Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "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 the United Kingdom.
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914, she supported the war against Germany. After the war, she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. Sylvia was eventually expelled.
Adela Constantia Mary Walsh was a British born suffragette who worked as a political organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Scotland. In 1914 she moved to Australia where she continued her activism and was co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement.
Ann "Annie" Kenney was an English working-class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie Baldock. Kenney attracted the attention of the press and public in 1905 when she and Christabel Pankhurst were imprisoned for several days for assault and obstruction related to the questioning of Sir Edward Grey at a Liberal rally in Manchester on the issue of votes for women. The incident is credited with inaugurating a new phase in the struggle for women's suffrage in the UK with the adoption of militant tactics. Annie had friendships with Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt, Clara Codd, Adela Pankhurst, and Christabel Pankhurst.
Rosa May Billinghurst was a British suffragette and women's rights activist. She was known popularly as the "cripple suffragette" as she campaigned in a tricycle.
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence was a British women's rights activist and suffragette.
Teresa Billington-Greig was a British suffragette who was one of the founders of the Women's Freedom League in 1907. She had left the Women's Social and Political Union - also known as the WSPU – as she considered the leadership led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters too autocratic. In 1904, she was appointed by the WSPU as a travelling speaker for the organisation. In Autumn 1906, Billington-Greig was tasked with drumming up support for branches of WSPU in Scotland. On 25 April 1906, she unveiled a 'Votes for Women' banner from the Ladies Gallery during the debate in the House of Commons. In June 1906, she was arrested in a fracas outside of Chancellor of the Exchequer H. H. Asquith's home, and as a result was the first suffragette to be incarcerated in Holloway Prison.
Flora McKinnon Drummond, was a British suffragette. Nicknamed 'The General' for her habit of leading Women's Rights marches wearing a military style uniform 'with an officers cap and epaulettes' and riding on a large horse, Drummond was an organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and was arrested nine times for her activism in the Women's Suffrage movement. Drummond's main political activity was organising and leading rallies, marches and demonstrations. She was an accomplished orator and had a reputation for being able to put down hecklers with ease.
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience. In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragist, in order to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.
Mary Leigh was an English political activist and suffragette.
Mary Jane Clarke was a British suffragette. She died on Christmas Day 1910, two days after being released from prison, where she had been force-fed. She was described in her obituary by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence as the suffragettes’ first martyr. She was the younger sister of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.
The Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial is a memorial in London to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, two of the foremost British suffragettes. It stands at the entrance to Victoria Tower Gardens, south of Victoria Tower at the southwest corner of the Palace of Westminster. Its main feature is a bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst by Arthur George Walker, unveiled in 1930. In 1958 the statue was relocated to its current site and the bronze reliefs commemorating Christabel Pankhurst were added.
Julia Scurr was a British politician and suffragette.
Helen Pankhurst is a British women's rights activist, scholar and writer. She is currently CARE International's senior advisor working in the UK and Ethiopia. She is the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, who were both leaders in the suffragette movement. In 2018 Pankhurst convened the Centenary Action Group, a cross-party coalition of over 100 activists, politicians and women's rights organisations campaigning to end barriers to women's political participation.
Alice Hawkins was a leading English suffragette among the boot and shoe machinists of Leicester. She went to prison five times for acts committed as part of the Women’s Social and Political Union militant campaign. Her husband Alfred Hawkins was also an active suffragist and received £100 when his kneecap was fractured as he was ejected from a meeting in Bradford. In 2018 a statue of Alice was unveiled in Leicester Market Square.
A statue of suffragette Alice Hawkins is located in Green Dragon Square, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Lucy Minnie Baldock was a British suffragette. Along with Annie Kenney, she co-founded the first branch in London of the Women's Social and Political Union.
The statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, honours the British suffragist leader and social campaigner Dame Millicent Fawcett. It was made in 2018 by Gillian Wearing. Following a campaign and petition by the activist Caroline Criado Perez, the statue's creation was endorsed by both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The statue, Parliament Square's first monument to a woman and also its first sculpture by a woman, was funded through the government's Centenary Fund, which marks 100 years since some women won the right to vote. The memorial was unveiled on 24 April 2018.
Hazel Reeves, MRSS SWA is a British sculptor based in Sussex, England, who specialises in figure and portrait commissions in bronze. Her work has been shown widely across England and Wales. Public commissions can be found in Carlisle, London, Congleton and Manchester. Reeves' work increasingly embraces soundscapes of nature and movement, since 2021.
