The Pankhursts

[barrywoodling]

Women who made history-The Suffragettes.

Although Dale Spender in her book "Women of ideas" launches a ferocious attack on David Mitchells biography of Christabel Pankhurst for its vicious and vindictive sexist content nevertheless his other book "The Pankhursts" does contain some interesting factual material.

Both Dr Richard Marsden Pankhurst and his wife Emmeline were friends of Keir Hardie and joined the Independent Labour Party soon after its foundation. Emilys daughters Christabel and Sylvia were both member of the ILP cycling club sponsored by Robert Blatchfords newspaper "The Clarion". At weekends the club set out to take the socialist message to the sleepy villages of Lancashire and Cheshire. Robert Tressel in the "Ragged Trousered Philantropists" also makes reference to the "socialist van" which distributed radical leaflets and pamphlets similarly.

To be continued

[barrywoodling]

The Battle of Boggart Hole Clough, Manchester.

In 1895 Dr Richard Pankhurst stood as an ILP candidate in Gorton. His daughters Christabel and Sylvia were taken away from school to canvass for him. He lost the election. Emily then drove off in a pony and trap to support Tom Mann in a nearby constituency.

Manchester City Council encouraged by the electoral setbacks of the ILP placed a ban on political assemblies in public parks including Boggart Hole Clough where the ILP held regular Sunday meetings. The ILP challenged the ban and Leonard Hall and Fred Brocklehurst were jailed for one month after refusing to pay a fine. Emily Pankhurst took up the fight.

Emily was then summoned before the bench and declared she would not pay any fine and would continue to hold meetings at the Clough. The Magistrate was afraid to imprison Emily. Five times she was requested to change her mind. She refused. She continued to appear week after week at the Clough. Crowds grew from a few hundred to over 50,000. The press and politicians anxious to prove that they believed in free speech exerted pressure . The prosecution was dropped. A small victory for freedom of speech was thus secured.

[michele cryer]

Hi Barry, thanks once again for introducing a very interesting subject to us here at The Voice...

[Barry woodling]

Whilst Dale Spenders critique of David Mitchells The Pankhursts forl its sexist content is wholly justified in my view, neverthelss Mitchells book contains much interesting material. For instance he refers to Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 1890s as the theory of mass direct action by industrial workers designed both to win concessions from capitalism and also to fashion a radically egalitarian society. It had spread from France to Spain and America and was securing adherents in every country in the west. In England Tom Mann and Ben Tillett challenged "official" trade unionism and campaigned to form workers into mass organisations to fight monopoly capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists were and indeed still are contemptuous of party politics and perceive the social General Strike as a means to confront Capital.

Furthermore, Mitchell compares the Pankhursts sentiments re the political emancipation of women to those of the Industrial Workers of the World (The Wobblies) who advocated workers control and the concept of One Big Union. He quotes from one of the Wobbly songs.

"We hate their rotten system more than any mortals do,
Our aim is not to patch it up, but build it all anew".

To be continued.

Barry Woodling
Nanista

[Mitch]

Hi Barry,

I hope the Wobblies are not (and have never been) quite like the approach of both Emmeline & Christabel Pankhurst.

Their political positions shifted over time, to the point where Sylvia Pankhurst accused both of betraying the memory of Richard Pankhurst (Richard Pankhurst is an interesting figure within a Manchester political context - instrumental in the early days of the ILP/sacrificed a prostigious legal career for his political beliefs)- after the First World War (which both Christabel & Emmeline supported with exuberant nationalistic fervour - eek/whilst Sylvia assisted no conscriptors to escape to Ireland I think), Christabel Pankhurst ran as a Conservative MP - she was unsuccessful and later went on to found the Second Adventists (a rather strange religious sect who believed in the Second Coming).

Both Emmeline Pankhurst & Christabel Pankhurst changed much after they set up the Womens Social & Political Union - they moved away from their ILP routes, and indeed activists like Selina Cooper. Ada Nield Chew had a superb row in the Clarion with Christabel Pankhurst. - Emmeline & Christabel became almost dictatorial running the WSPU.

Anywise, look forward to further chats on the 4th Feb perhaps, and explaining what I draw from ILP organising round these parts - Nelson & Burnley and the history of it. Essentially it is the ILP's Libertarian Socialist style which was initially I think a big part of their success, around the writing of the likes of Edward Carpenter. But of course the ILP went on a journey as well.

tara for now. Best Mitch

[Barry Woodling]

Mitchell refers to an incident in 1909 in Bristol when a suffagette named Theresa Garnett struck Winston Churchill with a horse-whip hissing "Take that in the name of the insulted women of England!".

It is quite remarkable, as Mitch points out, how the political orientation of Emily, and her three daughters changed over time. During the First World War both Emily and Christabel became enthusiastic supporters of the war, and Emily Pankhurst helped to organise a "Womens right to serve demonstration" and took the salute at a march past of the procession with LLoyd George and the aforementioned Churchill. Emily also toured the country making recruiting speeches. Adela and Sylvia opposed the war and Sylvia wrote a pacifist pamphlet "Put up the Sword" which became a best seller.

Adela the youngest Pankhurst daughter left for Australia in 1914 and campaigned against military conscription and helped Tom Barker the English born leader of the Australian IWW to put up posters which demanded that "Capitalists, parsons, politicians, landlords and other stay at home patriots" should fight their own battles. In 1917 she was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for Bolshevism. In the 1920s Adela politics moved to the right and in l929 she set up the Australian Womens Guild of Empire. In 1937 she was awarded the King George 6th Coronation Medal, visited Japan in 1939 and was interned in l940 in Australia for FASCIST sympathies. She had become involved with a pro-Nazi clique and she joined a new organisation the Australia First Movement.

