurst
Topics: Correction, Reform
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Harriet Martineau English Sociologist
Annie Besant British-born Indian Theosophist
Margaret Thatcher British Head of State
Florence Nightingale English Nurse
H. G. Wells English Novelist, Historian
Tony Blair British Statesman
Ramsay MacDonald British Head of State
Havelock Ellis British Sexologist
Queen Victoria British Royal
Mary Elizabeth Braddon English Novelist