Sylvia Pankhurst too, in her biography of her mother, is of the view that it was
Emmeline Pankhurst who took the lead in the expulsion of the Pethick
Lawrences. Yet the matter is not clear cut as Sylvia herself must have recognised
since four years earlier, in The suffragette movement, she claimed that the deci-
sion was Christabel’s!^32
Neither Christabel nor Emmeline, in their memoirs, cast any light on the
matter but deal with the 1912 split in a brief and matter-of-fact way. Annie
Kenney, however, had no hesitation in saying that the expulsion of the Pethick
Lawrences was Christabel’s idea. The faithful Annie was Christabel’s closest
friend, her loyalty earning her the nickname in WSPU circles of ‘Christabel’s
Blotting Paper’. Annie travelled regularly in disguise to Paris in order to consult
about the direction of WSPU policy and recollected that Christabel would not
tolerate interference with policy-making, even from the Pethick Lawrences.
‘Once people questioned policy her whole feeling changed towards them.’^33
There was also the problem that, before the split, Fred, usually called ‘godfather’
by the suffragettes, was beginning to push himself to the fore, despite the fact
that the WSPU was an organisation which only women could join. ‘I think it
was a pity that Mr. Lawrence began to insist that he should have more recogni-
tion, and that he should be on the platforms with the leaders’, noted Jessie
Kenney. ‘It seemed as though the temperature of the platform and the meeting
went down when he spoke at length. Too many facts and figures, too dull, and
nothing like the sparkle that Christabel and Mrs. P.L., my sister Annie and Mrs.
P would bring to the meeting.’^34 Jessie remembered that on one occasion when
bouquets and tributes were being handed to Christabel, Emmeline Pankhurst
commented, ‘How godfather would like to have these.’ Instantly, Jessie thought
‘something was up. The split in this sense began months before it happened.’^35
But there were also other reasons why Emmeline wanted the Pethick
Lawrences out of the WSPU. She was ‘always jealous’ of their closeness to
Christabel and had ‘never got on’ with Fred who had been ‘almost infatuated’
with her daughter; this latter fact, may, of course, have partly accounted for the
atmosphere and antipathy that was always present between herself and Fred.^36
The expulsion of the Pethick Lawrences enabled Emmeline to spiritually regain
her beloved daughter. But, just as important, the expulsion also gave Emmeline
more power. Emmeline, very much ‘the great lady’, had shown no gratitude but
‘irritation’ at the way the administrative machinery of the WSPU had been
organised by the Pethick Lawrences and Jessie Kenney.^37 With the Pethick
Lawrences out of the way, she could reduce her tiring, itinerant life as the leader
of the by-election campaigns in the provinces and be a much more visible and
dominant presence in central London. She had founded the WSPU and now,
with Christabel, she could bring the organisation back under Pankhurst control.
BREAK WITH THE PETHICK LAWRENCES