attempting to foist on their shoulders what they saw as an ill-conceived
venture, printed a leaflet protesting about the way in which she was ‘neglecting
the Cause of Votes for Women in order to take upon herself, in the name of the
Union, without consulting its Members, responsibilities which belong to the
State’. Voteless women were asked to ‘think twice’ before contributing to the
upkeep of the war babies and to ‘call upon Mrs. Pankhurst to refound the
Women’s Social and Political Union on a new and democratic basis’.^67
Emmeline was both hurt and angry at this response; accustomed to being
given the money she needed for suffrage work, she never expected to be refused
the smaller amount necessary for the babies. The criticisms from some members
of the WSPU about her autocratic style of leadership were conveniently
ignored as in late July and August, on doctor’s advice, she returned to Harrogate
to complete an interrupted cure for her still not robust health. ‘I hope to be very
fit & energetic after all the baths, electric massage etc. that I am having’, she
explained to Nancy Astor. Emmeline also wrote to WSPU member Elsie Duval,
apologising for not being able to attend her wedding. ‘I hope that you & your
future husband may have all good fortune & spend together a long happy &
useful life. Certainly mutual affection & the sharing of high ideal [sic] is the best
security for happiness in marriage.’^68 The bride-to-be had written to her some-
time earlier saying that she and her fiancé, Hugh Franklin, would feel honoured
if Emmeline would be a witness to their wedding and would even fix the date to
fit in with the WSPU leader’s plans. The wedding eventually took place at the
West London Synagogue on 28 September 1915.
Just two days previously, Keir Hardie had died, a broken man. For some time
his health had been failing; early in the war, which he strongly opposed, he had
had a stroke. Towards the end of May, when the Labour Party decided to join a
coalition government, he announced that he would no longer attend parliament
but return home to Scotland; here he was nursed by his wife during the final
months of his life when he was diagnosed as suffering from a nervous breakdown.
Before Hardie left London, he and Sylvia had had a sad, tongue-tied farewell.
When Sylvia then discovered that Christabel had reprinted in a July issue ofThe
SuffragetteaPunchcartoon that portrayed the Kaiser giving her old lover a bag of
money, she was greatly pained. She wrote to her mother, protesting and pointing
out that Hardie was dying and, according to Sylvia, Emmeline did not reply.^69
Perhaps, with Hardie’s death, Emmeline reflected on their past friendship when
they had stood side by side at socialist and suffrage meetings, but she was prag-
matic enough to know that times were different now and that she had a different
job to do, especially since too few of the thousands of women who had volun-
teered for munitions work had been taken on. She blamed the opposition of the
trade unions for the slow pace of change and at a speech at the London Pavilion
in the early autumn, even made a threat of a return of militancy:
Women are exercising far more self-control and self-restraint than
perhaps some people give them credit for, but it is extremely trying toWAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY