The following is a brief timeline of the history of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and their contentious relationship with the British government of that period.
Sylvia Pankhurst, second daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst the leader of the WSPU, recorded in her book, The Suffragette Movement, that in l906 it was Keir Hardie, MP for Labour, who arranged the earliest exploratory meetings between Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence and Sylvia and then afterward with her mother Mrs. Pankhurst in London. The Pethick-Lawrences, politically progressive, affluent and well connected, were his friends with a shared interest in building the Labour Party. The first two meetings failed to gain the hoped for commitment of support from her for the group. For example though she greatly admired Sylvia’s artistic talent she was dismayed by her earnest Russian revolutionary mindset. As far as Mrs. Pankhurst was concerned she did not reveal any misgivings in her autobiography about that first meeting or in any dealings with her afterwards but if we look at Sylvia’s detailed writing about the WSPU we see some fundamental differences over the breaking the laws concerning property which would align with how their relationship played out at the end six years later. Hardie undaunted engineered a third meeting this time with Annie Kenney, from the working class, whose passion, vulnerability and plain speaking finally won the day. In 1907 it was the Pethic-Lawrences, who by then were key players in the group’s executive, who asked Mrs. Pankhurst to revise the original democratic constitution of the WSPU and vote on it at the Annual Delegate Conference. Mrs. Pankhurst complied with enthusiasm and notified the membership in advance to vote for her as sole director with the power to appoint members to the executive committee at her discretion and that her policy decisions going forward would be unilateral. At the conference her motion was approved by the majority making Emmeline Pankhurst the sole leader of the direct-action wing of the women’s suffrage movement in Britain. However, one out of every five suffragettes opposed and they resigned en masse and launched a new suffrage organisation called the Women’s Freedom League.
In May 1906 Prime Minister Bannerman received a deputation of suffragists and suffragettes to discuss the issue of legislation favorable towards women’s suffrage. Sylvia Pankhurst described him as a middle aged academic and lawyer who was short and stalky with a bulbous nose and an inscrutable expression when talking. She sensed a certain ruthlessness under a steely and numbing façade. At the meeting he was cordial, and said he supported suffrage in principle but that unfortunately there was minimal support within the Liberal Party. In October l906 eleven members of the WSPU were arrested for demonstrating with placards at the opening of Parliament. In a first, and an omen of things to come, the activists were sentenced to two months at Holloway Gaol, Europe’s largest women’s prison. When Bannerman won office in l905 he appointed Henry Asquith as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Asquith In 1908 replaced Bannerman who had to resign due to ill health. Asquith clearly shared the same ambivalence to suffrage as his predecessor and continued to stonewall the goals of the WSPU for the next six years. Sylvia Pankhurst recorded a statement by Asquith, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech on October 29, 1907, in Tayport : “Votes for Women would do “more harm than good,” and Parliament was not elected on a basis of universal suffrage, for “children are not represented there.” By 1907-08 suffragette imprisonment convictions totalled 350 weeks. After Asquith became Prime Minister he replied to a question in Parliament posed by an anti-suffrage MP who asked if he was thinking of introducing legislation to allow women’s suffrage: “My honourable friend has asked me a question with regard to a remote and speculative future.”
The interruption of speeches either in the House or in party meetings with jibes or shouts of support was a common practice for men. It was a custom that Annie Kenney appropriated with gusto and in the process it inspired Christabel Pankhurst to cultivate and weaponise it to great effect for the group. As security tightened at party gatherings and suffragettes were screened and blocked at entrances they resorted to clever and ingenious strategies to gain entry. Prime Minister Asquith and his senior ministers were not amused and remained silent when the suffragettes complained regarding a disturbing pattern of aggression by security staff who, while forcibly removing activists from Party gatherings, were prone to rough them up with groping, hairpulling, punches, kicks and curses.
The following is a list of Home Secretaries who oversaw national defence, policing and prisons and who were responsible for enforcing the Prime Minister’s policy pertaining to the WSPU.
Herbert John Gladstone, Home Secretary, 1905-1910 was described by Sylvia Pankhurst as rather plump and bald with a look of entitlement mixed with contempt. It was under Gladstone’s tenure that an imprisoned suffragette spontaneously introduced the very first recorded hunger strike on July 5, 1909. It was successful in gaining the prisoner an early release for medical reasons. The tactic was quickly appropriated by Christabel and was thereafter used repeatedly by the membership. To counter this development Gladstone consulted with two medical experts on force feeding inmates, one was a pathologist for an asylum and the other a prison medical doctor. Both men were enthusiastic supporters of the procedure despite the fact that there was already documented medical evidence of its failure in asylums because it traumatised and physically injured patients more often than not and failed to stem incidences of death by starvation. Gladstone’s office also designed the Prisoner Act (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) but it was not implemented until three years later in 1913.
Following Gladstone’s tenure Winston Churchill was appointed Home Secretary from February 1910-October 1911. Part of his job requirement was the continuation of the program of his predecessor regarding the treatment of imprisoned suffragettes and policing their public disruptions and demonstrations. To his credit he introduced original progressive prison reforms emphasizing rehabilitation available to all prisoners of both sexes. He refused to designate incarcerated suffragettes “political prisoners” as they demanded and instead created some adjustments to confinement protocols to appease. Prisoners would be absolved from the humiliating hardships and conditions that the commoner had to endure but would be denied the other privileges given to those from the upper class. For example, the activists could wear their own clothing instead of standard issue prison apparel and decide their own grooming. They could have their own reading and writing material and food stuff delivered. They could fraternize with each other in a way that the other prisoners in their grouping could not. The policy of force feeding remained as before.
A serious move was afoot in Parliament to table the Conciliation Bill which would grant suffrage to a limited number of women based on property. Before it could be amended in the House and put to a vote PM Asquith abruptly shelved it. In protest Mrs. Pankhurst organised a WSPU response on November 18, 1910 also known as Black Friday. Three hundred suffragettes attempted to present a petition to the Prime Minister outside Parliament. After a prolonged and emotionally pitched battle with police and their agents resulting in injury to scores of women, over one hundred were arrested. However, the aggressive nature of the police tactics created a public outcry, and the “Conciliation Committee” demanded an official inquiry. Churchill denied any role in the police action, “No orders, verbal or written, directly or indirectly emanating from me, were given to the police.” He said there would be no inquiry and instead dropped charges and released those detained. Bear in mind that a lot of ill will on a personal level had been generated between the WSPU and the Prime Minister and his cabinet over the preceding years. The relentless tactic of interrupting politicians when giving public speeches, not to mention all manner of individual confrontations in public spaces, generated a range of discreet revenge tactics as a response. The continued double dealing on promises for election reforms was at the heart of the conflict. Reform, as far as the government was concerned, was absolutely out of the question so their most expedient route therefore was to resort to deceit and delaying tactics to buy more time. Organised attacks on property by militants (chalking sidewalks with slogans ) escalated to breaking windows and triggering fire alarms to damaging art works in museums to setting fire to post boxes and then later arson of public buildings and properties of cabinet ministers and select Anglican churches to finally small portable bombs. In retrospect the Liberals actions spoke volumes revealing a track record of determined underhanded aggression by policing agencies which was by Churchill’s tenure as Home Secretary entrenched and systemic and that it continued unabated for four more years. Documents signed by Churchill to police authorities dated November 22, four days after Black Friday, show that he did not authorize police to handle suffragettes roughly at the WSPU response a few days later, a second large demonstration in which suffragettes mobilised in an angry demonstration over three days and broke widows at a cabinet minister’s house. Two hundred and eighty-five activists were arrested in total. At a speech a few days later Churchill bitterly scorned suffragettes as, “money fed” a reference to their wealthy primary patron, Frederick William Pethick Lawrence. Lloyd George and other cabinet ministers also began using this term after suffragettes interrupted their speeches. Mr. Pethick Lawrence must surely have understood that this was a flag, and that he would be targeted if he did not rein in the Pankhurst’s. The Pankhurst’s also understood the implications and planned accordingly for the coming day when they would be compelled to have a showdown with their patron who, along with his wife, Emmeline Pethick, were never convinced of the benefits of the use of violence as a tactic.
Churchill believed that most voters in Britain did not support suffrage. He proposed a national referendum to settle the matter and predicted that the suffrage movement “would be smashed” as a consequence. Prime Minister Asquith shelved the idea as he believed it would not benefit the Liberal Party for various strategic reasons and because if a ‘yes’ win occurred in a referendum he would be compelled to override his strong belief in upholding the status quo. In other words if the existing system was not broken then why fix it.
During Churchill’s tenure as Home Secretary he was tireless in lobbying for The Mental Deficiency Act. The Act would target disenfranchised individuals from the lower classes. A clause he helped formulate would facilitate the confinement and sterilization of the “feeble minded” or those with mental illness and severe learning disabilities. He was also honorary vice president of the British Eugenics Society whose aim was to address “race deterioration” and reduce poverty. However when the Act was passed in 1913 it did not include the controversial sterilization clause.
Reginald McKenna followed Churchill as Home Secretary in 1911 and continued until 1916.
In December 1911 Emily Wilding Davison was arrested for setting several mailboxes on fire near Parliament for which she was sentenced to six months in prison. Her action had not been approved by either Mrs. Pankhurst or Christabel. However Davison’s spontaneous act was weaponised by Christabel and was carried out on her orders by a cadre of young militant followers.
A young suffragette organizer stationed in Dublin gained possession of confidential letters from the office of the Secretary of State. The letters revealed conclusively that Asquith and Lloyd George were solely responsible for the forced feeding of suffragettes in prisons in response to hunger strikes.
The WSPU was involved in an ambitious protest action in March, 1912 that involved a window smashing campaign that targeted shops and offices in London’s West End. As a result, Mrs. Pankhurst and the Pethick Lawrences went on trial in May for conspiracy and were sentenced to nine months in prison. Mrs. Pankhurst responded to her conviction at court, “I feel I have done my duty. I look upon myself as a prisoner of war. To the women who have faced these terrible consequences I want to say: I am not going to fail you but will face it as you face it.”
The suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was being force fed in prison at this time. At the first opportunity out of her cell she jumped from the 4th floor in an attempted suicide. She was saved by an iron mesh screen spread around the ceiling of the mezzanine. She jumped again from the mesh into the iron staircase headfirst and injured herself. She went on hunger strike and was again force fed several more times before being released. She was on the outs with the Pankhurst’s for her persistent non approved innovations aimed at accelerating the movement. The most alarming of which was her belief that martyrdom for the cause would be a game changer. After her release she continued her activism on the periphery of the organisation but could not resist pushing the envelope.
From 1912 to 1914, Christabel Pankhurst headed two additional campaigns against property to complement window smashing in order to put maximum pressure on the government to negotiate in good faith. One called for damaging original art works, in museums that she deemed sexist. The other was arson. Teams of select militants within the WSPU known as the Young Hot Bloods (YHB) carried out these comprehensive campaigns of attack going forward.
Sylvia Pankhurst noted in her book, The Suffragette Movement, that early in 1912 Christabel fled to France, because Scotland Yard had included her in an arrest warrant for Mrs. Pankhurst and Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence for ‘conspiracy to incite certain persons to commit malicious damage to property’ after the massive window smashing action. In Paris, Christabel continued to lead the WSPU attack agenda by utilizing select suffragette couriers to deliver her written orders to a small cadre of young zealots back home. During this period Mrs. Pankhurst travelled tirelessly abroad primarily in the US and in Canada and across Britain and Ireland giving speeches where her celebrity raised awareness for women’s suffrage and gained donations for the WSPU.
In 1913 Christabel relayed a command to Sylvia to visit the Manchester Art Gallery where she was to attack some preselected art works. Sylvia declined the order. Shortly afterward three suffragettes smashed the protective glass for thirteen historical paintings at the museum.
In 1912 the Pethick-Lawrence’s travelled to France, for two meetings called by Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel. The Lawrence’s had been personally held liable by the government for the window smashing campaign even though they had never agreed to its use. They were obliged to pay court fees of £1,100 after being sentenced to nine months in prison for their accessory roles plus £5000 for replacement windows. At the meetings Mrs. Pankhurst stood dutifully behind Christabel’s plans for attacking property, “Short of taking human life we shall stop at no step we consider necessary to take.” Christabel revealed her plans for arson and fire bombing and added that the activists carrying them out would use stealth to avoid arrest. Christabel was since l908 the intellectual architect and chief advocate of confrontation and provocation for the WSPU and she commanded the arson and bombing campaign from 1912-14 including some of the attacks that were independent ventures and this was the case in all of the groups previous related campaigns.
