well as new exhibitions at St Thomas’s Hospital museum, redeveloped for the anniversary, and at Claydon House in Buckinghamshire, where she often stayed with her sister.
Historians may disagree on the help or harm that
Emmeline gave to the women’s suffrage movement, but few doubt she was one of its most inspirational figureheads. After years working for votes for women, but with little success, Emmeline, helped by her daughter Christabel, established the Women’s Social and Political Union as a militant wing of the women’s movement. Their campaign of window-smashing, arson and violent demonstrations led to regular arrests, hunger strikes and brutal force feeding, which inevitably drew mixed public reaction. On the outbreak of war in 1914, Emmeline suspended the campaign, encouraging women to put their efforts into war work instead. After peace was signed, women over 30 were granted the vote, and shortly before Emmeline’s death the age was reduced to 21, to match men’s votes.
Suffragette
Emmeline Pankhurst fought tirelessly for the female vote
Hospital, and from there her influence and principles spread worldwide. Despite her own ill health she devoted the rest of her long life to improving sanitation and health care, not without a reputation for bossiness. Yet her popular image remains that of a “ministering angel”, as The Times’ war correspondent put it, paying night time visits to the wounded soldiers. Every year, her birthday in May is marked at Westminster Abbey and East Wellow church, in Hampshire, where she was buried; and this year there are special services for the centenary of her death, as
As Britain’s first female prime minister (1979),
Mrs Thatcher’s place in history is rightly guaranteed. Yet it is her 11 consecutive years as PM, unmatched in the 20th century, and her role as the first woman leader of a major Western democracy, that make her one of the most dominant figures in modern politics. As leader of the Conservative Party, her pro-privatisation policy and public-spending cuts naturally brought her into open conflict with trade unions and socialists, earning her
1854 Florence Nightingale and 38 nurses travel to the British camp at Scutari during the Crimean War
1876 Queen
Victoria takes the title Empress of India
1860
1861 Mrs Beeton publishes The
Book of Household Management
1859 Adam Bede, George Eliot
(Mary Ann Evans) first novel was published and is immediately a great success
The Book of Household
Management
1918 The
Qualification of Women Act gives
women over the age of 30 the vote
Coronation
portrait of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip
BRITAIN 29
Florence Nightingale receiving the
Wounded at Scutari by Jerry Barrett
1890 1910 1940
1947 Princess
Elizabeth marries Prince Philippos of Greece at
Westminster Abbey
1920 Hercule Poirot uses his little grey cells, in Agatha Christie's first novel, The
Mysterious Affair at Styles
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes first female Prime Minister
1970
1982 Princess
Diana gives birth to her first son and heir to the throne, Prince William
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100