EP 03 - The Secret History of the Suffragettes

The Secret History of the Suffragettes

- Episode 03 -

The Pankhursts didn’t want the poor to get the vote

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The Secret History of the Suffragettes

Wednesday 9 March 2022

Did the Suffragettes have some other agenda? LISTEN

62 Nelson Street, Manchester, now the Pankhurst Centre

Birthplace of the Suffragettes, but did you know they started out as part of the Labour Party?

The real story of the Suffragettes, rather than the one invented in the 1920s by the Suffragette Fellowship, begins in the Manchester Labour Party in the 1890s. It was there that most of the tactics of peaceful militant protest were first tried out.

In November 1903 at 62 Nelson Street, Emmeline Pankhurst, her three daughters: Christabel, Sylvia and Adela, a teacher Theresa Billington, and two other members of the Independent Labour Party set up the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), later known as the Suffragettes.

It was a pressure group within the Manchester Labour Party that was going to work, among other things, for women’s votes among the poor women of the Manchester area. They spoke at local trades councils, debating societies, and branches of the Women’s Co-operative Guild. They held outdoor meetings, with men from the Labour Party acting as bodyguards

Emmeline and Christabel would eventually part ways with all of these women. Family or not they ruled the WSPU with iron hands.

Episode 3 Some other agenda? on Apple podcast here

Episode 3 Some other agenda? on Spotify here

Teacher and former mill worker, Annie Kenney. Actress Maxine Peake backs a call for a statue to the forgotten Suffragette

Peaceful militant protest by women didn't get you arrested, so Christabel Pankhurst had to break the law to get publicity

13 October 1905 at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, with young thirtysomething Winston Churchill in the audience, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney got themselves arrested. Christabel spat at a policeman - an arrestable offence. Some reports said she hit the officer in the mouth.

Getting men sent to gaol for protesting wasn’t difficult and created few headlines. But getting women sent to gaol usually required actually breaking the law.

That in itself was a gift to the opponents of women’s votes. But it was above all a problem if you wanted to persuade Government ministers to grant female suffrage. Breaking the law handed the government the perfect excuse – in fact, it made it absolutely necessary - for the government not to do what you demanded. Governments never make concessions to law-breakers.

Right from the start, the suffragettes had caught themselves in a trap.

They started out as a branch of the Labour Party and ended up benefiting the Tories

Pethwick-Lawrences with Christabel Pankhurst. The PLs, who ran the newspaper Votes for Women, suffered force feeding. Somehow Emmeline Pankhurst never did.

Wealthy socialists set the Pankhursts up in London, but soon socialism becomes a bad word

In 1906 the WSPU moved to London, with help from funds provided by Keir Hardie, the Labour Leader, and into headquarters at Clements Inn (the site of Pethwick Lawrence House, LSE) provided by a wealthy couple who were friends of Keir's and committed to left-wing causes – Emmeline and Frederick Pethwick-Lawrence.

Actually Mrs Pethwick-Lawrence was unimpressed by Mrs Pankhurst. But then she met the young Annie Kenney – the Labour Party teacher and former mill worker. Annie Kenney won Emmeline Pethwick Lawrence over and persuaded her to meet committed socialist, daughter Sylvia Pankhurst.

The Pethwick-Lawrences would eventually pay dearly for their association with Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, as did daughter/sisters Sylvia and Adela (you don't hear of Adela do you?)

Episode 3 Some other agenda? on Soundcloud here

Sylvia Pankhurst remained a radical socialist. Here she leads a factory strike meeting in Millwall, East London, March 1914

Emmeline and Christabel made a deliberate move away from their socialist roots towards the Tory-voting wealthy

The WSPU had moved to London to 'take on' the Liberal government. Their first militant tactic was to oppose any Liberal candidate at a by-election. However the Liberals had a majority of 125 – one of the highest [the 5^th] for an individual party in the entire century. Liberal ministers were never going to lose much sleep.

By 1907 the WSPU ditched their association with the Labour Party because it was in favour of votes for all adults, and they saw this as a long way off. Better to campaign for some votes for some women on the same basis as men.

They declared they were not affiliated to any party. However, their tactics of opposing Liberal candidates and ignoring Labour ones simply benefitted the Tories.

Much later, in the 1930s, Sylvia Pankhurst, who always remained a committed socialist, claimed that this was no accident. It was in reality, she claimed, part of a deliberate policy by her mother and her eldest sister Christabel to move away from socialism and toward the Tories from 1906.

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