“I am going to fight #capitalism even if it kills me. It is wrong that people like you should be comfortable & well fed while all around you people are starving" - Sylvia Pankhurst.
Like many suffragists she spent time in prison, being arrested 15 times while campaigning for women's rights. Pankhurst was aged 24 when she went to prison for the first time.
Between February 1913 & July 1914 she was arrested eight times, each time being repeatedly force-fed.
She had a close personal relationship with the @UKLabour's Keir Hardie. On 1 November 1913, Pankhurst showed her support in the Dublin Lockout. Members of the WSPU, particularly her sister Christabel, did not agree with her actions, & consequently expelled her from the union.
Her expulsion led to her founding of the East London Federation of Suffragettes in 1914 which over the years evolved politically and changed its name accordingly, first to the Women's Suffrage Federation and then to the Workers' Socialist Federation.
She founded the newspaper of the WSF, Women's Dreadnought, and employed Mary Phillips to write for it, this subsequently became the Workers' Dreadnought.
The federation campaigned against the First World War, and some of its members hid conscientious objectors from the police.
Her organisation attempted to defend the interests of women in the poorer parts of London. It set up "cost-price" restaurants to feed the hungry without the taint of charity. It also established a toy factory to give work to women who were unemployed due to the war.
She also worked to defend the right of soldiers' wives to decent allowances while their husbands were away, both practically, by setting up legal advice centres, & politically, by running campaigns to oblige the government to take into account the poverty of soldiers' wives.
In 1915, Pankhurst gave her enthusiastic support to the International Women's Peace Congress, held at The Hague. This support lost her some of her allies at home and contrasted sharply with the stance of both her mother Emmeline and sister Christabel.
Pankhurst died in Addis Ababa in 1960, aged 78, & received a full state funeral at which Haile Selassie named her "an honorary Ethiopian". She is the only foreigner buried in front of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, in a section reserved for patriots of the Italian war.
Her name and picture (& those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018, while a musical about her life entitled Sylvia premiered at the Old Vic in September the same year.
Read 'Natural Born Rebel', by Ruth Holmes.
"Holmes has produced a towering tribute to a truly remarkable figure... it is impossible not to be awestruck by Sylvia Pankhurst's humanity and relentless, campaigning zeal." - Wendy Moore, Literary Review.
Sylvia was "a major political figure of the twentieth century who deserves to be better known. This is a moving, powerful biography of a woman whose desire to connect "with all the world" is an inspiration for our uncertain times." - Sally Alexander, Guardian.
"Natural Born Rebel is an astonishing, comprehensive, personal & political cradle-to-grave biography that surely stands alone as the definitive volume on an extraordinary woman: a suffragette, activist & artist for whom sacrifice & suffering were second nature." - Diane Atkinson.
"I have fallen in love with Sylvia Pankhurst. This is a masterpiece." - Vanessa Redgrave
"She was rarely off the front pages for dashing herself against various legal bulwarks and misguided conventions in the way of her ultimate prize - justice & freedom for all." - Telegraph!
"On every page, there is something to amuse or absorb . One finishes the book with the impression that Sylvia lived the lives of seven women in her 78 years... Those of us living today who do not owe her thanks in some form are very few indeed." ― Even the bloody Telegraph!
"Rachel Holmes's biography is extraordinary. It draws the linkages between Sylvia's campaigns as suffragette, socialist, pacifist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonialist, as a campaigner for improved maternal health, as an honorary Ethiopian." - Helen Pankhurst.
"Holmes enlightens us to a "key protagonist in the development of British Democracy." This rare gem shines in Natural Born Rebel & blinds authority with an indomitable spirit. Holmes captures it all & more besides. Read this book & discover what a true rebel is." Lemn Sissay
"There would be no Greta Thunberg & no Malala Yousafzai were it not for Sylvia Pankhurst. Natural Born Rebel speaks to us now more than ever! Read it to understand our society now. Read it for your daughters & for your sons & when the time is right give it to them." Lemn Sissay.
"Sylvia Pankhurst tells an epic tale of the last century that speaks so presciently to current dark times. The intimate, national and global adventures of this great and brave woman are recounted with colour and precision." - Shami Chakrabarti.
"Holmes draws extensively on family & social detail to show the key influences on Sylvia's extraordinary life as an activist who straddled socialist causes & continents . The breadth & detail only confirm the importance of this inspiring woman." - Jan Nielsen, Socialist Review.
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