|
Emmeline Pankhurst (born Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 ''Time'' named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back." She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in Britain.〔〔 Born in Moss Side, Manchester, to politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 14 to the women's suffrage movement. Although her parents encouraged her to prepare herself for life as a wife and mother, she attended the École Normale de Neuilly in Paris. On 18 December 1879 she married Richard Pankhurst, a barrister 24 years her senior known for supporting women's right to vote; they had five children over the next ten years. He supported her activities outside the home, and she founded and became involved with the Women's Franchise League, which advocated suffrage for both married and unmarried women. When that organisation broke apart, she tried to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her friendship with socialist Keir Hardie but was initially refused membership by the local branch on account of her gender. While working as a Poor Law Guardian, she was shocked at the harsh conditions she encountered in Manchester's workhouses. In 1903, five years after her husband died, Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an all-women suffrage advocacy organisation dedicated to "deeds, not words."〔E. Pankhurst 1914, p. 38.〕 The group identified as independent from – and often in opposition to – political parties. It became known for physical confrontations: its members smashed windows and assaulted police officers. Pankhurst, her daughters, and other WSPU activists received repeated prison sentences, where they staged hunger strikes to secure better conditions. As Pankhurst's oldest daughter Christabel took leadership of the WSPU, antagonism between the group and the government grew. Eventually the group adopted arson as a tactic, and more moderate organisations spoke out against the Pankhurst family. In 1913 several prominent individuals left the WSPU, among them Pankhurst's daughters Adela and Sylvia. Emmeline was so furious that she "gave () a ticket, £20, and a letter of introduction to a suffragette in Australia, and firmly insisted that she emigrate." 〔Hochschild, Adam (2011). ''To End All Wars'', p. 71. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston. ISBN 9780618758289.〕 Adela complied and the family rift was never healed. Sylvia became a socialist. With the advent of the First World War, Emmeline and Christabel called an immediate halt to militant suffrage activism in support of the British government's stand against the "German Peril."〔Quoted in Purvis 2002, p. 270.〕 They urged women to aid industrial production and encouraged young men to fight, becoming prominent figures in the white feather movement.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=White Feather Feminism )〕 In 1918 the Representation of the People Act granted votes to all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30. This discrepancy was intended to ensure that men did not become minority voters as a consequence of the huge number of deaths suffered during the First World War.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Representation of the People Act 1918 )〕 Pankhurst transformed the WSPU machinery into the Women's Party, which was dedicated to promoting women's equality in public life. In her later years she became concerned with what she perceived as the menace posed by Bolshevism and joined the Conservative Party, and was selected as a Conservative Party candidate for Stepney in 1927. She died on 14 June 1928, only weeks before the Conservative government's Representation of the People Act (1928) extended the vote to all women over 21 years of age on 2 July 1928. She was commemorated two years later with a statue in London's Victoria Tower Gardens. == Family and birth == Emmeline Goulden was born on 15 July 1858 in the Manchester suburb of Moss Side.〔Index to Register of births for the Chorlton registration district of Lancashire, Volume 8c (December Quarter of 1858), p. 529: the Register records her name as Emiline Goulden.〕 Although her birth certificate states otherwise, she believed that her birthday was a day earlier, on Bastille Day. Most biographies, including those written by her daughters, repeat this claim. Feeling a kinship with the female revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille, she said in 1908: "I have always thought that the fact that I was born on that day had some kind of influence over my life."〔Quoted in Purvis 2002, p. 9.〕 The reason for the discrepancy remains unclear.〔Purvis 2002, p. 9; Bartley, pp. 15–16. Purvis suggests several possible reasons for the confusion. She also notes that the name is spelled "Emiline" on the certificate.〕 The family into which she was born had been steeped in political agitation for generations. Her mother, Sophia Jane Craine, was descended from the Manx people of the Isle of Man and counted among her ancestors men charged with social unrest and slander.〔Bartley, p. 16; Liddington and Norris, p. 74.〕 In 1881 the Isle of Man was the first country to grant women the right to vote in national elections.〔("125th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage on the Isle of Man" ). 10 October 2006. Isle of Man Government. Retrieved 5 August 2008.〕〔Bartley, pp. 16–18.〕 Her father, Robert Goulden, came from a modest Manchester merchant family with its own background of political activity. His mother worked with the Anti-Corn Law League, and his father was present at the Peterloo massacre, when cavalry charged and broke up a crowd demanding parliamentary reform.〔Bartley, pp. 18–19; Purvis 2002, p. 9; Phillips, p. 145.〕 Their first son died at the age of two, but the Gouldens had ten other children; Emmeline was the eldest of five daughters. Soon after her birth the family moved to Seedley in Pendleton on the outskirts of Salford, where her father had co-founded a small business. Goulden was active in local politics, serving for several years on the Salford Town Council. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of dramatic organisations including the Manchester Athenaeum and the Dramatic Reading Society. He owned a theatre in Salford for several years, where he played the leads in several plays by William Shakespeare. Pankhurst absorbed an appreciation of drama and theatrics from her father, which she used later in social activism.〔Bartley, pp. 20–21; Pugh, p. 7.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Emmeline Pankhurst」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|