Sylvia’s Guildhall Trial

When Sylvia Pankhurst stood trial at The Guildhall in 1921 for sedition, she used the opportunity to defend her beliefs and recount her activist history. Though arrested for inciting rebellion through her newspaper, Pankhurst arrived confidently with a flower in her buttonhole. For 90 minutes, she spoke of her upbringing among reformists and abolitionists, her artistic ambitions, and her many imprisonments as a suffragette. She had faced death many times for her feminist causes. During her 13 prison sentences, Pankhurst endured force-feeding and solitary confinement in rat-infested cells. Now 38, she held the court’s attention with her compelling life story spanning political activism, art, and injustice. Though accused of inciting violence through her journalism, Pankhurst’s testimony served as a proud reminder of her tireless fight for women’s rights.

Sylvia insisted that she would not back down from advocating for voting rights, no matter how much the establishment tried to silence her. Though she was found guilty, she succeeded in turning the trial into a platform to highlight the injustice of women's status in Britain and poverty in the East End. Her passionate defense at The Guildhall that day only strengthened her image as a courageous, defiant fighter for women's suffrage. Sadly she didn’t win over critics and was sent back to Holloway prison. She paid greatly for her confinement, and her digestive system never quite recovered.

She may have lost the legal battle, but her movement eventually won the war. Within a decade, British women finally secured the right to vote. Pankhurst's principled stand at her trial was one of many bold acts of resistance that helped pave the way for this victory.

She wasn’t the only woman to face trial at The Guildhall, and when you compare her with Lady Jane Grey you could say she got off lightly. Sylvia Pankhurst is just one of the many women you get to meet on my Pioneering Women tour.