'Forgotten' daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst would have 'loved' hip hop retelling of her life

She is Emmeline Pankhurst’s “forgotten” middle daughter who campaigned for working women’s rights including in Aberdeen and Glasgow and became estranged from her suffragette mother over political differences.

Now a descendent of Sylvia Pankhurst has said her great grandmother “would have loved” a hip hop musical of her life story which is to be performed in Scotland.

Sylvia, which is to be shown at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh next month, tells the story of Sylvia’s life, from her work on women’s rights in the UK to campaigning for independence for Ethiopia, where she eventually lived.

Helen Pankhurst, Sylvia's granddaughter, said she believed her grandmother would have loved the "spectacular" performance of a "hip hop funk musical about an Edwardian suffragette".

“I think she would have loved the contemporaneous rendition of it,” she said. “I'm not sure what Emmeline would have thought, possibly less so.”

Ms Pankhurst, who studied for a PhD at Edinburgh University, said her grandmother was buried in Ethiopia, where she worked closely with Haile Selassie and was considered a “national treasure”.

She said: “It's interesting that the surname here is so much associated with women's rights, and probably with Emmeline, her mother, more than anybody else. But what most people in the UK don't know about her is that Sylvia then went on to do a lot of other things, including championing Ethiopian independence.

“And so for me, growing up, it was that part of her life, her support to Ethiopia at a time of need and many other aspects of that that I heard about the most and was most aware of, rather than her campaign for women's rights in the UK.”

Helen Pankhurst is continuing the work of her ancestors through charity Centenary Action. | Helen Pankhurst

Sylvia began working with her mother and her older sister, Christabel, on securing the vote for women. However, her ideals soon began to diverge from those of her family.

Ms Pankhurst said: “They started together as a family, initially very much influenced by social reform and founding members of the Independent Labour Party. Then there are differences that emerged and over time Sylvia felt that it was important to campaign in the east end of London with women who were poorer and who therefore needed the vote even more.

“Meanwhile, Emmeline and Christabel, her oldest daughter, felt that it was more important to open the door for some women to get the vote, bearing in mind that working men didn't have it either. So it seemed to them like a big stretch to try and get working women to vote. Gradually, you see a split between them in terms of who and also how to campaign.”

Sylvia was sent to Aberdeen by her mother in 1909 to take charge of the local Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), ousting local journalist and campaigner Caroline Phillips, who had previously written to Christabel suggesting the group emulate a non-violent strategy favoured by the peaceful National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Five years later, she formally separated her own work from that of her family’s.

Ms Pankhurst describes Emmeline and Christabel as being “very autocratic” and “militant”, while artist Sylvia - who also travelled to Glasgow in the early 1900s to paint women in mills to highlight their working conditions - had “slightly more democratic kind of tendencies”.

The Olivier Award-winning musical has previously been performed in London, but is now embarking on its first UK tour. It is on at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, from 13 to 17 October.