Christabel Pankhurst - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, DBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

(22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958), was a suffragette

Suffragette

"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union

Women's Social and Political Union

The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...

(WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914 she became a fervent supporter of the war against Germany. After the war she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.

Early life

Christabel Pankhurst was the daughter of the lawyer Dr. Richard Pankhurst

Richard Pankhurst

Richard Marsden Pankhurst was an English barrister and supporter of women's rights.Pankhurst was the son of Henry Francis Pankhurst and Margaret Marsden . He was born in Stoke but spent most of his life in Manchester and London. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Owens College of...

and women's suffrage movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...

and sister to Sylvia Pankhurst

Sylvia Pankhurst

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was an English campaigner for the suffragist movement in the United Kingdom. She was for a time a prominent left communist who then devoted herself to the cause of anti-fascism.-Early life:...

and Adela Pankhurst

Adela Pankhurst

Adela Constantia Mary Pankhurst Walsh was a British-Australian suffragette, political organizer, and co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement....

. Nancy Ellen Rupprecht wrote, “She was almost a textbook illustration of the first child born to a middle-class family. In childhood as well as adulthood, she was beautiful, intelligent, graceful, confident, charming, and charismatic.” Christabel and her mother, Emmeline had a special bond that none of her other siblings had. Her father and her were very close as well. In the Dictionary of National Biography, Roger Fulford says that he named her Christabel after the lines of a poem by Coleridge “The lovely lady Christabel/ Whom her father loves so well.” When her mother died in 1928, Christabel grieved deeply for two years. Her family was not wealthy growing up. Her father was a lawyer and her mother owned a small shop. She assisted her mother while Emmeline was working as the Registrar of Births and Deaths in Manchester. Her family always encouraged themselves in their financial struggles by firmly believing that they were more devoted to causes than comforts.

Education

She learned to read at her home on her own before she went to school. She and her two sisters attended Manchester High School for Girls. She obtained a law degree from the University of Manchester. She received honors on her LLB exam, but was not allowed to practice law as a woman.Later she moved to Geneva in France to live with a family friend, but returned home to help her mother raise the rest of the children when her father died in 1898.

Activism

In 1905 Christabel Pankhurst interrupted a Liberal Party

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

meeting by shouting demands for voting rights for women. She was arrested and, along with fellow suffragist Annie Kenney

Annie Kenney

Annie Kenney was an English working class suffragette who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union...

, went to prison rather than pay a fine as punishment for their outburst. Their case gained much media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

interest and the ranks of the WSPU swelled following their trial

Trial (law)

In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...

. Emmeline Pankhurst began to take more militant

Militant

The word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...

action for the women's suffrage cause after her daughter's arrest and was herself imprisoned on many occasions for her principles.

After obtaining her law degree in 1906, Christabel moved to the London headquarters of the WSPU, where she was appointed its organising secretary. Nicknamed "Queen of the Mob", she was jailed again in 1907 in Parliament Square

Parliament Square

Parliament Square is a square outside the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in London. It features a large open green area in the middle, with a group of trees to its west. It contains statues of famous statesmen and is the scene of rallies and protests, as well as being a tourist...

and 1909 after the "Rush Trial" at Bow Street

Bow Street Magistrates' Court

Bow Street Magistrates' Court was the most famous magistrates' court in England for much of its existence, and was located in various buildings on Bow Street in central London close to Covent Garden throughout its history.-History:...

. Between 1912 and 1913 she lived in Paris, France, to escape imprisonment under the terms of the Prisoner's (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act

Cat and Mouse Act

The Prisoners Act 1913 was an Act of Parliament passed in Britain under Herbert Henry Asquith's Liberal government in 1913...

, better known as the Cat and Mouse Act. The start of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

compelled her to return to England in 1913, where she was again arrested. Pankhurst engaged in a hunger strike

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

, ultimately serving only 30 days of a three-year sentence.

She was influential in the WSPU's 'anti-male' phase after the failure of the Conciliation Bills

Conciliation Bills

Three Conciliation bills were put before the House of Commons, one each year in 1910, 1911 and in 1912 which would extend the right of women to vote in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to around 1,000,000 wealthy, property-owning women....

. She wrote a book called The Great Scourge and How to End It on the subject of sexually transmitted diseases and how sexual equality (votes for women) would help the fight against these diseases.

She and her sister, Sylvia, did not get along well. Her sister was against turning the WSPU towards solely upper- and middle-class women and using militant tactics, while Christabel thought it was essential. Christabel felt that suffrage was a cause that should not be tied to any causes trying to help working-class women with their other issues. She felt that it would only drag the suffrage movement down and that all of the other issues could be solved once women had the right to vote.

On 8 September, 1914, Pankhurst re-appeared at the London Opera House, after her long exile, to utter a declaration not on women's enfranchisement but on "The German Peril", a campaign led by the former General Secretary of the WSPU, Norah Dacre Fox in conjunction with the British Empire Union and the National Party. Along with Norah Dacre Fox (later known as Norah Elam

Norah Elam

Norah Elam also known as Norah Dacre Fox, was a radical feminist, militant suffragette, anti-vivisectionist and fascist in the United Kingdom. Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1878 to John and Charlotte Doherty, she emigrated to England with her family and by 1891 was living in London...

