Emmeline Pankhurst Timeline

The Isle of Man became the first place in the British Isles to grant women the right to vote in Manx national elections.

Image source: Timeline of women's suffrage

Britain's first nationwide coalition advocating women's voting rights split after members disagreed over affiliation with political parties.

Image source: National Society for Women's Suffrage

The inaugural meeting of the Women's Franchise League was held at the Pankhursts' home in Russell Square.

Image source: Women's Franchise League

After meeting Pankhurst in 1888, Scottish socialist Keir Hardie helped create the Independent Labour Party in 1893.

Pankhurst was elected to the position of Poor Law Guardian in Chorlton-on-Medlock.

Pankhurst and two men violated a court order against Independent Labour Party meetings at Boggart Hole Clough and faced legal consequences.

Pankhurst was elected to the Manchester School Board, where she witnessed unequal treatment and limited opportunities for women.

Pankhurst and colleagues founded the Women's Social and Political Union, an all-women organization committed to direct action under the motto “deeds, not words.”

After a suffrage measure was talked out in the House of Commons, Pankhurst organized an impromptu protest that was broken up by police and moved to Westminster Abbey.

Pankhurst and other WSPU members staged a loud protest outside Parliament after a women's suffrage bill was filibustered.

Christabel Pankhurst was arrested after spitting at a policeman during a Liberal Party meeting.

Pankhurst sold her Manchester home and began moving from place to place while speaking and marching for women's suffrage.

Pankhurst and her associate Nellie Martel were attacked by an all-male crowd of Liberal supporters who blamed the WSPU for an electoral defeat.

Pankhurst was arrested for the first time when she tried to enter Parliament to deliver a protest resolution to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.

About 500,000 activists rallied in Hyde Park to demand votes for women.

Image source: Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

The WSPU added hunger strikes to its repertoire of resistance in 1909.

Image source: Hunger strike

Marion Wallace Dunlop was arrested after writing an excerpt from the Bill of Rights on a wall in the House of Commons.

Pankhurst struck a police officer twice in the face to ensure that she would be arrested and draw attention to the suffrage cause.

Aileen Preston was appointed Pankhurst's driver and helped her travel around the country spreading the suffrage message.

WSPU members adopted arson as another militant tactic intended to pressure authorities into granting women the vote.

When a second suffrage bill was endangered, Pankhurst joined a renewed outbreak of window-smashing by WSPU activists.

Emily Davison threw herself under King George V's horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

Image source: Emily Davison

Mary Richardson slashed Velázquez's painting Rokeby Venus to protest Pankhurst's imprisonment.

Pankhurst joined the Conservative Party in 1926.

Pankhurst was selected as the Conservative candidate for Whitechapel and St George's.

After Liberal losses in the 1910 elections, Henry Brailsford helped organize a cross-party committee of 54 MPs to advance women's suffrage.

When the First World War began, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst argued that Germany threatened humanity and that the British government needed support.

Image source: World War I

The WSPU's weekly newspaper announced that the organization would become the Women's Party.

The 1918 Representation of the People Act removed property restrictions on men's suffrage and granted voting rights to women over 30 subject to restrictions.

Image source: Representation of the People Act 1918

After becoming fond of Canada, Pankhurst obtained permission to land, rented a house in Toronto, and moved there with her four adopted children.

Pankhurst returned to England in late 1925 after living in Canada.

The Conservative government's Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act extended the vote to all women over 21.

Image source: Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928

Pankhurst's funeral service was attended by former WSPU colleagues and others who had worked alongside her.

A statue of Pankhurst was unveiled in Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament.

Sylvia Pankhurst's 1931 book portrayed her mother's political shift during the First World War as a betrayal of family and movement.

One of Pankhurst's Manchester homes opened as the Pankhurst Centre, an all-women gathering space and museum.

Image source: Pankhurst Centre

Time named Pankhurst one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, crediting her with reshaping ideas about women.

Image source: Time 100

Pankhurst was placed at number 27 in the BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Image source: 100 Greatest Britons

English Heritage placed a blue plaque at 50 Clarendon Road in London, commemorating Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst.

Following a public vote, it was announced that Hazel Reeves's statue Rise up, Women would be unveiled in Manchester.

Pankhurst's name and image, along with those of other suffrage supporters including her daughters, were etched on the plinth of the Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square.

Hazel Reeves's Rise up, Women statue was unveiled in Manchester, one hundred years after British women first voted in a general election.