Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst, (1858-1928). British suffragette. She became concerned about women’s rights and worked with her husband, the lawyer Richard Marsden Pankhurst, for the Married Women’s Property Act. In 1903 she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union with her daughters Christabel (1880-1958) and Sylvia (1882-1960); the campaign to obtain women’s suffrage was launched three years later. From 1912 the suffragettes used militant methods, such as arson, window smashing, and bombing. In 1913 Mrs Pankhurst was arrested and imprisoned 12 times but released after going on hunger strikes. During World War I she broke off her campaign and toured the US and Russia. She died just a month before full women’s suffrage was granted.
“We women suffragists have a great mission the greatest mission the world has ever known. It is to free half the human race, and through that freedom to save the rest. Emmeline Pankhurst, speech October 1912”
