Holton terms them, led by Richard, tried unsuccessfully to persuade those
present that the Society should at least withdraw support for bills which explic-
itly excluded married women.^29
By the time of the Special Meeting on 12 December, Emmeline and Richard
had some private news to celebrate; Emmeline was pregnant again. Over the
coming months she became convinced that the child she was carrying was a
boy, ‘Frank coming again’.^30 Amid much rejoicing, their last child, a son, was
born on 7 July 1889. Harry, as the new baby became known, was a strong,
healthy child and since mother and baby seemed to be doing well Richard went
off to a legal case in Manchester. Soon after his departure, Emmeline suddenly
haemorrhaged severely. Panic and fear descended in the household when her
own doctor was not available since both Mary and Susannah thought Emmeline
was dying. The children were sent hastily to the basement, out of hearing of all
the fretful talk, and besieged an ashen-faced Aunt Mary with questions about a
sick pet while Susannah, clad in cap and apron, ran through the streets, seeking
a doctor. Her plaintive cry, ‘My mistress is dying’, eventually brought one to
Russell Square who saved Emmeline’s life.^31 Richard was telegraphed and
returned home in great distress to find that the crisis had passed.
Emmeline had now borne five children over a span of nearly nine years, a
common experience for middle-class women in Victorian Britain. Where she
was unusual, however, was in her insistence on reworking middle-class
Victorian social conventions so that she combined her duties as a wife and
mother with running a shop, organising political meetings in her home,
campaigning for her husband’s political career, and carving out time for her own
political interests. Her advanced views were typical of a new stereotype of
middle-class femininity that was much discussed in novels, in plays and in the
press in the late 1880s and 1890s, the ‘new woman’.^32 The ‘new woman’ chal-
lenged custom in many ways by engaging in a wide range of activities outside
the private sphere of the home; she could be found in employment, seeking
higher education, fighting for women’s legal and political rights and challenging
the traditional view that women were inferior to men. Emmeline had the
energy and determination to break free from the expected mould for a
Victorian, middle-class wife and mother of her day, and had the support of her
husband in her desire to do so. It is no surprise, therefore, that she recovered
fairly quickly from the near fatal circumstances after the birth of Harry and
focused her energies, once again, on the two reformist issues which she and
Richard cherished most, namely women’s suffrage and the removal of the
disabilities of married women. Although she retained her subscription to the
Parliament Street Society until 1893, she and Richard were closely associated in
1889 with the formation of an organisation to champion the cause of married
women, the Women’s Franchise League.
Holton claims that the Women’s Franchise League, which has left few
records, was founded by three women who, like Emmeline and Richard, were
located within radical-liberal suffragist circles.^33 Its treasurer, Alice Scatcherd,
POLITICAL HOSTESS