Richard Marsden Pankhurst (1834 – 5 July 1898) was an English
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
and socialist who was a strong supporter of
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
.
He was married to
suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
.
Early life
Richard Pankhurst was the son of Henry Francis Pankhurst (1806–1873) and Margaret Marsden (1803–1879). Pankhurst was born in
Stoke
Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom.
Stoke may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below.
Berkshire
* Stoke Row, Berkshire
Bristol
* Stoke Bishop
* Stok ...
but spent most of his life in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. He was educated at
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...
and
Owens College Owens may refer to:
Places in the United States
*Owens Station, Delaware
*Owens Township, St. Louis County, Minnesota
*Owens, Missouri
*Owens, Ohio
*Owens, Virginia
People
* Owens (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Owens Bro ...
of Manchester. In 1858 he graduated B.A. from the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
and in 1859 was awarded
LL.B
Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
. with Honours. In 1863 he graduated
LL.D
Legum Doctor (Latin: “teacher of the laws”) (LL.D.) or, in English, Doctor of Laws, is a doctorate-level academic degree in law or an honorary degree, depending on the jurisdiction. The double “L” in the abbreviation refers to the earl ...
. with gold medal.
Career
He was called to the
Bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
at
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...
in 1867 and joined the Northern Assizes circuit. He was also a member of the Bar of the County Palatine of Lancaster Court.
Following qualification he was a founder member of the Manchester Liberal Association, although he was subsequently to fall out with the
Liberals. He campaigned for multiple causes, including
free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...
, universal free
secular education
Secular education is a system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.
An example of a secular educational system would be the French public educational system, where conspicuous reli ...
,
republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology centered on citizenship in a state organized as a republic. Historically, it emphasises the idea of self-rule and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or oligarchy to popular sovereignty. It ...
,
home rule for the Irish,
independence for India,
nationalisation
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of land, the
disestablishment of the Church of England and the abolition of the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
. He established a National Society for Women's
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
, drafted the Women's Disabilities Removal Bill (the first women's suffrage bill in England) and was the original author of the bill which became the
Married Women's Property Act 1882
The Married Women's Property Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c.75) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that significantly altered English law regarding the property rights of married women, which besides other matters allowed married women ...
which gave wives absolute control over their property and earnings.
He married Emmeline Goulden, better known as
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
, who was some 24 years younger than he was, in 1878. With her, he was instrumental in establishing a branch of the
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
.
[ Together they formed the ]Women's Franchise League
The Women's Franchise League was a British organisation created by the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst together with her husband Richard and others in 1889, fourteen years before the creation of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. The Pr ...
in 1889. They were part of a political circle which included Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908.
Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. ...
, Annie Besant
Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist.
Regarded as a champion of human f ...
, William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
. They were present at the Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence agai ...
riot in Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...
.
Known as the "Red Doctor", he stood for Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
in 1883 as candidate for Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, in 1885 for Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe () is a district of south-east London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, as well as the Isle of Dogs ...
, Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
, and in 1895 in Manchester Gorton
Manchester Gorton is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Labour's Afzal Khan, who was elected at the 2017 general election. It is the safest Labour seat in Greater Manchester by numerical majority and ...
, in all cases unsuccessfully.[ His controversial views did not win him many clients, but did afford him a place of great respect in the Independent Labour Party, even long after his sudden death, from stomach ulcers, at the age of 64.
He was buried alongside his parents in Brooklands Cemetery, Sale, ]Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, where there is a headstone bearing their names.
Personal life
With his wife Emmeline
''Emmeline, The Orphan of the Castle'' is the first novel written by English writer Charlotte Smith; it was published in 1788. A Cinderella story in which the heroine stands outside the traditional economic structures of English society and ...
, he was father to five children: Christabel Pankhurst
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bord ...
(1880–1958), Sylvia Pankhurst
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...
(1882–1960), Francis Henry (1884–1888), Adela Pankhurst
Adela Constantia Mary Walsh ( Pankhurst; 19 June 1885 – 23 May 1961) was a British born suffragette who worked as a political organiser for the WSPU in Scotland. In 1914 she moved to Australia where she continued her activism and was co-found ...
(1885–1961), and Henry Francis (1889–1910). His daughters all became suffragettes
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
. Through his daughter Sylvia, he is the great-grandfather of Helen Pankhurst
Helen Pankhurst (born 1964) is a Feminism in United Kingdom, British women's rights activist, scholar and writer. She is currently CARE (relief agency), CARE International's senior advisor working in the UK and Ethiopia. She is the great- ...
and grandfather of Richard Pankhurst
Richard Marsden Pankhurst (1834 – 5 July 1898) was an English barrister and socialist who was a strong supporter of women's rights.
Early life
Richard Pankhurst was the son of Henry Francis Pankhurst (1806–1873) and Margaret Marsden (180 ...
, who shares his name.
Sayings
*''"Life is nothing without enthusiasms"''
*''"Every struggling cause shall be ours"''
* he House of Lords is''"a public abattoir butchering the liberties of the people"''
*he clergy of the Church of England are
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
''"a portentious ic?beadledom"''
References
*''Manchester Faces and Places'' Vol 4 Page 33 (1893)
*Burton, S: "Relatively Famous: Richard Pankhurst, The Red Doctor", ''BBC History Magazine'', February 2007, 8:2, page 22.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pankhurst, Richard
1830s births
1898 deaths
Alumni of the University of London
Deaths from ulcers
English agnostics
English barristers
Independent Labour Party National Administrative Committee members
People educated at Manchester Grammar School
People from Stoke-on-Trent
Independent Labour Party politicians
Richard
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' an ...
English socialist feminists