She is best remembered for organizing the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote. In , Time named her as one of the Most Important People of the 20th Century , stating that "she shaped an idea of women for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". Born in the Moss Side district of Manchester to politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 14 to the women's suffrage movement. She founded and became involved with the Women's Franchise League , which advocated suffrage for both married and unmarried women.
When that organisation broke apart, she tried to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her friendship with socialist Keir Hardie but was initially refused membership by the local branch on account of her sex. While working as a Poor Law Guardian , she was shocked at the harsh conditions she encountered in Manchester's workhouses.
It became known for physical confrontations: its members smashed windows and assaulted police officers. Pankhurst, her daughters, and other WSPU activists received repeated prison sentences, where they staged hunger strikes to secure better conditions, and were often force-fed. As Pankhurst's eldest daughter Christabel took leadership of the WSPU, antagonism between the group and the government grew. Eventually the group adopted arson as a tactic, and more moderate organisations spoke out against the Pankhurst family.
Sylvia became a socialist. With the advent of the First World War , Emmeline and Christabel called an immediate halt to militant suffrage terrorism in support of the British government 's stand against the "German Peril". This discrepancy was intended to ensure that men did not become minority voters as a consequence of the huge number of deaths suffered during the First World War.
She transformed the WSPU machinery into the Women's Party , which was dedicated to promoting women's equality in public life. In her later years, she became concerned with what she perceived as the menace posed by Bolshevism and joined the Conservative Party. She was selected as the Conservative candidate for Whitechapel and St Georges in She was commemorated two years later with a statue in Victoria Tower Gardens , next to the Houses of Parliament. Most biographies, including those written by her daughters, repeat this claim.
