The suffragette leader and prominent first wave feminist Emmeline ‘Emily’ Pankhurst is well-known to most people today. What is not well-known however is that she is likely to have been born into a jewish family.

Sophia Crane, her mother, was from the Isle of Man and by all accounts of humble Manx ancestry.  (1)

In direct contrast to this; her father, Robert Goulden of Manchester, is the subject of considerable debate as traditionally scholars had assumed that he was of Irish origin as we know that he was baptised a Christian as a child. (2)

This was until biographers of Emily Pankhurst realized that historians of Manchester’s jewish community had long regarded the Goulden family of that city to be of jewish origin. (3)

Naturally this has provoked a significant and continuing debate on the subject, but the basis on which the Goulden family can be regarded as Irish is slim and rests primarily on Robert having been baptised as a Christian while a child. However the case for the Goulden family being of jewish origin (and Robert’s parents being converts from Judaism) is based upon the available documentation not on a surmise based upon the surname and the fact that Robert was baptised as a Christian.

Thus, while the matter may not be settled for many decades yet: the available evidence does indeed suggest that Emily Pankhurst’s father Robert Goulden was jewish and thus so was she according to Israeli law.

References

(1) Paula Bartley, 2002, ‘Emmeline Pankhurst’, 1^st Edition, Routledge: New York, p. 18

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.