Famous places within 5 minutes walk of my house Number 4 - Sylvia Pankhurst's campaign headquarters
100 years ago Britain was still an electorally-backward country. No Y-chromosome, no X. This was a scandalous state of affairs, even if the men in power couldn't see it, and so the Suffragette movement was born. Christabel Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, seeking equality in the battle for women's suffrage. Christabel's daughter Sylvia (1882-1960) became increasingly involved in the movement, and increasingly political. When her mother started to take the struggle upmarket, seeing the working women of the East End as a lost cause, Sylvia decided to form a breakaway movement instead. And so it was that, in October 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst and her friend Zelie Emerson rented out an old baker's shop at 198 Bow Road, directly opposite 'that church in the middle of the road'. Sylvia painted VOTES FOR WOMEN in giant gold letters on the front, built a wooden platform outside from which to address the passing crowds and set up her campaign headquarters inside.
Bow's MP at the time was George Lansbury, who in 1912 shocked Parliament by resigning his seat and standing for re-election solely on the issue of votes for women. Sylvia led the campaign from the old bakery in Bow Road, organising a huge march and rally in nearby Victoria Park. George was narrowly defeated in the by-election and many in the Suffragette movement were disheartened, withdrawing all financial support for the East End project. Sylvia packed up shop in Bow Road but soon restarted her campaign for equality from a house in nearby Roman Road. Marches and demonstrations became increasingly militant, and the Government reacted by clamping down harshly on this civil unrest. Sylvia risked arrest at every public appearance and spent much time in Holloway prison, often on hunger strike.
The outbreak of war in 1914 caused most Suffragettes to regroup behind the war effort, but Sylvia chose to fight on for women's rights from her Bow headquarters. She set up a nursery and mother-and-baby clinic, provided a cost-price canteen for the poor and established her own newspaper - the Woman's Dreadnought. Her persistence eventually paid off. The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave certain "women of property" over the age of 30 the right to vote, although it was to be another ten years until full equality was extended to all women over 21.
Sylvia Pankhurst spent 12 years living amongst the women of Bow before spreading her wings and seeking to further socialism and women's rights elsewhere. Later in her life she became increasingly involved with the anti-fascist movement in Africa, living in Addis Ababa for the last five years of her life, and there she is buried. George Lansbury, meanwhile, was re-elected to Parliament where he became its most prominent pacifist and was leader of the Labour party in opposition between 1931 and 1935. A huge local housing estate specially rebuilt for the Festival of Britain in 1951 is named after him, and yes, his granddaughter really is Angela Lansbury of Murder She Wrote fame. As for the old bakery at 198 Bow Road, that has long since been replaced by the nondescript block of council housing you see in the photo above. But it would be nice to see the site commemorated by a blue plaque, preferably one with large gold letters.
Famous places within 5 minutes walk of my house
100 years ago Britain was still an electorally-backward country. No Y-chromosome, no X. This was a scandalous state of affairs, even if the men in power couldn't see it, and so the Suffragette movement was born. Christabel Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, seeking equality in the battle for women's suffrage. Christabel's daughter Sylvia (1882-1960) became increasingly involved in the movement, and increasingly political. When her mother started to take the struggle upmarket, seeing the working women of the East End as a lost cause, Sylvia decided to form a breakaway movement instead. And so it was that, in October 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst and her friend Zelie Emerson rented out an old baker's shop at 198 Bow Road, directly opposite 'that church in the middle of the road'. Sylvia painted VOTES FOR WOMEN in giant gold letters on the front, built a wooden platform outside from which to address the passing crowds and set up her campaign headquarters inside.
