Christabel Pankhurst

Dame
Christabel Pankhurst
DBE
Pankhurst, c. 1910
Born
Christabel Harriette Pankhurst

(1880-09-22)22 September 1880
Old Trafford, Manchester, England
Died13 February 1958(1958-02-13) (aged 77)
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Resting placeWoodlawn Memorial Cemetery
MonumentsEmmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial
EducationManchester High School for Girls
Alma materUniversity of Manchester
OccupationsPolitical activist and suffragette
EmployerThe Suffragette
Political partyLabour Party
MovementWomen's Social and Political Union
Parent(s)Richard Pankhurst
Emmeline Goulden
RelativesSophia Craine (maternal grandmother)
Sylvia Pankhurst (sister)
Adela Pankhurst (sister)
Richard Pankhurst (nephew)
Helen Pankhurst (great-niece)
Alula Pankhurst (great-nephew)

Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst DBE (/ˈpæŋkhərst/;[1] 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette and Royalist born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914, she supported 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

Emmeline Pankhurst (left), Christabel Pankhurst (centre) and Sylvia Pankhurst (right) at Waterloo Station, London, in 1911

Christabel Pankhurst was born on 22 September 1880 in Manchester, England.[2] She was the daughter of women's suffrage movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst[3] and radical socialist barrister Richard Pankhurst, and sister to Sylvia Pankhurst and Adela Pankhurst.[4] Her father was a barrister and her mother owned a small shop. Christabel assisted her mother, who worked as the Registrar of Births and Deaths in Manchester. Despite financial struggles, her family had always been encouraged by their firm belief in their devotion to causes rather than comforts. As a child, Christabel said: "how long you women have been trying for the vote. For my part, I mean to get it."[5]

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 enjoyed a special relationship with both her mother and father, who had named her after "Christabel", the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge ("The lovely lady Christabel / Whom her father loves so well").[6] Her mother's death in 1928 had a devastating impact on Christabel.[7][8]

Education

Pankhurst 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.[2] She obtained a law degree from the University of Manchester,[9] and received honours on her LL.B. exam but, as a woman, was not permitted to practise law.[2][5] Later Pankhurst moved to Geneva to live with a family friend, but, when her father died in 1898, returned home to help her mother raise the rest of the children.[7] Pankhurst and her mother were members of the Labour Party.[10]

Activism

Suffrage

Pankhurst was a founder member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) with her mother on 10 October 1903.[2][4][11] The WSPU aimed to campaign for the parliamentary vote for women on the same terms as it was given to men.

Charlotte Marsh, Dorothy Radcliffe and Elsa Gye in December 1908 organising a welcome for Christabel Pankhurst after she left prison

On 25 July 1904 Pankhurst published an article in the Daily Dispatch newspaper covering a visit to Manchester by Susan B. Anthony, titled "Woman's Rights: An American reformer in Manchester."[12] In November 1904, Pankhurst was a North of England Society for Women's Suffrage delegate to the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) convention in London.[12]

In 1905, Pankhurst interrupted a Liberal Party meeting at Manchester's Free Trade Hall by unfurling a Votes For Women banner hidden in her blouse and shouting demands for voting rights for women.[13] She spat in the policeman's face and was arrested.[13][14] Along with fellow suffragette Annie Kenney,[3] she was sentenced to prison for obstruction at Manchester Police Court,[15] rather than pay a fine. They were the first suffragettes to be imprisoned,[5] their case gained much media interest and the ranks of the WSPU swelled following their trial.[16] For example, after reading an article about the arrest while in South Africa, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence joined the WSPU on returning to England.[17][18] Helena Swanwick also joined the WSPU after reading of the arrest and later wrote that her "heart rose up in support of their revolt."[19] Her mother Emmeline Pankhurst began to take more militant action for the women's suffrage cause after her daughter's arrest and was herself imprisoned on many occasions for her principles.

Vera Holme's transcript of speeches made by Pankhurst and her mother at the Royal Albert Hall on 19 March 1908

After obtaining her law degree in 1906, Christabel moved to nearby the London headquarters of the WSPU, where she was appointed its organising secretary.[5] She lodged with Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence in London and in Surrey.[20]

Nicknamed "Queen of the Mob", Pankhurst was jailed again in 1907 in Parliament Square. Pankhurst, her mother and Flora Drummond were arrested in October 1908 for inciting a "rush" on Parliament[21] and she was tried in 1909 at the "Rush Trial" at Bow Street Magistrates' Court.

Pankhurst by Ethel Wright, 1909[22]

Pankhurst and her mother gave speeches at the Royal Albert Hall on 19 March 1908, which were recorded as transcripts by Vera Holme.

Pankhurst was painted wearing a sash in the suffragette colours of green, white and purple by Ethel Wright, for the WSPU's Women’s Exhibition held in London in 1909. The portrait is now held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.[22]

In October 1912, The Suffragette newspaper was established as WSPU's official newspaper, replacing Votes for Women, with Pankhurst as editor and Agnes Lake as business manager.[2][6][23]

Between 1913 and 1914 Pankhurst lived in Paris, France,[24] to escape imprisonment under the terms of the Prisoner's (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act, better known as the "Cat and Mouse Act," but continued to provided editorial lead to The Suffragette through visitors such as Annie Kenney and Ida Wylie who crossed the Channel for her advice.[18] Other campaigners visited Paris to have Christmas dinner with her in 1912; these included Irene Dallas, Hilda Dallas, Blanche Edwards and Alice Morgan Wright.[25]

Illustration of Pankhurst in the London magazine Vanity Fair, 15 June 1910[26]

The start of World War I compelled Pankhurst to return to England in 1914, where she was again arrested. She engaged in a hunger strike, ultimately serving only 30 days of a three-year sentence.

Pankhurst was influential in the WSPU's "anti-male" phase after the failure of the Conciliation Bills. 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.[27]

Pankhurst and her sister Sylvia did not get along. Sylvia 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.[7]

The Suffragette, the newspaper edited by Pankhurst, Emily Wilding Davison memorial issue

Wartime activities

At the outbreak of World War I, Pankhurst and her mother were in St Malo, France.[28] On 8 September 1914, Pankhurst re-appeared at London's Royal Opera House after her long exile, to utter a declaration 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.[29] Along with Dacre Fox (later known as Norah Elam), Pankhurst toured the country making patriotic recruiting speeches[30]. Her sister Sylvia's memoir included a reference to some of Christabel's supporters handing the white feather to every young man they encountered wearing civilian dress.

The Suffragette appeared again on 16 April 1915 as a war paper and on 15 October changed its name to Britannia.[31][32] In its weekly pages, Pankhurst called for the military conscription of men and the industrial conscription of women into national service and advocated to pause the campaign for women’s suffrage for the duration of the war. It also published articles covering the skills of "women munition makers" and encouraging women to study science and engineering.[23]

Throughout the war, Pankhurst called for the internment of all people of enemy nationality, men and women, young and old, found on these shores. Her supporters attended Hyde Park meetings with placards reading: "Intern Them All". She also championed a more complete and thorough enforcement of the blockade of enemy and neutral nations, arguing that this must be "a war of attrition". She demanded the resignation of Sir Edward Grey, Lord Robert Cecil, General William Robertson and Sir Eyre Crowe, whom she considered too mild and dilatory in method. 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,[29] Britannia was compelled at last to set up its own printing press.

1918 General Election campaign in Smethwick

Pankhurst on 6 December 1918

After some British women were granted the right to vote at the end of World War I, Pankhurst announced that she would stand in the 1918 general election. At first she said she would contest Westbury in Wiltshire but at the last minute stood as a Women's Party candidate, in the Smethwick constituency in alliance with the Lloyd George/Conservative Coalition.[33] She was not issued with the "Coalition Coupon" letter signed by both Liberal and Unionist leaders. Her campaign focussed on a "Victorious Peace", "the Germans must pay for the War" and "Britain for the British". She was narrowly defeated, by only 775 votes, by the Labour Party candidate, local trade union leader John Davison.[34]

Move to California

Leaving England in 1921, Pankhurst moved to the United States where she eventually became an Evangelical Christian with Plymouth Brethren and became a prominent member of Second Adventist movement.[31][35]

Prophetic interests

Marshall, Morgan, and Scott published Pankhurst's 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 and wrote a regular column in The Christian newspaper.[36] She was a frequent guest on TV shows in the 1950s 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 living in California, she adopted her daughter Betty, finally having recovered from her mother's death.

