September 27th 1960: Sylvia Pankhurst dies
On this day in 1960, the prominent English suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst died in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia aged seventy-eight. The daughter of famed suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, she was famous for her efforts to achieve female suffrage. However, Sylvia differed from her mother’s approach to suffrage, favouring peaceful means over more radical measures like hunger strikes and civil disobedience. An ardent socialist, she also wanted the suffrage movement to take a more political stance. In addition to her activism for suffrage, Pankhurst was an outspoken advocate of left-wing communist policies, and protested the rise of fascism in Europe. In her personal life, she refused to marry and take a man’s name, but did have a long term partner and a son. Pankhurst was a vocal opponent of British colonialism, and it was in this capacity that she spent her final years in Ethiopia after becoming a champion for their cause of liberation.
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