Sylvia Pankhurst in perspective

Women’s Srudies 1~. Forum, Vol. 11, No. 3, PP. 245-262, Printed in the USA.

1988

0277-5395/88 $3.00 + .oO 0 1988 Rrgamon Press

plc

SYLVIA PANKHURST IN PERSPECTIVE Some comments on Patricia Romero’s biography E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical RITA PANKHURST City of London Polytechnic, England

WHY THE FUSS? FAMILY HONOUR OR THE HONOUR OF SCHOLARSHIP Patricia Romero’s (1987) book about my mother-in-law had been so long in the making that her son Richard and I had stopped wondering whether we would ever see drafts or whether it would appear out of the blue on our doorstep. In the event the book arrived in the post from the publishers after the first review had appeared. In beautiful wrappers, the book looked as impressive as one would expect from anything graced by the prestigious imprint of Yale University Press. Seeing the book took me back more than a dozen years to the time when we were invited to the Addis Ababa Hilton to meet a lively and enthusiastic American woman who announced that, having hit upon Sylvia Pankhurst’s Ethiopian connection, she had decided to write about her. Patricia Romero duly interviewed Richard and me, and we gave her the names and addresses of people who had known Sylvia, both in Ethiopia and in Britain. Already at that time Richard was skeptical about Romero’s qualifications for the task as she seemed to have no background knowledge of any aspect of Sylvia’s life. After some further correspondence which did nothing to reassure him he decided to keep his distance until he saw some evidence of the quality of Romero’s work. Sadly he was shown neither drafts nor proofs of the book. Leafing through its crisp and well printed pages both Richard and I immediately noticed a series of surprising mistakes, such as incorrect citations of the titles of Sylvia’s works. The more we read the more amazed we became not only by the sheer number of

errors, but also by the portrait that emerged. It bore little resemblance to the person to whom Richard had been close for 34 years and whose house I had shared for the last four years of her life. Were we behaving like many other relatives of eminent persons who expect their biographers to produce hagiographies? Though perhaps some such feelings may have surfaced as we read, our irritation, not to say despair, was caused by the realisation that this first full-length biography of Sylvia would be doing a disservice to scholarship. Inevitably it would be taken as a standard text by subsequent writers and Romero’s mistakes would be perpetuated. Indeed, several reviewers had described the book as scholarly, a presupposition deriving perhaps from its impressive length, footnoting, and Yale University imprint. Already Romero’s assumptions were being accepted as fact by reviewers-for example that violence broke out at all public meetings Sylvia addressed (MacCarthy, 1987); or that Silvio Corio, Richard’s father, was an illegal immigrant (Wilson, 1987). What could be done, firstly, about the book’s inaccuracies and, secondly, about an interpretation skewed by selective quotation and poor guess work so as to put the worst possible construction on Sylvia’s character and motives? Richard wrote to the publishers with an initial list of factual mistakes, concentrating on the part of Sylvia’s life about which he knew from personal experience-mainly her activities pertaining to Ethiopia. Dr. Robert Baldock from the Yale University Press London Office soon arrived in person, full of apologies and thanks for the trouble taken to

245

246

RITAPANICHURST

note the inaccuracies, which, he assured Richard, would be corrected should further editions be printed. He spoke about the possibility of an errata slip, but one has not been issued. There was no prospect of having the book withdrawn. A letter also arrived from Patricia Romero, to whom the Press had forwarded Richard’s notes, thanking him for listing the printing errors and misspellings. Typically she replied to his comments on the inaccuracy of the Ethiopia-related sections by pleading that in a single volume she could not go into so much detail, as though Richard was addressing the quantity rather than the quality of the information she provided. Since Sylvia was dead she could not sue. The only redress seemed to be for us to go systematically through the book listing factual errors, misrepresentations etc. and to deposit our notes in places where some researchers, at least, would be likely to find them. We have sent them to the Fawcett Library, City of London Polytechnic, the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass., and to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, where the bulk of Sylvia’s archives had been deposited (at a time when, because of earthquakes and unrest in Ethiopia, it had become necessary to send the archives out of that country quickly, and the Dutch had been more helpful than the British in this enterprise). We limited ourselves to easily verifiable errors etc., as it was not possible to check material for which the cited sources were archives or personal interviews. We each read the book again and consolidated our notes. If there is an emphasis on Sylvia’s Ethiopian connection, it is not necessarily due to the greater degree of inaccuracy and misrepresentation in the latter part of the book, but rather to Richard’s more intimate knowledge of the latter part of his mother’s life. I am grateful to Women’s Studies International Forum for offering me the hospitality of their columns for some introductory comments and a shortened version of our notes so that they will be available in print to alert others interested in Sylvia. Within a broadly chronological order the notes are grouped roughly according to subject.

