Garrett Fawcett and the NUWSS as the ‘rational’ wing of the women’s move-
ment that was responsible for the partial enfranchisement of women in 1918
and their full enfranchisement, on equal terms with men, in 1928. Emmeline
Pankhurst and her militants, on the other hand, are cast out ‘of the making of
women’s history because of their reckless activity, their passion for change, their
angry propaganda and their autocratic organisation’.^11
When Sylvia reviewed ‘The cause’, early in 1929, however, what she strongly
objected to was not Strachey’s representation of her mother but her omission of
any reference to the East London campaign and to her claim that the WSPU
had kept no audited balance sheets.^12 Sylvia discussed the issue in correspon-
dence with Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, who had helped her financially and
emotionally during her pregnancy, and was now a close friend. Both women had
been ousted by Emmeline Pankhurst from the WSPU, a bitter experience that
cast a long shadow on their assessment of the militant leader. Somewhat incred-
ulously, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence wrote to Sylvia on 17 December 1929, ‘I
regard your Mother dispassionately (as you do) as a most interesting human
problem.’ While conceding that the militant leader had been ‘a great force’
affecting the current of human history, like Napoleon, it was also suggested that
Emmeline Pankhurst’s enthusiasm for the suffrage cause, which began in a spirit
of ‘generous enthusiasm’ in the end:
obsessed her like a passion & she completely identified her own career
with it – & in order to obtain it she threw scruple, affection, human
loyalty & her own principles to the winds. ... The Movement devel-
oped her powers – all her powers for good & for evil. Cruelty,
ruthlessness – as you say – I should add betrayal– courage, resourceful-
ness & diplomacy. She was capable of beautiful tenderness & [a]
magnificent sense of justice in self-sacrifice. These things in the course
of the struggle became changed. We all sacrificed many things – she
sacrificed her very soul.^13Sylvia concurred with such views; her mother and Christabel had treated her
in a most cruel way, putting the women’s cause before family loyalty. Even now,
Christabel was attempting to tell her what to do; she had recently visited
Sylvia, asking that Richard should not bear the surname Pankhurst since people
thought the boy was her son. The row that broke out between the sisters ended
with the younger telling the elder that her private life was none of her
business.^14
The New Year of 1930 brought a different recognition of Emmeline
Pankhurst’s niche in history. Kitty Marshall’s persistence had paid off so that on
6 March 1930 thousands gathered in Victoria Tower Gardens, close to the
Houses of Parliament, for the unveiling of the statue of the militant leader.
Ironically, of Emmeline’s three daughters, it was Sylvia, from whom she became
estranged, who was present amongst the crowds with baby Richard in her arms;
NICHE IN HISTORY