Damehood

Pankhurst returned to Britain for a period in the 1930s and was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for public and social services" in the 1936 New Year Honours.[3][37][38] At the onset of World War II, she again left for the United States, to live in Los Angeles, California.[2]

Death

Pankhurst died on 13 February 1958, aged 77. She died of a heart attack sitting in a straight-backed chair. She was buried in the Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, California, United States.[7]

Pankhurst was played by Patricia Quinn in the TV series Shoulder to Shoulder (1974).

Pankhurst features in the Sylvia (musical) and was played by Ellena Vincent.

Posthumous recognition

A profile bust of Christabel Pankhurst (left picture) on the right pylon of the Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens was added to the memorial in 1959; it was unveiled on 13 July 1959 by Viscount Kilmuir.[39] Her name and image (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are etched on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, that was unveiled in 2018.[40]

In 2006, a blue plaque (right picture) for Christabel and her mother was placed by English Heritage at 50, Clarendon Road, Notting Hill, London W11 3AD, where they had lived.[41][42] Another blue plaque was erected on 19 October 2018 by the Marchmont Association at 8 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5BE.

A profile bust of Christabel Pankhurst
English Heritage blue plaque for Christabel & Emmeline Pankhurst

Works

  • Christabel Pankhurst (1907). "The Legal Disabilities of Women". The Case for Women's Suffrage: 84–98. Wikidata Q107183571.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Pankhurst". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. OCLC 1120411289.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Purvis, June (23 September 2004), "Pankhurst, Dame Christabel Harriette (1880–1958)", The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35375, retrieved 7 February 2026
  3. ^ a b c "Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst". Britannica.com. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  4. ^ a b Purvis, June (5 February 2018). "Pankhurst sisters: the bitter divisions behind their fight for women's votes". The Conversation. Retrieved 7 February 2026.
  5. ^ a b c d "Christabel Pankhurst: Suffragette leader". London Museum. Retrieved 7 February 2026.
  6. ^ a b Purvis, June (18 January 2018). Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge. p. 16, 101. ISBN 978-1-351-24664-4.
  7. ^ a b c d Hillberg, Isabelle. "Pankhurst, Christabel Hariette (1880–1958)". Gale. Retrieved 6 October 2011.
  8. ^ "Christabel Pankhurst". Gale. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
  9. ^ Taylor, Beth (2015). "Christabel Pankhurst: Heritage Heroes at The University of Manchester". The University of Manchester. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  10. ^ Kerber, Linda K.; Hart, Jane Sherron De (1991). Women's America: Refocusing the Past. Oxford University Press. p. 327. ISBN 978-0-19-506262-5.
  11. ^ Gearty, Conor (15 December 2025). "The suffragette movement and civil liberties". The Cambridge Law Journal: 1–28. doi:10.1017/S0008197325101001. ISSN 0008-1973. Retrieved 7 February 2026.
  12. ^ a b Crawford, Elizabeth (2001). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928. Psychology Press. p. 489. ISBN 978-0-415-23926-4.
  13. ^ a b "Sacrifice that is all but forgotten". Manchester Evening News. 13 October 2005. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  14. ^ Marr, Andrew (9 February 2012). "'I wanted to assault a policeman'". BBC. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  15. ^ "Miss Pankhurst and the police, Assault and obstruction". The Guardian. 16 October 1905. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  16. ^ Helmond, Marij van (1992). Votes for Women: The Events on Merseyside 1870-1928. National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-906367-45-2.
  17. ^ Purvis, June (2 September 2003). Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-134-34191-7.
  18. ^ a b Atkinson, Diane (2018). Rise up, women! The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 39, 436. ISBN 9781408844045. OCLC 1016848621.
  19. ^ Colmore, Gertrude (12 October 2007). Suffragette Sally. Broadview Press. pp. 310–311. ISBN 978-1-77048-248-7.
  20. ^ Atherton, Kathy. "Emmeline and Frederick Pethick Lawrence". Exploring Surrey's Past. Retrieved 9 February 2026.
