Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography

Adela, the WSPU Organiser for Sheffield, had not been happy in the women’s
movement for some time. Although she had not been as fond of her aunt Mary
as Sylvia had been, Mary had been a second mother to the younger Pankhurst
children and her death, coming so soon after Harry’s, must have ‘intensified’
Adela’s sorrow.^1 Furthermore, distrust had grown up between Adela and
Christabel who, Sylvia claimed, regarded their younger sister ‘as a very black
sheep amongst organisers’ because she was a fervent socialist when the WSPU
was supposed to be free from party affiliation.^2 Adela felt that the WSPU was
losing ground and tried to voice her concerns about the militant policy to
Christabel. Some fifty years later, she could still remember clearly Christabel’s
reaction. ‘[U]nfortunately she took it amiss – was even persuaded I was about to
found a counter-organisation with myself as a leader. This was so far from my
intention that the suggestion when it was put to me deprived me of speech!’^3
The years of poor health and hard work, coupled with the suspicions that had
now arisen and the grief over the loss of close relatives brought Adela close to
breaking point. She tried to resign from the WSPU but Emmeline Pethick
Lawrence persuaded her to stay on for what Adela described as ‘another miser-
able year’.^4
Emmeline was always motherly and kind towards Adela, which is one reason
why her youngest daughter loved her so much. And, as a mother, Emmeline
tried, not always successfully, to keep the peace between her daughters. But it
was Christabel who was ‘the darling’ of her heart,^5 and it was Christabel’s polit-
ical judgment that she trusted, not Adela’s. Emmeline’s admiration for
Christabel’s brilliance as the WSPU’s key strategist was her Achilles heel. One
early WSPU supporter, said to be Annie Cobden Sanderson, is reported to have
said, ‘Mrs. Pankhurst would walk over the dead bodies of all her children except
Christabel and say, “See what I have given for the cause”.’^6
That New Year of 1911, Emmeline considered Adela’s concerns about the
policy of the WSPU ill-timed. She was at a low ebb, near despair, her faith in
British justice and especially in men having being seriously undermined. C. P.
Scott had advised Emmeline to be patient when campaigning for the vote, a
suggestion that elicited a scathing and defiant response:

12

THE TRUCE RENEWED

(JANUARY–NOVEMBER 1911)