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| Sylvia Pankhurst’s popularity shows the shifting nature of politics | Sylvia Pankhurst’s popularity shows the shifting nature of politics |
| (21 days later) | |
| Newspapers are about the present not the past. It’s rare for a long-dead historical figure to make it into them, let alone twice in just a few days. That’s the sort of feat that only someone with instant name recognition like Winston Churchill would normally achieve. So when, just before Christmas, there were two separate news stories about Sylvia Pankhurst, it got me thinking about how we make use of our history nowadays and what it says about us. | Newspapers are about the present not the past. It’s rare for a long-dead historical figure to make it into them, let alone twice in just a few days. That’s the sort of feat that only someone with instant name recognition like Winston Churchill would normally achieve. So when, just before Christmas, there were two separate news stories about Sylvia Pankhurst, it got me thinking about how we make use of our history nowadays and what it says about us. |
| The first Pankhurst story revealed that the former suffragette had written to the postmaster general in 1934 to complain about government phone-tapping. There was no firm suggestion that Pankhurst’s own phone might have been tapped. But her eye had been caught by a contemporary news report about post office eavesdropping, and she wrote to protest at an activity she felt was “opposed to the very best interests of the community and contrary to public policy”. | The first Pankhurst story revealed that the former suffragette had written to the postmaster general in 1934 to complain about government phone-tapping. There was no firm suggestion that Pankhurst’s own phone might have been tapped. But her eye had been caught by a contemporary news report about post office eavesdropping, and she wrote to protest at an activity she felt was “opposed to the very best interests of the community and contrary to public policy”. |
| Then there was a second, very different Pankhurst story. This one, also quite widely reported, was that Tate had acquired four of her watercolours of working women with funds from the betting magnate Denise Coates. The young Pankhurst had trained in Manchester and at the Royal College of Art. In 1907 she did a series of pictures of women in the pottery and cotton industries. The experience deepened the socialist beliefs that dominated her long and extraordinary life. | Then there was a second, very different Pankhurst story. This one, also quite widely reported, was that Tate had acquired four of her watercolours of working women with funds from the betting magnate Denise Coates. The young Pankhurst had trained in Manchester and at the Royal College of Art. In 1907 she did a series of pictures of women in the pottery and cotton industries. The experience deepened the socialist beliefs that dominated her long and extraordinary life. |
| And her life was truly extraordinary, as I discovered when I visited Addis Ababa nearly half a century ago. A friend took me for a ride in his car to show me some of the sights of the Ethiopian capital. To my astonishment, Sylvia Pankhurst Street (it is still there today). It appeared to run right through Addis Ababa’s red light district. I took a photo and we got back in the car. “Any idea how it got its name?” asked my friend. I replied that I had no idea. So he told me. | And her life was truly extraordinary, as I discovered when I visited Addis Ababa nearly half a century ago. A friend took me for a ride in his car to show me some of the sights of the Ethiopian capital. To my astonishment, Sylvia Pankhurst Street (it is still there today). It appeared to run right through Addis Ababa’s red light district. I took a photo and we got back in the car. “Any idea how it got its name?” asked my friend. I replied that I had no idea. So he told me. |
| Back in 1969, Sylvia Pankhurst was more celebrated in Ethiopia than in Britain. She was generally remembered in Britain, insofar as she was remembered at all, largely as “a Pankhurst”. In the pantheon of influence within Britain’s premiere militant suffragette family, she stood below her mother Emmeline and sister Christabel, but above her younger sister Adela. | Back in 1969, Sylvia Pankhurst was more celebrated in Ethiopia than in Britain. She was generally remembered in Britain, insofar as she was remembered at all, largely as “a Pankhurst”. In the pantheon of influence within Britain’s premiere militant suffragette family, she stood below her mother Emmeline and sister Christabel, but above her younger sister Adela. |
| Perhaps we shouldn’t focus so much on knocking statues down or building new ones | Perhaps we shouldn’t focus so much on knocking statues down or building new ones |
| In the leftwing world in which I grew up, we knew something more. We knew that Sylvia became a communist, and met Lenin in Moscow, and that she was later denounced by the Soviet leader for refusing to support parliamentarism in Britain and joining the newly formed Communist party in 1920. The elderly communists I talked to about her half a century ago all seemed to agree with Bernard Shaw’s comparison of her with his own Saint Joan: often magnificent yet sometimes impossible. | In the leftwing world in which I grew up, we knew something more. We knew that Sylvia became a communist, and met Lenin in Moscow, and that she was later denounced by the Soviet leader for refusing to support parliamentarism in Britain and joining the newly formed Communist party in 1920. The elderly communists I talked to about her half a century ago all seemed to agree with Bernard Shaw’s comparison of her with his own Saint Joan: often magnificent yet sometimes impossible. |
| Of the final 35 years of Pankhurst’s life, however, most British people on the left were probably as ignorant as I was. Many still are. It can still surprise them to hear that this feminist and socialist with the famous name devoted the second half of her life to the causes of Italian anti-fascism and then, overwhelmingly, to Abyssinia (later Ethiopia) after Italy invaded in 1935. So consuming was this commitment that she eventually moved from Essex to Addis Ababa after the war, and died there in 1960. Emperor Haile Selassie, a lifelong friend, ensured she had a state funeral, and was buried in the grounds of the city’s Ethiopian Orthodox cathedral. Presumably he ordered the street name too. | Of the final 35 years of Pankhurst’s life, however, most British people on the left were probably as ignorant as I was. Many still are. It can still surprise them to hear that this feminist and socialist with the famous name devoted the second half of her life to the causes of Italian anti-fascism and then, overwhelmingly, to Abyssinia (later Ethiopia) after Italy invaded in 1935. So consuming was this commitment that she eventually moved from Essex to Addis Ababa after the war, and died there in 1960. Emperor Haile Selassie, a lifelong friend, ensured she had a state funeral, and was buried in the grounds of the city’s Ethiopian Orthodox cathedral. Presumably he ordered the street name too. |
