Of course the promise of the Home Secretary that subscribers to our funds should, if possible, be held legally responsible for damage done to private property by the Suffragettes, was never meant to be adhered to. It was, in fact, a perfectly absurd promise, and I think that very few Members of Parliament were deceived by it. Our subscribers can always remain anonymous if they choose, and if it should ever be possible to attack them for our deeds, they would naturally take refuge behind that privilege.
Our battles are practically over, we confidently believe. For the present at least our arms are grounded, for directly the threat of foreign war descended on our nation we declared a complete truce from militancy. What will come out of this European war – so terrible in its effects on the women who had no voice in averting it – so baneful in the suffering it must necessarily bring on innocent children – no human being can calculate. But one thing is reasonably certain, and that is that the Cabinet changes which will necessarily result from warfare will make future militancy on the part of women unnecessary. No future Government will repeat the mistakes and the brutality of the Asquith Ministry. None will be willing to undertake the impossible task of crushing or even delaying the march of women towards their rightful heritage of political liberty and social and industrial freedom.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Emmeline Pankhurst was born in Manchester in July 1858 as Emmeline Goulden. The Gouldens were a creative family, heavily involved in theatre – and they made sure to include their children in their social activism as well. Aged fifteen, Pankhurst was sent to boarding school in Paris. In 1879, shortly after leaving school, she married Richard Pankhurst, a barrister and prominent supporter of women’s suffrage. They would go on to have two children (Christabel and Sylvia) and would remain married until Richard’s untimely death in 1898.
In 1899 Pankhurst founded the Women’s Franchise League and then in 1903 she cofounded a more militant movement known as the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Members of the W.S.P.U. were soon to become notorious and be the first women known as the ‘Suffragettes’ – they protested their cause for suffrage by breaking windows, setting fires and perhaps most famously undertaking hunger strikes while imprisoned. Pankhurst herself was sent to prison on several occasions.
Upon the outbreak of war the W.S.P.U. negotiated the release of all suffrage prisoners, in return for suspending militant activity for the duration of the war and dedicating themselves to the war effort.
Emmeline Pankhurst died on 14 June 1928, just missing seeing women’s suffrage equal men’s with the vote granted to all aged twenty-one (the Equal Suffrage Act was passed on 2nd July).
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Copyright
Published by Hesperus Press Limited
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My Own Story first published in 1914
First published by Hesperus Press Limited, 2015
This ebook edition first published in 2015
Designed and typeset by Roland Codd
Cover design by Madeline Meckiffe
All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–78094–449–4
Suffragette Page 29