At Home with the Pankhurst Family
New Permanent Exhibition at Manchester’s Pankhurst Centre own aspirations were sometimes left unfulfilled, Adela’s career dreams of being a teacher put to one side to join her mother and sisters in their work to achieve the enfranchisement of women. It also includes looking at the influences from both within the family and the radical city of Manchester in which they lived. At Home with the Pankhurst Family is a significant milestone for this small museum, which is the country’s only museum dedicated to female suffrage and exploring what the legacy of this means; past, present and future. That it has been made possible is thanks to funding from AIM Biffa Award History Makers, as part of the Landfill Communities Fund. The Pankhurst Centre museum occupies the ground floor of 62 Nelson Street, with the room layouts very much intact and the story flowing from the entrance hallway, where visitors are reminded of the campaigners who saved the building from destruction in the 1970s, to the parlour where Emmeline Pankhurst held the first meeting of what would become known as the suffragettes. Ruth Colton, Heritage Manager of the Pankhurst Centre, says, “Our aim is to give visitors the chance to discover more about the family behind the Pankhurst name and how they became both change makers and historical icons. The exhibition’s striking boldness reflects the strength behind the campaigning of the suffragettes and yet we are also reminded that this began from the setting of a family home.”
The transformation of the Pankhurst Centre exhibition space is incredible thanks to its new permanent exhibition, At Home with the Pankhurst Family.
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ts opening also marks the reopening of the Grade II* listed former home of Emmeline Pankhurst, with community groups invited to enjoy the experience from Thursday 29 July, prior to the public opening from Sunday 29 August. The exhibition enables visitors to get to know the people behind the iconic Pankhurst name; their lives, influences, tragedies, resourcefulness and the factors that turned them into the campaigners that they became. This includes how they used their skills, notably Sylvia as an artist, and how their campaigning meant that their
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LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
TAKING YOU THROUGH THE AT HOME WITH THE PANKHURST FAMILY EXPERIENCE In room one we find out more about the Pankhursts as a whole family than has ever been previously explored in an exhibition, revealing more of their private lives, their early lives and about them as individuals – how they lived and worked in this space and what led them to be a family of activism. It is an intense experience with the loss of a son following the loss of a husband and the reduction in circumstances that brought them to this house, with strong graphical imagery forming the backdrop to a narrative that is illuminated by photographs, artefacts and objects. Then in room two visitors find themselves confronted by an audio visual experience, which immerses you into the environment as the Votes for Women campaign reaches www.lancmag.com