It true to say that the splits within the WSPU arose primarily because of the intransigent and despoticleadership of the Pankhursts

Similarly, Sylvia Pankhurst could be accused of being just as uncompromising as her sister, Christabel, in the 1914 split. Sylvia was told by Christabel that she had to 'toe the line' or sever all links with the WSPU. Sylvia's ELFS had a stronger emphasis on class politics than the WSPU, and carried out separate programmes, straying from the path that the WSPU was taking, thus deliberately contradicting the organisation. She chose not to 'toe the line', but to disassociate her organisation, ELFS, from the WSPU which it had previously been a branch of, showing that she was just as intransigent as her mother and sister in the WSPU.

On the other hand though, the Pankhursts can be seen as totally uncompromising and autocratic in situations where a difference of opinion occurred. In the 1907 split, when Teresa Billington-Greig suggested that the WSPU be run along democratic lines (it was, after all, aiming for democracy. The autocratic and oligarchical leadership of the WSPU was hypocritical considering this) she was denounced as a conspirator. Here is her account of the following events;

'In September (1907), about a month before the date arranged for the gathering, Mrs Pankhurst, ignoring the Honorary Secretary, called a Committee meeting, declared the Conference annulled, the Constitution cancelled, and the rights of the members abolished, and proclaimed herself as sole dictator of the movement. She appointed herself secretary, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence treasurer, and Miss Christabel Pankhurst organizing secretary. She chose for herself a committee consisting of paid organisers and two or three women who were willing to lend their names to this purpose.' The committee members were (obviously, as they were chosen by Emmilene herself) sympathetic to the Pankhurst doctrine. Emmilene even tore up the proposed constitution in front of the members, to show that she was in charge; if she did not agree with it, it did not happen. Teresa Billington-Greig once said;

'She was a most astute statesman, a skilled politician, a self-dedicated reshaper of the world - and a dictator without mercy.' She also told of the reactions of many members to what she called 'the clumsy declaration of autocracy';

'(It) broke the spell of many who would willingly have voted away their rights. Those who stuck to the Constitution formed the Women's Freedom League... This reversion to autocracy, this denial of suffrage in their own society to women seeking suffrage in the State, brought to a sudden close to this stage in the progress of militancy.' This whole incident clearly demonstrates that the Pankhursts' dictatorial style of leadership and intransigence was responsible for a fifth of the members of the WSPU splitting with it to form the Women's Freedom League.

Another instance of the Pankhursts' despotic and intransigent leadership causing a split happened in 1912. Emmilene and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, close friends of Christabel's, questioned the arson attacks and escalating violence carried out in the campaign by the WSPU. Despite their previously close relationship with Christabel, for simply questioning the Pankhursts' approach, the Pethick-Lawrences were expelled from the WSPU. This shows that the Pankhursts' unquestioned leadership was more important to them than even the closest of friendships, resulting in splits.

Christabel's severing of ties with Sylvia can also be viewed as resulting from the Pankhursts' uncompromising leadership. Sylvia and her ELFS followed the WSPU's general aims, they simply had additional issues on their agenda; Christabel thought the ELFS to be discrediting to the WSPU. Sylvia refused to give up her additional aims and because of this Christabel ordered she cut all links with the WSPU. Additionally, Christabel said that the WSPU 'must have only one policy, one programme, and one command'1, all controlled by the Pankhursts. Anyone who wanted to carry out programmes that varied with the WSPU's or give unconnected instructions had to create a separate organisation of their own. This portrays the dictatorial nature of the Pankhursts and shows that their despotic leadership was the cause of splits; because Sylvia had suffrage campaigners linked with the WSPU following her, Emmilene and Christabel felt it necessary to get rid of her. In his book Men Movements and Myself, Henry Snell, a historian in 1936 wrote that ' Mrs. Pankhurst was an autocrat masquerading as a democrat. Mussolini might with profit have learned his business at her feet.'

Historian Rebecca West wrote, 'She had been merciless in her preservation of party discipline. There was no nonsense about democracy in the Women's Social and Political Union. Teresa Billington had long been driven out for raising the topic. Mrs Pankhurst, Christabel and the Lawrences exercised an absolute dictatorship.'2

In conclusion, I believe that it is true to say that the splits within the WSPU arose primarily because of the intransigent and despotic leadership of the Pankhursts, although, on some occasions, members involved in the splits could have been accused of being just as uncompromising as the Pankhursts. Members of the WSPU should have been entitled to voice their own opinions, as they were working towards a democratic goal, but if a member's view contradicted with that of the Pankhursts, all links were severed, thus causing a split. It seems that the Pankhursts could not bear to have their authority or their actions even questioned (as in the case of Emmilene and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence) without severing ties with the person/people responsible; this was the primary reason for most of the splits.

Votes for Women 1860-1928: second edition, by Paula Bartley. Page 46

2 The Young Rebecca. Writings of Rebecca West 1911-1917, Virago, 1982, pages 257-8, originally printed in 1933