A Revolutionary Born Near Bastille Day

The iconic photograph captures a moment of defiance and vulnerability: a petite, well-dressed woman being carried away by a burly police officer from Buckingham Palace on May 21, 1914. Emmeline Pankhurst, the founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), had attempted to present a suffrage petition to King George V. This was not her first arrest nor would it be her last. Born on July 15, 1858 – just one day after Bastille Day – Pankhurst often declared herself destined for revolution. Her family history certainly suggested as much. Her grandfather witnessed the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, her grandmother participated in the Anti-Corn Law League campaigns, and her father, a Manchester businessman, had been involved in the American abolitionist movement. Young Emmeline grew up hearing Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin read aloud, drawing early connections between the fight against slavery and the coming struggle for women’s rights.

The Making of a Suffrage Leader

Pankhurst’s political awakening came in 1874 when she attended a meeting organized by Lydia Becker, editor of the Women’s Suffrage Journal and founder of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. “I left that meeting a conscious and confirmed suffragist,” Pankhurst later wrote. Her marriage in 1879 to Richard Pankhurst, a radical lawyer 24 years her senior who drafted the first British women’s suffrage bill, further cemented her commitment to the cause. After moving to London in 1886, the Pankhursts helped establish the Women’s Franchise League in 1889, though internal divisions soon dissolved the organization. By 1903, frustrated with the slow progress of moderate suffrage groups, Emmeline and her daughter Christabel founded the more militant WSPU with the motto “Deeds, not words.”

From Petitions to Prison Hunger Strikes

The WSPU’s tactics escalated dramatically after 1905 when a suffrage bill was blocked in Parliament. Pankhurst and her supporters began heckling politicians, organizing mass rallies, and engaging in civil disobedience. Her first arrest in 1908 for attempting to enter Parliament to protest brought a six-week prison sentence and national attention. In prison, Pankhurst pioneered the suffragette hunger strike, leading to the brutal practice of force-feeding by authorities. She described Holloway Prison as “a place of horror and torment” where “ghastly violence” occurred daily. The government’s 1913 “Cat and Mouse Act” allowed temporary release of weakened hunger strikers only to re-arrest them later, a policy that drew widespread criticism.

Militancy and the Politics of Property Destruction

By 1912, WSPU tactics had turned increasingly destructive. Members smashed windows, set fire to mailboxes, and even bombed railway stations. In 1914, Canadian suffragette Mary Richardson slashed Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery, declaring she wanted to destroy “the most beautiful woman in mythological history” to protest Pankhurst’s treatment. The most dramatic act came in 1913 when Emily Davison threw herself before the king’s horse at the Epsom Derby, becoming the movement’s first martyr. These actions divided the suffrage movement, with moderates forming the Women’s Freedom League in 1907. Pankhurst defended the militancy, arguing that only shocking acts could break through public indifference.

Philosophical Foundations of the Movement

The suffrage movement drew intellectual strength from John Stuart Mill’s 1869 essay The Subjection of Women, which argued that excluding women from public life deprived society of half its talent. Mill, influenced by his wife Harriet Taylor, advocated for equal legal rights and access to professions, though he limited his vision to middle-class women. Lydia Becker built on these ideas through the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, founded in 1867. By 1897, moderate suffragists had united under Millicent Fawcett’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), which grew to 50,000 members by 1913 through peaceful campaigning.

International Context and French Contrasts

While British suffragettes gained global attention, France presented a different struggle. Republican politicians feared women’s suffrage would strengthen monarchists, while the Catholic Church opposed women’s rights. French feminist Hubertine Auclert staged dramatic protests including overturning a ballot box in 1908, but the movement remained small. A 1914 Paris demonstration drew only 6,000 participants compared to London’s 500,000. French women wouldn’t gain voting rights until 1944, nearly three decades after British women over 30 won partial suffrage in 1918.

Legacy of Militancy and Modern Feminism

Pankhurst’s WSPU disbanded in 1917 as she supported the war effort, and women over 30 gained voting rights the following year. While critics condemned suffragette violence as undemocratic, their actions undeniably forced women’s rights onto the national agenda. The movement’s legacy remains contested – were the property attacks justified civil disobedience or counterproductive extremism? Contemporary feminist movements continue to grapple with similar questions about protest tactics. Pankhurst’s story reminds us that rights once considered radical can become fundamental, and that social progress often requires both militant activism and patient political engagement. Her statue now stands near Parliament, watching over the democratic institution she fought so fiercely to enter.