persuading the Guardians to allow the inmates to go for outings in their own
clothes rather than the degrading workhouse uniforms.^40 Reorganisation of the
management of the hospital also took place. But it was especially the subsequent
changes in regard to workhouse children, against whom Emmeline wished ‘no
stigma of pauperism’ to apply, which warmed her heart.^41 Within five years land
in the country had been bought for them and cottage homes built with a
modern school, trained teachers, a gymnasium and a swimming bath. Looking
back on this time in her life, Emmeline observed that it was her contact with
the degraded and despised workhouse girls and women that were ‘potent factors
in my education as a militant’. She reflected, ‘I thought I had been a suffragist
before I became a Poor Law Guardian, but now I began to think about the vote
in women’s hands not only as a right but as a desperate necessity.’^42
Emmeline’s daily contact with the hardships of the destitute and the ‘bitter
humiliations and inadequacies’ of both public and private charity made her
acutely aware of the wider social changes that were needed to bring about a
fairer and more equal society; knowing that her husband shared her world-view,
she became even more determined to help him become an MP so that, along-
side Keir Hardie, he could serve the common people.^43 She was, therefore, in
high spirits when, in May 1895, Richard accepted the invitation by the ILP to
stand as their parliamentary candidate for the district of Gorton, of which
Openshaw was a part, in the general election to be held in July of that year.
Gorton had been a Liberal seat and the retiring Liberal Member, Sir William
Mather, urged his supporters to vote for Dr. Pankhurst as did the president of
the local Liberal Association who withdrew from the contest in his favour. As
in the Rotherhithe campaign some ten years earlier, the Manchester press
reopened old debates about whether Liberal supporters should vote for the ‘Red
Doctor’. The local Liberal Association then attempted a compromise by
suggesting that they would instruct their members to vote for Dr. Pankhurst if
the ILP withdrew their candidate in a neighbouring constituency. The ILP
refused to do so.
Fearing that her husband would be beaten again by a Tory candidate,
Emmeline travelled in vain to see T. P. O’Connor in Liverpool to ask him for
the Irish vote. ‘We have nothing but admiration for your husband’, he replied,
‘but we cannot support the people he is mixed up with!’ Richard’s persistent
plea to the voters – ‘When Keir Hardie stood up in the House of Commons for
the people, with a faithful, earnest, manly appeal, he stood alone ... are you not
going to send other men to support him?’ – made it quite clear who he was
‘mixed up with’.^44 The average voter was highly suspicious of the unknown ILP,
especially since it was led by an unconventional man who deliberately flouted
tradition in the House of Commons.^45 That Emmeline did not attempt to
persuade Richard to distance himself from Hardie says much about the strength
of her commitment to socialism and to her friendship with the working-class
MP; she merely ‘knit her brows fiercely’ in silence when voters caustically
commented that ‘the man with the cap’ was her husband’s ‘leader’.^46
SOCIALIST AND PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVE