Emmeline Pankhurst: suffragette leader and single parent in Edwardian England

This article explores the life of Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), the suffragette leader in Edwardian Britain, as a single parent, especially in regard to her youngest surviving child, Harry. After her husband's death in 1898, Emmeline Pankhurst became an impoverished single parent with four dependent children to support—seventeen-year-old Christabel, sixteen-year-old Sylvia, thirteen-year-old Adela, and eight-year-old Harry. Five years later she founded and led the Women's Social and Political Union, a militant women-only organisation that campaigned for the parliamentary vote for women, and became a feminist public figure. The conflicts that she faced between her public duty to a cause she passionately believed in and her private role as a single parent are discussed.