SOME GENERAL COMMENTS

Sylvia was involved throughout her life in public affairs of diverse kinds: the Suffragette movement; political agitation and work for social betterment of the underprivileged in the East End of London; the international socialist/communist movement and opposition to Allied intervention against the Soviet Union; the peace movement and the promotion of an international language; anti-fascism; defence of Ethiopia and other victims of fascist aggression; reconstruction of Ethiopia and fund-raising for the first modern hospital in Addis Ababa; and anti-colonialism and Pan-Africanism. Romero almost invariably fails to explain the position Sylvia took on the issues involved in the various causes she espoused. To cite but one example, it would have been interesting to find somewhere in the book an analysis of Sylvia’s attitude, and differences with Christabel, on the acceptability of. a gradualist approach to women’s suffrage, discussed in other works on one or more of the Pankhursts, such as Barbara Castle’s Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst (1987). When the controversies and debates in which Sylvia was involved are mentioned by Romero, they are often trivialized or misunderstood. Of the many distortions and misrepresentations in the book, some arise from the author’s bias in the selection of facts and the weight she attaches to unreliable and inevitably unsympathetic police reports, others from her unscholarly use of data or lack of background knowledge. Romero excuses herself for not drawing more extensively from Sylvia’s own writings on the ground that quotation from the papers held at the International Institute of Social History is restricted. This is not an adequate justification: most of Sylvia’s writings are in the public domain, in government archives and libraries, as are her published books, pamphlets, and articles. Moreover, it appears that Romero misunderstood the Institute’s rules about quotations which are that up to six lines may be quoted freely, while longer quotations require the permission of the Director. This, I am informed, is very rarely refused.

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

THE SUFFRAGETTE

MOVEMENT

Romero’s hostility to Sylvia and inherent lack of sympathy for the Suffragette movement can be,seen in the following passage on p. 151: That year 1128 of the 11,043 women committed [to Holloway Prison] had been in prison over eleven times. Sylvia fell into that category. Dr. Mary Gordon presented an interesting analysis of the habitual criminal, which fits Sylvia at the time of her imprisonment: ‘The habitual offender seldom takes the trouble to deny what she did or to conceal the facts. She argues that the main use of liberty is that you may do as you please.’ (This quotation from Dr. Gordon is, incidentally, incorrectly footnoted in the book.) Romero’s bias against Sylvia also emerges from the book’s references to Sylvia’s “ . . . antics” (p. 191) and, to her setting a record in Holloway Prison “for self-abuse” (p. 82); at times Romero’s disapproval extends to the whole Pankhurst family, as is apparent in the statement that Sylvia “was not astute politically (a Pankhurst characteristic shared by all three women)” (p. 206). Would the W.S.P.U. have achieved its dramatic successes if Emmeline and Christabel, if not Sylvia, had not had some political acumen? Several other examples of bias may be cited. Romero asserts that Sylvia was “not above a certain vanity.” In support of this assertion she states that, on one occasion, Sylvia had been concerned that she might not be heard at a public meeting because of a sore throat, but was pleased that “in the event her voice rang out loud and clear” (p. 77). Anyone about to speak with a sore throat would have reacted similarly. (Romero’s quotations from Sylvia are, incidentally here, as often elsewhere, textually inaccurate.) Romero later asserts that “violence soon followed every public meeting which Sylvia addressed” (p. 80). No evidence is cited in support of this sweeping statement. On p. 96 Romero states that “at Christmas, when the war was fully occupying the nation’s attention, Sylvia and Nora Smythe [sic] set off to Scarborough for a holiday” but their very short visit at the end of

241

1914 had a serious purpose, as recorded in Sylvia’s The Home Front (E. S. Pankhurst, 1932) the object having been to observe the effect of the then recent German naval bombardment. An analysis of Romero’s use of published sources shows that it is often cavalier. For example on p. 114 we read: “She [Sylvia] wrote that he [Masaryk] was not a socialist because he ‘preferred Christabel”’ [to her]. Romero’s evidence for this, as stated in a footnote, is Sylvia’s book, The Home Front (1932: 338). This reads: Mrs Hercbergova had told me he [Masaryk] was a Socialist, which was quite a mistake. I began to talk to him on that footing, but found him stuck full of prejudices and illusions, from which Socialists are supposed to be exempt. Rabid in his fury against Austria he kicked his legs impatiently and snarled with rage, when I told him the belligerent governments were all the same to me, and that my anxiety was to end the War as soon as possible, and push on to establish a better social order, in which both war and the stultifying poverty we could see revealed in the street below us should be no more. Next day Mrs Hercbergova told me he had expressed a poor opinion of me, and preferred my sister Christabel whom he had met in Paris. I laughed when I heard it. I regarded his opinions on the world situation as hopelessly unsound. Can we conclude on this basis that Sylvia considered Masaryk “not a Socialist because he ‘preferred Christabel”‘? Romero elsewhere criticises Sylvia by stating that the latter’s support for the Russian Revolution: raises the question of how committed she was to feminist issues like votes for wornen. Although headlines in [Sylvia’s paper] the Dreadnought during this period centred almost entirely on Russia, Sylvia failed to mention that Kerensky and the Provisional Government had granted equal rights to women including the vote, within a month of taking power. She did everything she could to compare Russia favourably to England, yet she failed to

