English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was BOTD in 1858. Born in Manchester to a middle-class family with a history of political activism, her family home hosted celebrity activists including Harriet Beecher Stowe. Largely self-educated, she attended women’s suffrage meetings with her mother from her early teens, and spent a year at the École Normale de Neuilly in Paris. In 1879, aged 20, she married barrister Richard Pankhurst, 24 years her senior. The marriage was happy, based on a shared commitment to social justice, and they had five children together, including future suffragettes Christabel, Sylvia and Adela. In 1903, Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, advocating “Deeds Not Words” to fight for the vote. The WSPU shocked English society with their violent protests, including smashing windows, assaulting police officers and causing public disturbances. Pankhurst and her daughters were imprisoned multiple times for civil disobedience, staging hunger strikes in prison and often being force-fed. In 1913, Pankhurst advocated arson as a protest tactic, alienating her from Adela and more moderate member of the WSPU. With the outbreak of World War One, Pankhurst abruptly changed tactics, announced a stop to the WSPU’s violent protests and publicly supporting the British war effort. Her about-face caused a feud with Christabel, who was a committed pacifist. Horrified by Christabel’s relationship with a married man, they became permanently estranged. In 1918, votes were granted to all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30. Pankhurst continued promoting women’s equality and became a vocal opponent of Socialism, eventually joining the Conservative Party. As a suffragette, Pankhurst had close friendships with a number of queer and lesbian women, including Mary Sophia Allen, Norah Elam, Lucy Burns, and particularly the composer Ethel Smyth, who had a well-documented crush on her (though little evidence exists to suggest a lesbian relationship). Pankhurst died in 1928, aged 69, just two weeks before votes were extended to women over 21, in parity with men. Now considered one of the most influential activists of the 20th century, interest in her life and work was revived during the 1960s women’s movement. Amid many posthumous commemorations, a statue of Pankhurst was erected in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the British Houses of Parliament. She was played by Meryl Streep in the 2015 film Suffragette, recounting the pre-wartime activism of the WSPU.