Mr. Pethick-Lawrence tried to convince Christabel to return to London to face charges and to launch a media response to counter the negative publicity in the Press. His plan was rejected, and Mrs. Pankhurst angrily threatened, “If you do not accept Christabel’s policy we shall smash you!” The Pethick Lawrences then went on a trip to visit friends in British Columbia and while there received a letter from Mrs. Pankhurst in which she recommended they resettle there and start a new suffrage organisation of their own. She warned the couple that the intensified terrorist campaign would end up bankrupting them. She also mentioned that WSPU headquarters had been moved from Clement’s Inn to Lincoln’s Inn House, Kingsway, an attractive heritage building. The Pethick Lawrence’s replied that they preferred to continue working with the WSPU. On their return to England a meeting was called for the couple at the new headquarters with Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel, who had returned from Paris in disguise to avoid arrest. Mrs. Pankhurst demanded the couple’s resignation, and the decision was final. Sylvia recorded that Mrs. Pankhurst was on a deeper level not unhappy to see them expelled as she had always resented their clear preference for Christabel. The WSPU membership accepted Mrs. Pankhurst’s news of the parting of the ways with unanimity.
The collection of funds from donors dipped initially but by the next year skyrocketed. A program of setting off hundreds of false fire alarms began. Mrs. Pankhurst had already assumed full control of the organisation’s financial accounts. Votes for Women was not transferred to the Pankhurst’s so they launched a new paper of their own called, The Suffragette, with Christabel as editor and chief.
Mrs. Pankhurst in 1913 declared to the WSPU membership that their attacks against property were henceforth to be defined as a terrorist campaign. That same year Annie Kenney gave a call to arms to the suffragette membership. As proof that she did not place herself above those of lesser rank she was arrested by police after she was spotted by alert parishioners placing a bomb with 2.5 k of gunpowder under a pew during a Sunday service at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Smith Square. Earlier that same year a similar bomb was placed in the same church where it exploded and splintered wooden seats in the gallery and shattered a stained glass window. Senior leaders of the Church of England always strongly opposed suffrage for women and they were closely connected to the monarchy and government. Christabel was making war on the hypocrisy of the patriarchy that headed the church for preaching the gospel of love and conciliation while at the same time supporting institutions of brutality and repression of women.
Punch magazine published a political caricature of McKenna lifting by a hair a small but very unsightly creature labelled ‘Militancy’. Rendered with mouth screaming under bulging eyes and with two tiny arms extended holding an incendiary torch in one and a hammer in the other that symbolised the Pankhurst’s terror campaign. It gives the reader today a hint of the level of disdain that the Liberal government and the British establishment held for the Pankhurst’s and the WSPU all along. The cartoon also inadvertently pointed out risks for the WSPU for if they were to prevail it was essential that they maintain favour in public opinion to insure effective political leverage with the Liberals along with critical financing gained primarily from donations now that the Pethick Lawrence’s were no longer a part of the organisation. A peak of popular support for the WSPU was reached from 1908 to 1912. After that public approval became more complex influenced as it was on the one hand by the negative publicity from the Press over the accelerated bombing and arson attacks on property that was countered on the other hand by rising public outrage towards the Liberal government over the cruelty of their continued policy of force feeding hunger striking suffragettes. For example, by the end of July 1914, seven women who were hunger striking had been force fed every day for up to eight weeks with one, Gertrude Ansell, suffering thirteen weeks. The list of the others is, Hilda Burkitt, 12 wks. Florence Tunks, 12 wks. Nellie Hall, 10 wks. Grace Roe, 9 wks. Phyllis North, 8 wks. Mary Spencer, 10 wks.
In 1913 the Cat and Mouse Act was designed to give the public the impression that the Liberals were modifying their sadistic forced feeding tactics in a judicious manner. In London the Daily Mail editorialised on the introduction of the Cat and Mouse Act. “It will not do. No one who has read the reports of their sufferings, such as Sylvia Pankhurst’s in yesterday’s edition, can have any other feeling than this, that however necessary it may be to use such methods in the case of the insane, their application to women, who in full possession of their senses, choose to offer violent resistance, is barbarous and uncivilized. It converts a sentence of a month or two into a sentence of unbearable torment, degrading to the community which inflicts it. What we suggest is that the Minister cut forcible feeding completely out of his scheme.”
