strenuous service in the war & after. He is of course her own doctor &
understands as no one else can, her constitution. She so greatly wished
to have him, that I must have put the case in his hands even had my
own judgment not also dictated that course.^57Emmeline was moved to a nursing home in 43 Wimpole Street quite near to
where Strode lived ‘so that at any hour of the day or night he is on the spot in
case of need’.^58 Four days later, 5 June, Christabel informed Esther that the
patient was showing some improvement.^59 But no amount of medical care, even
if stomach pumping had been used, could save the broken spirit and broken
body of Emmeline.
Emmeline was so weak that only Christabel was allowed to see her. When
Nellie phoned the nursing home on 12 June, the matron told her that they had
been trying to get in touch with her for days. Hastening to the nursing home,
Emmeline burst into tears when a breathless Nellie entered her room, saying
she had been asking for her ever since her move to Wimpole Street. She wanted
Nellie to send Barbara Wylie to her since there was some urgent business to
discuss. When Barbara arrived the following day Emmeline was past speaking
although she indicated that she understood Barbara’s message from
Conservative head office that she was not to worry about money.^60 ‘She can just
show her pleasure’, Christabel told Esther, thanking her for the bunch of sweet
peas that she had sent to the nursing home, ‘but she is very, veryweak & in a
very critical condition.’^61 On the morning of Thursday, 14 June, just one month
before her seventieth birthday, Emmeline died peacefully. ‘My greatest comfort
is the look of joy on her face that I saw when I went back into the room where
we had watched beside her to the end’, Christabel later wrote to Esther. ‘It
seemed to fade afterwards & just peace & contentment & beauty were left – as I
have never seen them on any other. But that first look of great joy I shall always
have before me.’^62 Septicaemia due to influenza was listed as the cause of
Emmeline’s death on her death certificate.
News vendors in Britain soon had the headline, ‘Mrs. Pankhurst dead’ on their
billboards, but the coverage of her passing was not just extensive in Britain but
also abroad, especially in Canada and the USA.^63 On Sunday, Emmeline’s body
lay in state on the purple catafalque, surrounded by roses, lilies and carnations, in
the little chapelle ardente in Cambridge Place in the West End. A soft light was
shed on her from a reading lamp which stood beside the little gold cross above her
head. Her calm features, framed by her soft, silvery hair, looked very beautiful. All
day long women famous and obscure came to pay homage, including Ada and
Christabel. Christabel returned several times, as though she was unable to
believe that her mother who had so humbly claimed that she was her daughter’s
follower in the old suffrage days, was no longer by her side. Later that day, the
coffin was conveyed to St. John’s Church, Smith Square, Westminster, chosen for
its nearness to the Houses of Parliament to which Emmeline had led so many
suffrage demonstrations. Four ex-suffragettes kept vigil that night.^64
CONSERVATIVE PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE