ment and she wanted to know the ingredients. ... If you will let me
know it will be most kind of you.^52Old and new friends came to call, including Lady Katherine Japp, a
Canadian actress who had married Sir Henry Japp, a well-known engineer; she
brought the pillow that Emmeline had asked for, some fruits and other things.^53
Christabel came occasionally and also wrote her mother weekly long letters
about the current political situation. Emmeline took comfort in asking Nellie to
sit on the end of her bed reading them out loud. But of most joy to Emmeline
was the letter she received from Adela saying that she and Tom had come round
to her viewpoint about the destructiveness of class conflict; they were now
promoting the idea of employers and workers acting together, for the common
good. Emmeline immediately replied to her youngest daughter, ‘full of regret for
the long rift’.^54 But Sylvia’s requests to visit her mother were firmly refused.
Emmeline would never forgive her for the disgrace she had brought to the name
of Pankhurst and the vindictive way in which she had implicated Christabel.
As she failed to get well quickly, Emmeline worried about how she could
support herself, especially since Dr. Williams had insisted that she had a nurse.
Some well-meaning friends, such as Harriet Kerr, the former WSPU office
manager, knowing of her financial plight started a collection with the aim of
buying an annuity or some form of investment; Nancy Astor and Stanley
Baldwin were said to be sympathetic.^55 Emmeline rallied for a little. But the
small airless room in which she was nursed, with the constant noise of traffic
and the smells and clatter of the shop below, did little to help. The plan to
travel, with her nurse, to the Marshalls on 31 May had to be discarded when
she had a relapse a few days beforehand.
Christabel and Ada hastily had Emmeline transferred to a nursing home in
Hampstead. On 22 May, her thirteenth birthday, Mary came up to London to
visit Mother. ‘She was marvellous. It was the only time I can remember her kind
of hugging and kissing and kind of weeping over me. She was delighted to see
me again.’ It was a great comfort to Emmeline to hear that Mary had had an
offer of readoption, from a Miss Beves, and she seemed to pick up a little. One
week later, Christabel wrote to Esther saying that she hoped her mother ‘will
show a definite improvement tomorrow & if not further advice will have to be
taken. I gave her messages from you.’^56 But as Emmeline failed to improve, she
begged to be attended by Dr. Chetham Strode; in the past he had treated her
after her many hunger strikes by pumping her stomach. Dr. Williams and Nellie
were strongly opposed to such a form of treatment, fearing the shock would
weaken the patient, but Christabel felt she had no choice but to comply with
her mother’s wishes, as she explained to Esther:
After a very anxious week I have put Mother under the treatment of
the doctor who 14 years ago, after 13 hunger strikes had wrecked her
health, restored her to health & enabled her to do fourteen yearsCONSERVATIVE PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE