Editing Emmeline Pankhurst (section)

== Women's Franchise League ==
[[File:Harriot Stanton Blatch.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch]], daughter of US suffragist [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]], became friends with Pankhurst through their work in the [[Women's Franchise League]].]]
In 1888, Britain's first nationwide coalition of groups advocating women's right to vote, the [[National Society for Women's Suffrage]] (NSWS), split after a majority of members decided to accept organisations affiliated with political parties. Angry at this decision, some of the group's leaders, including [[Lydia Becker]] and [[Millicent Fawcett]], stormed out of the meeting and created an alternative organisation committed to the "old rules," called the Great College Street Society after the location of its headquarters. Pankhurst aligned herself with the "new rules" group, which became known as the [[Whitehall|Parliament Street]] Society (PSS). Some members of the PSS favoured a piecemeal approach to gaining the vote. Because it was often assumed that married women did not need the vote since their husbands "voted for them," some PSS members felt that the vote for single women and widows was a practical step along the path to full suffrage. When the reluctance within the PSS to advocate on behalf of married women became clear, Pankhurst and her husband helped organise another new group dedicated to voting rights for all women – married and unmarried.<ref>Purvis 2002, pp. 29–30; Bartley, pp. 38–39; Pugh, pp. 53–54; E. S. Pankhurst 1931, pp. 94–95.</ref>

The inaugural meeting of the [[Women's Franchise League]] (WFL) was held on 25 July 1889, at the Pankhurst home in Russell Square. Early members of the WFL included [[Josephine Butler]], leader of the [[Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts]]; the Pankhursts' friend [[Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme-Elmy]]; and [[Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch]], daughter of US suffragist [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]].<ref>Purvis 2002, p. 33; Pugh, pp. 53–54; Bartley, pp. 38–39; E. S. Pankhurst 1931, p. 95; Phillips, p. 151.</ref>

The WFL was considered a radical organisation, since in addition to women's suffrage it supported [[Social equality|equal rights]] for women in the areas of divorce and [[inheritance]]. It also advocated [[trade unionism]] and sought alliances with socialist organisations. The more conservative group that emerged from the NSWS split spoke out against what they called the "extreme left" wing of the movement.<ref>Quoted in Purvis 2002, p. 29.</ref> The WFL reacted by ridiculing the "Spinster Suffrage party"<ref>Quoted in Purvis 2002, p. 31; Phillips, p. 151.</ref> and insisting that a wider assault on social inequity was required. The group's [[Extremism|radicalism]] caused some members to leave; both Blatch and Elmy resigned from the WFL. The group fell apart one year later.<ref>Phillips, pp. 150–151; Bartley, pp. 38–41; Purvis 2002, pp. 30–37; Pugh, pp. 51–55.</ref>