Some time ago I met a researcher working on Ethiopia who happened to mention a Pankhurst had links with that country. Then this came through, so I thought I’d dig a little more:
Rita Pankhurst some early photos in Ethiopia with Richard and Sylvia Pankhurst pic.twitter.com/oEQfFQ0Xiq
— alula pankhurst (@alulapan) 2 June 2019
In 2016, the BBC reported on Sylvia Pankhurst becoming an honorary Ethiopian and in 2018 the LSE wrote an update. Martin Kettle provides some insight into how her reputation has been perceived over the years. You can see more about her here.
Her son Richard stayed in Ethiopia and became a historian of the country. He died in 2017, aged 89. He shed some light on her involvement in the Spanish Civil War, which Laurie Lee was also involved in – or not – and wrote about in A Moment of War Listen to him on television in 1975 (16mins).
The Suffragettes and Suffragists have been on my radar for some time, not because of women’s rights but because of Kitchener – he met Millicent Fawcett whilst in South Africa to discuss the concentration camps and then in 1914 his niece Fanny Parker was arrested for trying to blow up Robbie Burns’ house in Scotland. She was later awarded an OBE for her wartime service having been granted amnesty for her 1914 actions in exchange for taking up war work.
Anne Samson - Historian 