The suffragettes, led by the charismatic Pankhurst and her eldest daughter, Christabel, believed in direct action.
The suffragists, under Millicent Garrett Fawcett, adopted constitutional, legal tactics, such as writing letters to MPs and peaceful demonstrations. Fawcett loudly condemned the actions of the militants, arguing that they were hindering the women’s cause. After Emily Wilding Davison was fatally injured at the 1913 Epsom Derby when she tried to grab the reins of the king’s horse, biographer David Rubinstein records that Fawcett made no public comment publishing a tribute several years later in 1920. So the news that Westminster council has granted planning permission for a statue of the liberal feminist Fawcett in Parliament Square has not made me rejoice.
