Emmeline Pankhurst A cura di Licia ed Elisa
Biography Emmeline Goulden was born on 14 July 1858 in Manchester. In 1879, she married Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. His dead in 1898 was a great shock to Emmeline.
The W.S.P.U In 1903 she formed the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). It was through the political action of the WSPU that the term women’s suffragette movement was created.
Their daughter Emmeline and Richard's eldest daughter, Christabel, became leading members of the Women's Social and Political Union. In 1905, she became one of the first suffragettes to be imprisoned, after interrupting a Liberal Party meeting by shouting demands for votes for women.
Her arrest Like many suffragettes, Emmeline was arrested on numerous occasions over the next few years and went on hunger strike herself, resulting in violent force-feeding. Hunger striking prisoners were released until they grew strong again, and then re-arrested.
What is the use of fighting for a vote if we have not got a country to vote in? In the war eort, women were drafted into factories and took on many jobs previously the preserve of men such as bus drivers and postmen. The radical social change of the first world war helped to diminish the opposition to women getting the vote; and in 1918, women over the age of 30 were given the vote.
After the war, votes were granted to (some) women. The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the vote to all men over 21 and women over 30 who were property owners or graduates voting in a 'university constituency.'
She died just weeks before equal voting rights for women was passed by parliament Emmeline Pankhurst died at the age of 69 in a Hampstead nursing home in 1928.Just 18 days later, parliament passed the Act, which gave women equal votes with men.It meant that women had to be over 21 years old to vote, regardless of property ownership.