of Sylvia’s initiative to win mass support for the WSPU. Sylvia had decided to
settle in the area since it had a long history of working-class and feminist
activism upon which she wanted to build. Despite her disagreement with her
mother as to WSPU tactics, she shared Emmeline’s deep concern for the lot of
working-class women, and wanted to fortify their position when the vote was
won as well as rouse them ‘to be fighters on their own account’.^12 Emmeline
agreed to Sylvia’s request for WSPU headquarters to be responsible for the shop
she rented in Bow while the Kensington, Chelsea and Paddington branches
agreed to act in a similar capacity for the shops opened in Bethnal Green,
Limehouse and Poplar. Together with Zelie Emerson, a wealthy young
American woman whom Sylvia had recently met in Chicago and who had
followed her to London, Sylvia organised open-air meetings. This was not
always an easy or pleasant task since although many working-class women
attended, young rowdy men might throw stones, fishes’ heads and paper soaked
in a nearby public urinal at the speakers.^13
The foundation of the East End campaign took place about the same time that
George Lansbury, the MP for Bromley and Bow, a fervent supporter of women’s
suffrage, began to advocate that his fellow Labour MPs should vote against the
government until women were given the vote, a view that had the strong support
of Emmeline and Christabel. The Labour Party, however, did not wish to vote
against the government on such issues as Irish Home Rule and the Trade Union
Bill, and so informed the recalcitrant member that since the party had paid part of
his election expenses and he had won his seat under their sponsorship, he must
either leave or toe their line. Emmeline urged Lansbury not to leave but to get reso-
lutions of support for his position passed at meetings in his constituency, a
suggestion that Lansbury found unacceptable.^14 He resigned from the Labour Party
and decided to stand for re-election as an independent socialist, campaigning
specifically for women’s suffrage. In early November, he travelled to Boulogne to
confer with Emmeline and Christabel who gave him their full support. It was the
first time that a parliamentary seat was fought primarily on a women’s suffrage plat-
form, and the first time that the WSPU sponsored a candidate.^15
Emmeline, praising Lansbury for his ‘self-sacrificing fidelity to principle’,
immediately called for subscriptions to the election fund.^16 But further tensions
arose within her family when a trusted Union member, Grace Roe, rather than
Sylvia, was appointed as the organiser of the WSPU’s Lansbury campaign.
Although the ideological differences between Emmeline and Christabel, on the
one hand, and Sylvia, on the other, may have played a part, perhaps major, in
the displacement of Sylvia, it is not the whole story.^17 Both Emmeline and
Christabel may have thought that any leak of Sylvia’s affair with Keir Hardie
during the campaign would only bring embarrassment and defeat. Furthermore,
it is highly likely that Emmeline, known for her plain speaking, had already told
her ‘wayward’ daughter that she would no longer tolerate the liaison if she was
developing a higher profile in the WSPU. This may help to explain why
Sylvia’s affair with Hardie began to fade after she began her work in the East
HONORARY TREASURER OF THE WSPU AND AGITATOR