EMMELINE PANKHURST was at an early age already a suffragette. She accompanied her mother to meetings where the right to vote for women was discussed. At 14, she studied in a progressive school in Paris where she became Francophile for the rest of her life. Her husband, Richard Pankhurst, was also progressive in favor of women’s right to vote.
In 1903, she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, mobilizing over 300,000 British women. This movement became the center of the political life in England for many years. In 1918 Britain recognized the right for women to vote. Emmeline Pankhurst was also supporting this claim in the United States and Canada. She died a month before the adoption of universal suffrage in England. Quebec was granted the right for women to vote only in 1940.
© Alice Labrèque and Jean Routier, 2013