Emmeline canvassed daily in Gorton, usually accompanied by Christabel and
Sylvia, all three taking their meals in the humble, working-class homes of ILP
supporters. At one open-air meeting in Openshaw she stood on a soap-box,
almost in tears as she pleaded, ‘You put me at the top of the poll; will you not
vote for the man who has taught me all I know?’^47 But it was all to no avail.
The news that Keir Hardie had lost his seat at West Ham, which polled before
Gorton, was a severe blow and a warning to Emmeline of the ups and downs of
political life.^48 On the evening of the Gorton poll, she did not give up the fight
but bravely visited public houses imploring the drinking men to vote.^49 Richard
polled 4,261 votes against 5,865 for Hatch, his Conservative opponent. Since
he had made known that he could not afford to pay his election expenses, these
had been borne by the ILP to the tune of £342; those of the successful candi-
date were £1,375. After the count, a despondent Emmeline and the children
accompanied Richard to an ILP meeting where he gave a short speech. Much to
Emmeline’s embarrassment, Sylvia wept and could not stop, even when her
father joked that, ‘There was life in the old bird yet!’ On returning home, she
chided their daughter, although not in anger, for her outburst of emotion,
saying that she had ‘disgraced the family’.^50 Emmeline coped with her own
bitter disappointment not with tears but with fighting back. The next day she
hired a pony and trap and drove alone to Colne Valley to help another ILP
candidate, Tom Mann. He too was defeated.^51 When she drove back through
Gorton, late at night, some drunken Conservative supporters who had been
celebrating the election victory recognised her and, in disgust, threw stones at
her. The incident did nothing to lessen Emmeline’s resolve to fight for the
socialist cause.^52
For some years, the ILP in the Manchester area had been holding summer
open-air meetings in Boggart Hole Clough, an uncultivated space of some sixty-
three acres recently acquire by Manchester City Corporation. The chair of the
corporation’s Parks Committee, Mr. Needham, who had previously stood in past
council elections against John Harker, a prominent member of the Trades
Council and a well-known ILP speaker, now decided to prohibit further ILP
meetings in the Clough. The prohibition was ignored, and on Sunday, 17 May
1896, Harker was given a summons for holding a meeting on the grounds that
he was guilty of occasioning an annoyance. Immediately, Richard Pankhurst
took on the case but despite his plea that there was no by-law to limit the right
of public meetings, Harker was found guilty and fined ten shillings, a judgment
which Richard gave notice to appeal. Emmeline and other ILP members faith-
fully kept up the protest, organising meetings and insisting on the right of free
speech in the parks as further prosecutions were issued. Although collections of
money were not allowed to be made at such meetings, on 7 June, when a crowd
of about 4,000 gathered to hear Leonard Hall, Emmeline defied the ruling by
sticking the ferrule of her open umbrella into the ground in order for sympa-
thetic listeners to donate their pennies. Summoned to appear before the
Manchester Police Court along with Hall and seven others believed to be asso-
SOCIALIST AND PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVE