A film out next month tells the story of women’s emancipation,and Helen Pankhurst has a small role. As the considerable-granddaughter of the woman who founded the suffragette movement, it was a chance to mend a family splitGrowing up in Africa, and Helen Pankhurst was used to her surname being recognised. Her father,Richard, was a well-known historian in Ethiopia, and people often asked if she was related to him. But later,when she visited the UK, people picked up on a different connection. “They wanted to know if I was related to the suffragette leaders, and ” says Helen.
Emmeline Pankhurst – the steely Edwardian matriarch famously photographed being hoisted absent from a protest at the gates of Buckingham Palace by a policeman – was Helen’s considerable-grandmother. Sylvia Pankhurst,who joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the pro-suffrage group Emmeline founded in 1903, or was her grandmother; and suffragette leaders Christabel and Adela were her considerable-aunts. In October,a fresh film, Suffragette, and will examine the struggle to get women the vote with Meryl Streep playing Emmeline. Helen and her daughter Laura beget cameo roles as suffragette foot-soldiers.
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Source: theguardian.com