Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Goulden was born in Manchester in 1858 to a family active in radical politics and attended her first suffrage meeting at 14. In 1879 she married the barrister Richard Pankhurst, author of an early women's suffrage bill. She founded the Women's Franchise League in 1889, joined the Independent Labour Party and served as a Poor Law Guardian, where the conditions she saw in the workhouse convinced her that women needed the vote. In October 1903 she founded the Women's Social and Political Union, whose members became known as suffragettes, with the motto "Deeds, not words". Between 1908 and 1914 she was imprisoned many times and went on hunger strike, and under the 1913 "Cat and Mouse" Act she was repeatedly released and rearrested. When war broke out in 1914 she halted the campaign and supported the war effort. In 1918 women over 30 gained the vote. She later joined the Conservative Party and died in 1928, weeks before women won equal voting rights.

Pankhurst is widely regarded as the leading figure of the British women's suffrage movement, and her statue stands in Victoria Tower Gardens beside Parliament. Supporters credit her campaign with making votes for women impossible to ignore. Critics at the time, and some historians since, argue that militant tactics such as arson alienated potential supporters and delayed reform, and that she led the WSPU in an autocratic way. Her daughters Sylvia and Adela broke with her over tactics and the war. Historians generally agree that the WSPU raised public awareness of the cause in ways that proved essential.