Editing Emmeline Pankhurst (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Lydia becker.jpg|thumb|right|[[Lydia Becker]] was an early influence on Pankhurst and may have been enamoured of Pankhurst's father]]
Emmeline Goulden was born on Sloan Street in the [[Moss Side]] district of [[Manchester]] on 15 July 1858.<ref name=birthplace>{{cite web |title=Emmeline Pankhurst's Birthplace: Alexandra Park Estate |url=http://www.mancky.co.uk/?p=8833 |website=Mancky |access-date=12 May 2019 |archive-date=12 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712161801/http://www.mancky.co.uk/?p=8833 |url-status=live }}</ref> Although her [[birth certificate]] says otherwise, she believed and later claimed her birthday was a day earlier, on [[Bastille Day]] (14 July). Most biographies, including those written by her daughters, repeat this claim. Feeling a kinship with the female revolutionaries who [[Storming of the Bastille|stormed the Bastille]], she said in 1908: "I have always thought that the fact that I was born on that day had some kind of influence over my life."<ref>Quoted in Purvis 2002, p. 9; Bartley, pp. 15–16. Purvis suggests several possible reasons for the confusion. She notes that the name is spelled "Emiline" on the certificate.</ref> The family into which she was born had been steeped in political agitation for generations; her mother, [[Sophia Goulden|Sophia]], was a Manx woman from the [[Isle of Man]] who was descended from men who were charged with social unrest and slander.<ref name="bart16">Bartley, p. 16; Liddington and Norris, p. 74.</ref>

In 1881, the Isle of Man became the first place in the British Isles to grant women the right to vote in Manx national elections (the Isle does not return members to the UK Parliament).<ref>
[http://www.gov.im/lib/news/mnh/125thanniversary.xml "125th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage on the Isle of Man"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081104124541/http://www.gov.im/lib/news/mnh/125thanniversary.xml |date=4 November 2008 }}. 10 October 2006. [[Isle of Man Government]]; retrieved 5 August 2008.</ref><ref>Bartley, pp. 16–18.</ref> Her father, Robert Goulden, was a self-made man{{snd}}working his way from errand boy to manufacturer{{snd}}from a humble Manchester family with its own background of political activity. Robert's mother, a [[fustian]] cutter, worked with the [[Anti-Corn Law League]], and his father was [[impressment|press-ganged]] into the [[Royal Navy]] and present at the [[Peterloo massacre]], when cavalry charged and broke up a crowd demanding parliamentary reform.<ref>Bartley, pp. 18–19; Purvis 2002, p. 9; Phillips, p. 145.</ref>

The Gouldens' first son died at the age of three, but they had 10 other children; Emmeline was the eldest of five daughters. Soon after her birth, the family moved to [[Seedley]], where her father had co-founded a small business. He was also active in local politics, serving for several years on the [[Salford]] town council. He was an enthusiastic supporter of dramatic organisations including the Manchester Athenaeum and the Dramatic Reading Society. He owned a theatre in Salford for several years, where he played the leads in several [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] plays. Goulden absorbed an appreciation of drama and theatrics from her father, which she used later in social activism.<ref>Bartley, pp. 20–21; Pugh, p. 7.</ref> The Gouldens included their children in social activism. As part of the movement to end U.S. slavery, Robert welcomed American abolitionist [[Henry Ward Beecher]] when he visited Manchester. Sophia used the novel ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'', written by Beecher's sister [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]], as a regular source of bedtime stories for her sons and daughters. In her 1914 autobiography ''My Own Story'', Goulden recalls visiting a [[bazaar]] at a young age to collect money for newly freed slaves in the U.S.<ref>E. Pankhurst 1914, pp. 1–2; Bartley, pp. 18–19, 20–21; Purvis 2002, p. 10.</ref>

Emmeline began to read books when she was very young, with one source claiming that she was reading as early as the age of three.<ref>Purvis 2002, p. 9. In her autobiography, Pankhurst wrote on p. 3: "I do not remember a time when I could not read."</ref> She read the ''[[Odyssey]]'' at the age of nine and enjoyed the works of [[John Bunyan]], especially his 1678 story ''[[The Pilgrim's Progress]]''.<ref name="pank14p3">E. Pankhurst 1914, p. 3.</ref> Another of her favourite books was [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s three-volume treatise ''[[The French Revolution: A History]]'', and she later said the work "remained all [her] life a source of inspiration".<ref name="pank14p3"/> Despite her avid consumption of books, however, she was not given the educational advantages enjoyed by her brothers. Their parents believed that the girls needed most to learn the art of "making home attractive" and other skills desired by potential husbands.<ref name="pank14p6">E. Pankhurst 1914, p. 6. She adds: "It used to puzzle me to understand why I was under such a particular obligation to make home attractive to my brothers. We were on excellent terms of friendship, but it was never suggested to them as a duty that they make home attractive to me."</ref> The Gouldens deliberated carefully about future plans for their sons' education, but they expected their daughters to marry young and avoid paid work.<ref>Purvis 2002, p. 11; Bartley, pp. 22–23.</ref> Although they supported [[women's suffrage]] and the general advancement of women in society, the Gouldens believed their daughters incapable of the goals of their male peers. Feigning sleep one evening as her father came into her bedroom, Goulden heard him pause and say to himself, "What a pity she wasn't born a lad."<ref name="pank14p6"/>

It was through her parents' interest in women's suffrage that Goulden was first introduced to the subject. Her mother received and read the ''[[Women's Suffrage Journal]]'', and Goulden grew fond of its editor [[Lydia Becker]].<ref>Purvis 2002, p. 20.</ref> At the age of 14, she returned home from school one day to find her mother on her way to a public meeting about women's voting rights. After learning that Becker would be speaking, she insisted on attending. Goulden was enthralled by Becker's address and later wrote, "I left the meeting a conscious and confirmed suffragist."<ref>E. Pankhurst 1914, p. 9; Bartley, p. 22; Purvis 2002, p. 12.</ref> A year later, she arrived in [[Paris]] to attend the ''École Normale de Neuilly''. The school provided its female pupils with classes in chemistry and bookkeeping, in addition to traditionally feminine arts such as [[embroidery]]. Her roommate was Noémie, the daughter of [[Victor Henri Rochefort, Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay|Victor Henri Rochefort]], who had been imprisoned in [[New Caledonia]] for his support of the [[Paris Commune]]. The girls shared tales of their parents' political exploits and remained good friends for years.<ref>E. Pankhurst 1914, p. 10; E. S. Pankhurst 1931, pp. 54–55; Bartley, pp. 23–25; Purvis 2002, pp. 12–13.</ref> Goulden was so fond of Noémie and the school that she returned with her sister [[Mary Jane Clarke|Mary Jane]] as a [[parlour boarder]] after graduating. Noémie had married a Swiss painter and quickly found a suitable French husband for her English friend. When Robert refused to provide a [[dowry]] for his daughter, the man withdrew his offer of marriage and Goulden returned, miserable, to Manchester.<ref>Purvis 2002, p. 14; Bartley, p. 25; West, pp. 245–246; C. Pankhurst, pp. 17–18.</ref>