  21. ^ Pankhurst, Estelle Sylvia (1993). A Sylvia Pankhurst Reader. Manchester University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-7190-2889-2.
  22. ^ a b "Dame Christabel Pankhurst". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  23. ^ a b "The Suffragette Newspaper". IET Archives blog. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  24. ^ Cowman, Krista (9 December 2010). Women in British Politics, c.1689-1979. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-30703-2.
  25. ^ "Christmas in Paris". The Suffragette. 3 January 1913. p. 178.
  26. ^ "Dame Christabel Pankhurst ('A Woman of the Day". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  27. ^ Pankhurst, Christabel (1913). The Great Scourge and How to End It. Kingsway: Lincoln's Inn House. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  28. ^ de Vries, Jacqueline (1994). "Gendering Patriotism: Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and World War One". In Oldfield, Sybil (ed.). This Working-Day World, Women's Lives And Culture(s) In Britain, 1914-1945. CRC Press. ISBN 9781315274379. Retrieved 7 February 2026.
  29. ^ a b McPherson, Angela; McPherson, Susan (2011). Mosley's Old Suffragette – A Biography of Norah Elam. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-4466-9967-6. Archived from the original on 13 January 2012.
  30. ^ Gullace, N. (23 September 2016). The Blood of Our Sons: Men, Women and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War. Springer. pp. 121–122. ISBN 978-1-137-04751-9.
  31. ^ a b Larsen, Timothy (2002). Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition. Boydell Press. pp. 9, 21–24. ISBN 978-0-85115-905-8.
  32. ^ "The Suffragette in British Newspaper Archive". The British Newspaper Archive. Archived from the original on 11 December 2024. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  33. ^ Gullace, Nicoletta F. (2016). "Christabel Pankhurst and the Smethwick Election: right-wing feminism, the Great War and the ideology of consumption". Feminism and Feminists After Suffrage. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781315682198. Retrieved 7 February 2026.
  34. ^ Hallam, David JA (2018). "Chapter 2". Taking on the Men: The First Women Parliamentary Candidates 1918. Brewin Books.
  35. ^ Hassey, Janette (1986). No Time for Silence: Evangelical Women in Public Ministry Around the Turn of the Century. Academie Books. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-310-29451-1.
  36. ^ "Remembering Christabel Pankhurst". Christ Church Deeside. 2018. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  37. ^ Purvis, June (12 December 2017), Berthezène, Clarisse; Gottlieb, Julie V. (eds.), "Christabel Pankhurst: A Conservative suffragette?", Rethinking right-wing women, Manchester University Press, doi:10.7765/9781526125194.00008, ISBN 978-1-5261-2519-4, retrieved 7 February 2026{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  38. ^ "No. 34238". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1935. p. 9.
  39. ^ Ward-Jackson, Philip (2011), Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster: Volume 1, Public Sculpture of Britain, vol. 14, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 382–5
  40. ^ Perez, Caroline Criado (24 April 2018). "Millicent Fawcett statue unveiling: the women and men whose names will be on the plinth". iNews. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  41. ^ "PANKHURST, Emmeline (1858-1928) & PANKHURST, Dame Christabel (1880-1958)". English Heritage. 21 December 1908. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  42. ^ "Blue Plaque: Emmeline and Dame Christabel Pankhurst". Time Out London. Retrieved 7 February 2026.

Further reading

  • Christabel Pankhurst, Pressing Problems of the Closing Age (Morgan & Scott Ltd., 1924).
  • Christabel Pankhurst, The World's Unrest: Visions of the Dawn (Morgan & Scott Ltd., 1926).
  • David Mitchell, Queen Christabel (MacDonald and Jane's Publisher Ltd., 1977) ISBN 0-354-04152-5
  • Barbara Castle, Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst (Penguin Books, 1987) ISBN 978-0-14-008761-1.
  • Timothy Larsen, Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition (Boydell Press, 2002).
  • Hallam, David J.A. Taking on the Men: the first women parliamentary candidates 1918 (Brewin Books, 2018 ISBN 978-1-85858-592-5. Contains a chapter and analysis on Christabel Pankhurst's campaign in Smethwick, 1918.
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