), Pankhurst toured the country making recruiting speeches. Her supporters handed the white feather to every young man they encountered wearing civilian dress and bobbed up at Hyde Park meetings with placards: "Intern Them All". The Suffragette appeared again on 16 April, 1915, as a war paper, and on 15 October changed its name to Britannia". There, week by week, Pankhurst demanded the military conscription of men and the industrial conscription of women into "national service", as it was termed. In flamboyant terms she called also for the internment of all people of enemy race, men and women, young and old, found on these shores, and for a more complete and ruthless enforcement of the blockade of enemy and neutral nations. She insisted that this must be "a war of attrition". In her ferocious zeal for relentless prosecution of the War she demanded the resignation of Sir Edward Grey, Lord Robert Cecil

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood

Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood CH, PC, QC , known as Lord Robert Cecil from 1868 to 1923, was a lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom...

, General Sir William Robertson and Sir Eyre Crowe

Eyre Crowe

Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe GCB GCMG was a British diplomat. Crowe was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1907, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1911, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1917, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St...

, whom she considered too mild and dilatory in method. So furious was her attack that, in its over-fervent support of the National War policy, Britannia was many times raided by the police and experienced greater difficulty in appearing than had befallen The Suffragette." Indeed, although occasionally Norah Dacre Fox's father, John Doherty, who owned a printing firm, was drafted in to print campaign posters, Britannia was compelled at last to set up its own printing press. A gentler impulse was embodied in an early proposal of Emmeline Pankhurst to set up Women's Social and Political Union Homes for illegitimate girl "war babies", but only five children were adopted: sterner interests prevailed. David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

, whom Pankhurst had regarded as the most bitter and dangerous enemy of women, was now the one politician in whom she and Emmeline Pankhurst placed confidence.

When the February 1917 Russian Revolution

February Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

took place and Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...

rose to power, Christabel Pankhurst, like many others, journeyed to Russia in a vain effort to prevent that vast country with its starving multitudes from retiring from the War. Her circuit was like that of Hervé, the French "anti-patriot", as for many years he had called himself, and of whom she had been an ardent admirer in her youth. She received the commendation of many war enthusiasts.

After some British women were granted the right to vote at the end of World War I, Pankhurst stood in the 1918 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1918

The United Kingdom general election of 1918 was the first to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918, which meant it was the first United Kingdom general election in which nearly all adult men and some women could vote. Polling was held on 14 December 1918, although the count did...

as a Women's Party

Women's Party (UK)

The Women's Party was a minor political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst when they dissolved the Women's Social and Political Union in November 1917....

candidate, in alliance with the Lloyd George/Conservative Coalition in the Smethwick constituency

Smethwick (UK Parliament constituency)

Smethwick was a parliamentary constituency, centred on the town of Smethwick in Staffordshire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system....

. She was narrowly defeated, by only 775 votes to the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

candidate John Davison

John Davison (politician)

John Emanuel Davison was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom who served as a Member of Parliament from 1918 to 1926....

Move to California

Leaving England in 1921, she moved to the United States where she eventually became an evangelist with Plymouth Brethren links and became a prominent member of Second Adventist movement. Marshall, Morgan and Scott published her works on subjects related to her prophetic outlook, which took its character from John Nelson Darby's perspectives. Pankhurst lectured and wrote books on the Second Coming. She was a frequent guest on TV shows and had a reputation for being an odd combination of “former suffragist revolutionary, evangelical Christian and almost stereotypically proper “English Lady” who always was in demand as a lecturer.” While in California she adopted her daughter, Betty, after finally recovering from her mother’s death. She returned to Britain in the 1930s. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1936. At the start of the Second World War she again left for the USA where she lived until her death in Los Angeles, California. Before her death she received 250 pounds a year from Olivia Durand-Deacon, a widow who was murdered by her male companion. The widow was brutally murdered and her killer dissolved her body in an acid bath. The reason for which she left the sum to Christabel was unknown.

Speech

The following speech was made shortly after Christabel was released from prison in 1908. She describes why the members of the WSPU are campaigning for the vote.
“The militant suffragists who form the Women's Social and Political Union are engaged in the attempt to win the parliamentary vote for the women of this country. Their claim is that those women who pay rates and taxes and who fill the same qualifications as men voters shall be placed upon the parliamentary register. The reasons why women should have the vote are obvious to every fair-minded person. The British constitution provides that taxation and representation shall go together. Therefore, women tax payers are entitled to vote. Parliament views questions of vital interest to women such as education, housing and the employment questions and upon such matters, women wish to express their opinions at the ballot box. The honour and safety of the country are in the hands of parliament. Therefore, every patriotic and public spirited woman wishes to take part in controlling the actions of our legislators. For forty years, this reasonable claim has been laid before parliament in a quiet and patient manner. Meetings have been held and petitions signed in favour of votes for women but failure has been the result. The reason of this failure is that women have not been able to bring pressure to bear on the government and government moves only in response to pressure. Men got the vote, not by persuading but by alarming the legislators. Similar vigorous measures must be adopted by women. The excesses of men must be avoided yet great determination must be shown. The militant methods of women today are clearly thought out and vigorously pursued. They consist in protesting at public meetings and in marching to the House of Commons in procession. Repressive legislation make protests at public meetings an offence but imprisonment will not deter women from asking to vote. Deputations to parliament involve arrest and imprisonment yet more deputations will go to the House of Commons. The present Liberal government profess to believe in democratic government yet they refuse to carry out their principles in the case of women. They must be compelled by a united and determined women's enfranchisement measure. We have waited too long for political justice; we refuse to wait any longer. The present government is approaching the end of its career. Therefore, time presses if women are to vote before the next general election. We are resolved that 1909 must and shall be the political enfranchisement of British women.”

Death

Christabel died February 13, 1958, at the age of 77, sitting in a straight-backed chair. Her housekeeper found her body and there was no indication of her cause of death. Before her death, she had never been sick or injured, except for one car accident that she was slightly injured in. She was buried in the Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.

External links

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstC.htm
Blue Plaque for Suffragette Leaders Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst

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