of ‘Red’ Sylvia, recently expelled under a blaze of publicity from the Communist
Party, must have deeply upset Emmeline who was applying for Canadian citi-
zenship. The necessary statement was drafted quickly, and by mid October she
was lecturing in Toronto.
Emmeline’s standing was so high in Canadian society that she was the
subject of a feature article in Maclean’s Magazine, early in the New Year of 1922.
She stated that she wanted to live in Canada because she believed the country
offered a future for her adopted children. ‘[T]here seems to be more equality
between men and women [here] than in any other country I know ... there are
such unlimited opportunities.’ The journalist marvelled at the versatility of Mrs.
Pankhurst who, ‘always beautifully and becomingly gowned’, had shown a
remarkable gift for adapting her address to suit her audience. Emmeline
Pankhurst had been working ‘like a slave’ during her first six weeks in Toronto
and been well received by groups as diverse as the Masonic Lodge, the
Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, the Imperial Order of Daughters of the
Empire, the Women’s Institutes, the Women’s Law Association, the Women’s
Press Club, Mothers’ Meetings in Settlements, women in factories, men in
factories, several men’s luncheon clubs, men and women students in universi-
ties, college women’s alumni associations, theological students, church
congregations, men’s and women’s and young people’s organisations in connec-
tion with churches, women in reformatories, printers on strike, and a number of
drawing-room gatherings in the homes of social leaders and other women of
influence in the city.^45 But such work was exhausting, and living in hotels a
lonely experience. Emmeline decided to rent a house in Toronto, at 78 Charles
Street West, and hoped to settle there as soon as the house in Victoria could be
let. ‘It has been a bit lonely without my babies’, she told the Toronto Globe, ‘and
I shall be glad to have them and my own little house and my dear Miss Pyne
[sic], with her mending basket, and all the rest of it.’^46
Kathleen, Mary and Joan were very excited during the train trip to Toronto,
finding the bunk beds in their cabin great fun. Auntie Kate had decided that
she did not want Tiny to be put in quarantine again, as they travelled from
Vancouver Island onto the Canadian mainland, and so smuggled the small dog
out by keeping her in a covered birdcage. Although Catherine Pine worried a
lot about coping with Tiny during the journey, the porter on the train was very
helpful, recollected Kathleen. ‘But at about twelve o’clock one night the train
broke down and we had to get out and wait for another. The next train that
came was not a sleeper like we had been on before.’^47
Emmeline was overjoyed to see the children again but had little time to
spend with them since she was often away, speaking on the moral uplifting of
the imperial race. ‘I am an imperialist, and I have even been called a reac-
tionary because I am an imperialist’, she told one reporter. Although it was
fashionable to talk of empires as oppressive, she continued, she believed that
they had accomplished a great deal so that it would be cowardice to break up
the British Empire into separate parts. ‘If, in our modern idea of empire, we
LECTURER IN NORTH AMERICA