| Pankhurst was therefore by any standards an incredibly interesting and unusual person. I’ve studied her ever since that trip to Addis Ababa long ago. The different focuses of her life – Mancunian radicalism, women’s suffrage militancy, anti-war activism, communism, anti-fascism and solidarity with Africa, to say nothing of her writings, poems, paintings and her determined opposition to marriage – all add up to an exceptional story. | Pankhurst was therefore by any standards an incredibly interesting and unusual person. I’ve studied her ever since that trip to Addis Ababa long ago. The different focuses of her life – Mancunian radicalism, women’s suffrage militancy, anti-war activism, communism, anti-fascism and solidarity with Africa, to say nothing of her writings, poems, paintings and her determined opposition to marriage – all add up to an exceptional story. |
| Here’s the reason her life says something about us and our use of history. Pankhurst was a remarkable person, who had some very modern ideas that make her highly sympathetic through 21st-century progressive eyes. As a result she was unquestionably also extremely important. | Here’s the reason her life says something about us and our use of history. Pankhurst was a remarkable person, who had some very modern ideas that make her highly sympathetic through 21st-century progressive eyes. As a result she was unquestionably also extremely important. |
| Pankhurst is far more revered and studied today than in her lifetime. Biographies, of which I struggled to find any in 1969, proliferate. Her writings, hard to find in the past, are again in print. Her life was celebrated in a musical at London’s Old Vic theatre in the autumn. There is an ongoing campaign to get a statue of her erected in the capital. | Pankhurst is far more revered and studied today than in her lifetime. Biographies, of which I struggled to find any in 1969, proliferate. Her writings, hard to find in the past, are again in print. Her life was celebrated in a musical at London’s Old Vic theatre in the autumn. There is an ongoing campaign to get a statue of her erected in the capital. |
| But historically? In her own time? I think it would be hard not to conclude that the historically more important Pankhurst sister – in her own lifetime – was Christabel. If we accept the argument that it was the militant suffragettes, led by the Pankhursts, who won the vote for some women in 1918, then it was Christabel who shaped this outcome more than Sylvia. | But historically? In her own time? I think it would be hard not to conclude that the historically more important Pankhurst sister – in her own lifetime – was Christabel. If we accept the argument that it was the militant suffragettes, led by the Pankhursts, who won the vote for some women in 1918, then it was Christabel who shaped this outcome more than Sylvia. |
| Unlike Sylvia, however, Christabel does not strike a chord with 21st-century progressives. She was enthusiastically pro-war in 1914, where Sylvia was against. She moved right not left. She joined the Conservatives. She became an evangelical Christian. She became a Dame, while Sylvia went without honours. (Adela Pankhurst’s fall from grace was even worse – she became a fascist and was interned in Australia in 1942 for being pro-Japanese.) | Unlike Sylvia, however, Christabel does not strike a chord with 21st-century progressives. She was enthusiastically pro-war in 1914, where Sylvia was against. She moved right not left. She joined the Conservatives. She became an evangelical Christian. She became a Dame, while Sylvia went without honours. (Adela Pankhurst’s fall from grace was even worse – she became a fascist and was interned in Australia in 1942 for being pro-Japanese.) |
| There is a larger issue about history here. Today’s honouring of Sylvia Pankhurst is overdue. Her story, like that of women in general, and remarkable women such as her in particular, was hidden from history for generations by male historians. The collective story must clearly be expanded to include the Sylvias. But we must not write the Christabels out of it because they are less to our contemporary taste. History is not about one or the other. It’s about both. | There is a larger issue about history here. Today’s honouring of Sylvia Pankhurst is overdue. Her story, like that of women in general, and remarkable women such as her in particular, was hidden from history for generations by male historians. The collective story must clearly be expanded to include the Sylvias. But we must not write the Christabels out of it because they are less to our contemporary taste. History is not about one or the other. It’s about both. |
| Our nation – and we aren’t alone in this – is conflicted in its approach to history. Too often, as the Economist’s Bagehot column put it recently, our politics is “wedded to sharply contrasting interpretations of British history, which focus on very different events and freight them with very different emotions”. The wish to memorialise Sylvia Pankhurst is as much an illustration of this tendency to polarise on the left as the Tory right’s wish to memorialise Margaret Thatcher. | Our nation – and we aren’t alone in this – is conflicted in its approach to history. Too often, as the Economist’s Bagehot column put it recently, our politics is “wedded to sharply contrasting interpretations of British history, which focus on very different events and freight them with very different emotions”. The wish to memorialise Sylvia Pankhurst is as much an illustration of this tendency to polarise on the left as the Tory right’s wish to memorialise Margaret Thatcher. |
| So, perhaps we shouldn’t focus so much on knocking statues down or building new ones. Perhaps our understanding of history, and of the way humans think, act and speak, should be more capacious, more inquiring and more generous than this – more sprawling, less political, more acknowledging of differences, messiness and of things we think we would never do now. History will always be a dialogue between the present and the past. But it should be a humble dialogue, because none of us knows everything. | So, perhaps we shouldn’t focus so much on knocking statues down or building new ones. Perhaps our understanding of history, and of the way humans think, act and speak, should be more capacious, more inquiring and more generous than this – more sprawling, less political, more acknowledging of differences, messiness and of things we think we would never do now. History will always be a dialogue between the present and the past. But it should be a humble dialogue, because none of us knows everything. |
| • Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist | • Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist |
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