Christabel Pankhurst

Christabel Pankhurst, born in Manchester on September 22nd 1880, is known for her suffrage activism in the early 20th century. Together with her mother, Emmeline Pankhurst, she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) which fought for social and political rights for women in the 20th century by adapting militant measures of demonstration.

Family

Christabel was born into a political family. Her mother who founded the Women’s Franchise League in 1889 before she then co-led the WSPU with her Christabel and her father, Dr. Richard Pankhurst, who was a lawyer and known for his socialist sentiments. Her younger sister Sylvia was known for being a pacifist and not always agreeing with her mothers and sisters militant politics.

Activism

Her disagreement with the dichotomous view on gender roles in the 19th century led to her founding the WSPU. Despite her radical measures of demonstration, Christabel remains known as one of the main transformer of the political situation for the 20th century woman by winning the right to vote. Additionally, Chirstabel was a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) which she later on left in 1907.

Imprisonment

In 1905 Christabel was arrested after offending a police officer by spitting on him while he tried to remove her from the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Moments earlier Pankhurst and fellow WSPU members had tried to ask the Foreign Secretary about a change in the political franchise thus giving women the right to vote. She and her fellow WSPU member Annie Kenney were imprisoned for 6 days before they were released on October 19th 1905. Due tue her radical activism this would not have been the last time in which Christabel had to worry about judicial charges. It is known that she tried to escape possible charges by staying in Paris, France in around 1914.

However, due to the success of her party (WSPU) Christabels reputation turned out to be largely positive. She was a celebrated persona who appeared in newspaper articles or was referred to in cultural institutions such as in theatre or in art.

Christabel died in 1958.

Sources

Cowman, Krista. “'Incipient Toryism'? The Women's Social and Political Union and the Independent Labour Party, 1903-14.” History Workshop Journal, no. 53, 2002, pp. 128–148.

Laura E. Nym Mayhall. “Defining Militancy: Radical Protest, the Constitutional Idiom, and Women's Suffrage in Britain, 1908-1909.” Journal of British Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, 2000, pp. 340–371.

McIlroy, A. Louise. “Christabel Pankhurst Memorial.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 5112, 1958, pp. 1595–1596.

Purvis, June. “Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography“, Routledge, New York, 2018.