Emmeline Pankhurst - First World War

First World War

When the First World War began in August 1914, Emmeline and Christabel considered that the threat posed by Germany was a danger to all humanity and that the British government needed the support of all citizens. They persuaded the WSPU to halt all militant suffrage activities until fighting on the European mainland ended. It was no time for dissent or agitation; Christabel wrote later: "This was national militancy. As Suffragists we could not be pacifists at any price." A truce with the government was established, all WSPU prisoners were released, and Christabel returned to London. Emmeline and Christabel along with WSPU leaders Grace Roe and Norah Dacre Fox (later known as Norah Elam) set the WSPU into motion on behalf of the war effort. In her first speech after returning to Britain, Christabel warned of the "German Peril." She urged the gathered women to follow the example of their French sisters, who–while the men fought– "are able to keep the country going, to get in the harvest, to carry on the industries." Emmeline urged men to volunteer for the front lines. Surviving Pathe newsreel shows Emmeline and Norah Dacre Fox speaking at a large meeting at Trafalgar Square in 1916 on the Rumanian Crisis, urging the government to support Britain's allies in the Balkans.

Sylvia and Adela, meanwhile, did not share their mother's enthusiasm for the war. As committed pacifists, they rejected the WSPU's support for the government. Sylvia's socialist perspective convinced her that the war was another example of capitalist oligarchs exploiting poor soldiers and workers. Adela, meanwhile, spoke against the war in Australia and made public her opposition to conscription. In a short letter, Emmeline told Sylvia: "I am ashamed to know where you and Adela stand." She had a similar impatience for dissent within the WSPU; when long-time member Mary Leigh asked a question during a meeting in October 1915, Pankhurst replied: "hat woman is a pro German and should leave the hall. ... I denounce you as a pro German and wish to forget that such a person ever existed." Some WSPU members were outraged by this sudden rigid devotion to the government, the leadership's perceived abandonment of efforts to win the vote for women, and questions about how funds collected on behalf of suffrage were being managed with regard to the organisation's new focus. Two groups split from the WSPU: The Suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union (SWSPU) and the Independent Women's Social and Political Union (IWSPU), each dedicated to maintaining pressure toward women's suffrage.

Pankhurst put the same energy and determination she had previously applied to women's suffrage into patriotic advocacy of the war effort. She organised rallies, toured constantly delivering speeches, and lobbied the government to help women enter the work force while men were overseas fighting. Another issue which concerned her greatly at the time was the plight of so-called war babies, children born to single mothers whose fathers were on the front lines. Pankhurst established an adoption home at Campden Hill designed to employ the Montessori method of childhood education. Some women criticised Pankhurst for offering relief to parents of children born out of wedlock, but she declared indignantly that the welfare of children–whose suffering she had seen firsthand as a Poor Law Guardian–was her only concern. Due to lack of funds, however, the home was soon turned over to Princess Alice. Pankhurst herself adopted four children, whom she renamed Kathleen King, Flora Mary Gordon, Joan Pembridge, and Elizabeth Tudor. They lived in London, where–for the first time in many years–she had a permanent home, at Holland Park. Asked how, at the age of 57 and with no steady income, she could take on the burden of raising four more children, Pankhurst replied: "My dear, I wonder I didn't take forty."