The Act was extended first to women accused of arson, then to those of lesser offences like window breaking and finally to those women in custody awaiting trial. Even though the Home Secretary said the Act did not permit police to have forced entry into private homes while searching for “Mice” the reality was that the police were entering homes anyway as a strategy of intimidating suffragette supporters who were sheltering them. As the periods of forced feeding lengthened before conditional release the WSPU replied with increased attacks on property.
Each time Mrs. Pankhurst was delivered back to prison under the Act; she was humiliated by prison authorities who forcibly made her endure a thorough strip search.
Lloyd George in a speech denounced the WSPU as a “copious fountain of mendacity!” About a month later at a small town in Wales, he tried to give a dedication speech but was interrupted by suffragettes which provoked a particularly vicious reprisal from a group of young men in the crowd. This type of backlash had spread to all WSPU demonstrations and marches to include those by all other suffragist groups. For their part the Pankhurst leadership saw themselves as military leaders in a battle against male patriarchy and had always ordered their troops to stand firm in counter attacks from authorities and Liberal supporters and this enthusiasm for confrontation continued to escalate in the later years of the campaign. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote that organised gangs of hired young men were sent to all suffrage gatherings for the sole purpose of making speech giving impossible with loud jeering and booing and general noise making. The police were asked to intervene, but they refused and directed inquiries to the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary it turned out had ordered that all meetings by the WSPU, The Women’s Freedom League and all non-militant suffrage organisations in addition to any male organisations in support of women’s suffrage be broken up in the future. Meetings were not illegal, but they would be broken just the same.
Employees of The Suffragette paper and the printer were charged by police with aiding and abetting. The Home Office issued a statement that the paper was open to anyone to print and publish provided that, after publication, no incitement to crime or destruction to property was to be found in its columns.
Millicent Fawcett and the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies organised an ambitious five-week march in l913 from branches all over England that converged for a rally in Hyde Park on August, 2. As the marchers made their way to London through numerous communities en route they endured vigorous harassment from gangs of young men.
The challenges of marital fidelity for the Prime Minister Asquith and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, during this period revealed in retrospect another dimension to understanding their duplicitous policy in regards to the WSPU. Asquith wrote copious letters to his young mistress sharing his most personal thoughts and feelings and early in the war he revealed to her classified military information from the front and asked for her opinions regarding his decisions.. However Lloyd George redefined the definition of promiscuity and as a result repeatedly put his political career in jeopardy confident Asquith would cover for him.
In 1913 Mrs. Pankhurst took responsibility for a firebombing attack, ordered by Christabel, on Lloyd George’s new home, that was under construction near a golf course. Emily Wilding Davison and two other suffragettes were the arsonists. Mrs. Pankhurst was charged and sentenced to 3 years in prison as a result. She managed to spend much of her sentence outside prison by hunger striking under the Cat and Mouse Act. Any force feeding would have been minimal as the risk of serious health complications to such a high profile public figure would risk a national and international protest.
Mrs. Pankhurst, at Christabel’s request, officially expelled both her younger daughters Sylvia and Adela from the WSPU because they failed to follow strict ideological guidelines. This action created a painful split in the family. Both sisters ignored Christabel’s directives requesting they carry out her more extreme acts of violence against property.
The WSPU’s campaign of arson and bombing against property continued until August 4, 1914, when Britain declared war on Germany. Millicent Fawcett quickly approached the government promising to have her organisation branch out to include helping with the war effort. Shortly afterward Mrs. Pankhurst reached a similar agreement with the Home Secretary. Militancy towards the government would be suspended until after the war in return for the pardon and release of all suffragette prisoners. On August 10, the government released all imprisoned suffragettes. Mrs. Pankhurst was now free. Christabel promptly returned to London from France on Sept. 8th and gave a public speech where her sole topic was “The German Peril.” Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel’s speeches thereafter focused solely on supporting the government’s campaign to build a unified national war effort through speeches and editorialising in their paper and by having their membership participate in the government’s controversial using a form of duress to boost enlistment rates in the armed forces.