In 1922 Emily Pankhurst joined the Canadian National Council for combatting Veneral Disease as chief lecturer. She upheld christian morality and chastity and linked venereal disease with Bolshevism which she condemned. In 1926 Emily Pankhurst returned to England and became a Conservative prospective candidate for Whitechapel.

Christabel as Mitch pointed out turned to religion and became a Second Adventist and preached it throughout the United States. In 1936 Christabel was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire and spent the last decade of her life as a "minor celebrity".

To be concluded.

Barry Woodling

Nanista

[barrywoodling]

Sylvia Pankhurst was perhaps the most radical of all the Pankhursts. In 1914 Sylvia was released from prison for the seventh time. She founded the East London branch of the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU) which became the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) after a split with Christabel. She also produced a weekly paper called Womens Dreadnought.

During the 1st World War she was a committed anti-war activist unlike Emily and Christabel who adopted a jingoistic pro-war position. Sylvia helped found the Womens League for Peace and Freedom in 1915 in the Hague. They were derided in the Britannia paper as
"hun coddlers"

In 1917 Womens Dreadnought became Workers Dreadnought and the ELFS became the Workers Socialist Federation. Sylvia became the London correspondent of the Communist International - a Bolshevik journal of the 3rd International. The WSF changed its name to the Communist Party (British Section of the 3rd International). The Party sent delegates to the Unity meeting of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Sylvia proved too independent minded for the CPGB and was expelled.

In her later years there was a remarkable change in her political outlook. She took up the cause of Ethiopia and produced the newspaper New Times and Ethiopian News. She hero worshipped Haile Selassie the "Lion of Judah" and reneged on her republican principles, and ignored the fact that the hereditary monarch was a vitual dictator.


She launched the Princess Tsahai Memorial Hospital Fund named after one of the Emperors daughters and in fact emigrated to Ethiopia in 1958, where she died in 1960. She received a state funeral which was attended by the Imperial Family and Government ministers. The Minister of the Interior declared in his funeral oration. "The history of Ethiopias friend, the great Englishwoman Miss Sylvia Pankhurst, will live forever with the history of the Ethiopian patriots". Thus ended a truly remarkable political journey!

Barry Woodling

Nanista

[Knightrose]

during her communist period, Sylvia Pankhurst wrote some fascinating stuff. She became one of the main proponents of anti-bolshevik communism in Britain. There are four texts with info about her on the Anarchist Federation North website - firstly in Anti-Parliamentary Communism: The Movement for Workers Councils in Britain, 1917-45 by Mark Shipway and one of her texts is included in Communism or Reforms two articles by Sylvia Pankhurst and Anton Pannekoek, first published in the Workers Dreadnought in 1922. There's also reference to her in Anti-Parliamentarism and Communism in Britain, 1917-1921 by R. F. Jones and Class War on the Home Front - Revolutionary opposition to the Second World War. Articles and discussion from the pages of Solidarity, the journal of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation. They are all available on: af-north.org/othertexts.htm

[michele cryer]

Hi Knightrose! Great to see you on the site...thanks for this extra info re Sylvia Pankhurst and for the link to AF-North!

[knightrose]

Cheers. I'll try and keep looking back from time to time.

[Mitch]

Hi Knightrose,

I'll check out those Sylvia Pankhurst articles, thanks.

That AF North site is very good, I've been using it regularly for guidance on the anti-ID campaign here in Burnley.

The 'Suggestions for Struggle' is the best article I've read on the subject.

tara Mitch

[knightrose]

Ta Mitch.

We (Manchester Defy ID) talked about having a get together on ID for all those involved in the campaign. Were meeting again this week. I*'ll let you know what comes of it.

[Mitch]

knightrose said:

Ta Mitch.

We (Manchester Defy ID) talked about having a get together on ID for all those involved in the campaign. Were meeting again this week. I*'ll let you know what comes of it.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing. There's a Defy ID section on this forum - would be great if you could keep us informed via that. A national gathering on anti-ID would be most welcome. I'd be interested to come along to that too for further guidance.

Also, the Defy-ID website has been invaluable - I look forward to seeing that back up and running soon.

Best Mitch

[knightrose]

It is running again. Check it out.
If you are doing the biz in Burnley, you should get yourselves listed as the contacts.
Bob

[Mitch]

knightrose said:

It is running again. Check it out.
If you are doing the biz in Burnley, you should get yourselves listed as the contacts.
Bob

Hey up,

Yep, I know it's up I check it regularly. What I meant was up-to-date news. But I'm aware of the pressure on those doing the website.

I can't emphasise how useful it is though in terms of a guiding organising tool for small groups - most of the ideas for beginning with an anti-ID public meeting in Burnley I took from Defy ID.

The group voted unanimously to call ourselves Burnley & Pendle Defy ID. In the absence of this guiding tool I've had to move over to SayNo2ID to get the up-to-date info- and I share all the concerns on that Liberal Party led campaign that are well put in the AF article previously mentioned - it was people that stopped the poll tax, and it'll be people again that will stop ID cards (one of our Burnley Anarchists Reg/a hero of mine ;D had a spell inside protesting against the poll tax - you'll no doubt meet him if your present on the organising group for the Greater Manchester conference). Reg is in our Defy ID group.

Anywise, I know the pressure of resources, but it is my opinion that a co-ordinated, regularly updated Defy ID website would be a crucial tool to help small groups on the ground organise against ID and share ideas with each other.

archive.thisislancashire.co.uk/2005/11/7/875188.html
We have had much interest from the local press, and will be meeting as a group again shortly.

tara for now. Mitch

[Mitch]

Moved Defy ID continuing conversation back to Defy ID thread on this forum.
Best Mitch