In 1915 the publication The Suffragette was retitled “Britannia” and its motto was “For King, for Country, for Freedom!” Christabel editorialised on how the government was responsible for the dismal results on the Front and that prominent anti-war advocates (including Sylvia) should be publicly denounced as traitors. The paper also called for the detention of foreign nationals from enemy countries. She demanded legislation to allow the conscription of all eligible males into the military and the mandatory conscription of eligible females into “national service” to meet the replacement needs for workers in industry.
Britain’s armed forces were in crisis mode over inadequate stores of ammunition for the front lines due to supply chain issues. Asquith appointed Lloyd George as a temporary Minister of Munitions to solve the problem. Lloyd George asked Emmeline Pankhurst to organise a women’s march called, The Right to Serve, for July l915. At a meeting with Mrs. Pankhurst the Minster outlined his plan to fast track the introduction of women workers into the factories and in particular munitions factories and offered equal pay that would align with what male workers received. Mrs. Pankhurst and the WSPU along with Millicent Fawcett and NUWSS intensively promoted recruitment campaigns encouraging women to apply for these jobs. By July 1916, there were 340,844 women working in the arms industry addressing production shortfalls. By the end of the war two million women had been employed in a range of vital industries across Britain. Some historians believe that it was because of this successful mass deployment of women workers facilitating the meeting of essential production quotas that favorable legislation for partial suffrage for women could finally become a political reality.
In April 1916 Christabel published in Britannia a piece titled “A Message from Mrs. Pankhurst” that criticized her sister Sylvia for leading an anti-war protest called “Adult Suffrage Against Conscription” at Hyde Park. The article begins: Hearing of a demonstration recently held in Trafalgar Square, Mrs. Pankhurst, who is at present in America, sent the following cable: “Strongly repudiated and condemned Sylvia’s foolish and unpatriotic conduct. Regret I cannot prevent use of name. Make this public.”
In 1915 and 1916 the WSPU experienced two serious breaches in the suffragette rank and file over the fact that the Pankhurst leadership had continued a freeze on advocating for women’s suffrage.
In early 1917 the Press announced that a special Speaker’s Conference Report would ignore the subject of “Votes for Women.” When the Report was released after discussions with women’s suffrage groups, excluding Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist, Women’s Suffrage Federation who supported universal suffrage, it advocated a limited Franchise,” Votes for women over thirty or thirty-five years of age and who were local government electors or wives of same and university graduates over thirty or thirty-five years of age.” The “Nation” editorialized, “You cannot have a property basis for the women’s vote and a flesh and blood basis for the men. You cannot maintain so wide an age-space between them and the woman voter as twenty-one and thirty-five.” David Lloyd-George had replaced Asquith as Prime Minister and proved to be a little more flexible on the suffrage issue than his predecessor. Sylvia Pankhurst on behalf of the WSF sent a letter to Lloyd George stating that according to the 1911 census enfranchisement for women starting at age twenty-one would include 2,699,369 citizens. The numbers between 35 and 65 were 793,036. A pauper disqualification would debar large numbers of working-class widows and unemployed. Regardless, all the other suffrage societies met and agreed to accept the Speakers Conference Report as is. The Labour Party endorsed it. Mrs. Pankhurst asked Lloyd George to proceed with the measure as she felt it was “just and practicable” and that it would be a “wonderful thing” if Votes for Women came in wartime.
The Liberal government added that any changes would force them to abandon the complete measure. The Bill passed third reading in December l917. Those women who lobbied for full enfranchisement knew that this precedent setting legislation was the wedge in the door and that suffrage for women from age 21, no matter what their station, would be won next time. Later every single woman’s suffrage organisation advocated for universal suffrage. Fears that class would create permanent barriers between women turned out to be misled.
The Representation of the People Act was passed into law on February 6, 1918. The WSPU and Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel had achieved their goal. WWI also ended that year and so too did the need for the Pankhurst’s role in supporting it. They found themselves at a crossroads.
In 1917 the Pankhurst’s removed the WSPU title for their organisation and replaced it with the Women’s Party that stood for “equal pay for equal work, equal marriage and divorce laws, the same rights over children for both parents, equality of rights and job opportunities in public service, and a system of maternity benefits.” The party also called for the abolition of Trade Unions. In the General Election in 1918 Christabel representing the new party ran against an Independent Labour Party candidate and was defeated in a race for Smethwick. Afterward the Women’s Party with few members and donors slipped into insolvency. In June 1919 the Pankhurst’s closed and disbanded the Women’s Party.