248

RITAPANKHURST

capitalize on the one issue that most concerned her following at that time. (p. 124) Romero omits to mention that the Workers’ Suffrage Federation, as Sylvia’s organisation had been called since February 1916, met on March 19, 1917, when, according to the Minutes, two resolutions on Russia were passed. One, addressed to Kerensky and Cheidze, looked forward to a constituent assembly “elected by the men and women of Russia by secret ballot and on the basis of universal suffrage.” The second spoke more generally of the establishment of “a genuine democracy” in Russia. A resolution asked the British Government to “set aside the timid and ineffective proposals of the Speaker’s Conference and introduce a measure which shall provide complete Adult Suffrage for men and women” in the light of the Russian intention to elect the Constituent Assembly on such a basis and the German Chancellor’s announcement of similar reforms. Two weeks later the Dreadnought advertised a meeting, to be held in the Albert Hall, with the heading: “Russia Free? A Great Mass Meeting to congratulate the Russian People on their Charter of Freedom which includes ADULT SUFFRAGE.” The same issue, March 31, 1917, carried a leader by Sylvia on “Adult Suffrage” as did the issue of April 7, while on April 21 she reported that in Russia the Soviets were supporting equal voting rights for women, and that Prince Lvov, the Prime Minister, had told a women’s deputation that the Provisional Government was unanimously in favour of votes for women. In the light of the above is it reasonable to question Sylvia’s commitment at this time to “feminist issues like votes for women”? Judging from Romero’s use of verifiable quotations I have reservations about her quotation from an interview with Arthur Dudden which she reports as follows: “Sylvia also complained about Americans gaining the vote before the British did because, as she saw it, ‘we suffered more’. Sylvia, it seems, measured success in terms of input” (p. 266). It would be interesting to know what Sylvia actually said. It seems strange that she should have “complained” about American women obtaining the vote before the British, as she invariably spoke with admiration of

the fact that women in the US-or more precisely in a few American states -obtained the vote comparatively early. Romero quotes Rosamond Silkin’s account about the filming of Fame Is the Spur which led to a dispute between Sylvia and its producer, Ray Boulting. Romero, characteristically, tells the story (p. 189) entirely from an anti-Sylvia standpoint, and chooses to omit the fact that Howard Spring, the author of the book of the film, had there acknowledged a debt to Sylvia’s book The Suffragette Movement (E. S. Pankhurst, 1931). That was the reason for her invitation to the film set. Richard, who happened to have been present on the occasion, remembers the events clearly. “My mother,” he recalls, “was invited to visit the film set. She assumed that she had been asked for advice, and, although very busy, agreed to go. She expressed dissatisfaction with the set on the basis of her recollection of women’s prison dress, only to be informed by the producer that her advice was not required as the costume had already been decided upon. It became apparent to her that she had been invited, as the producer later conceded, mainly to provide advance publicity for the film. She said that if her advice was not wanted she saw no need to remain. The producer concurred, and she left in no small irritation at having had to travel a long distance and waste the greater part of her day.” On p. 82 and elsewhere Romero accuses Sylvia of making favourable comments about some of the countries she visited while criticising institutions in her own country. She does not take into account that Sylvia was working for reforms in Britain, and, like other reformers in history, considered it useful to draw comparisons. She identified some striking examples of social legislation in Scandinavia as well as respect for culture in Hungary and Romania. Is it not also an act of politeness, when visiting a country, to find something to praise? NAMES AND DATES

The book’s factual inaccuracies start with the account of Sylvia’s youth. A typical example is the name of the London institution where she studied: the Royal College of Art. This appears on p. 29 and in the index as the Roy-

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

al Academy of Art and on p. 42 as the Royal Academy, a totally different institution. Some errors creep into the best of scholarly works and one would not wish to dwell on them in Romero’s book were it not for their profusion. Romero seems to have had difficulty in mastering the names and spellings of the personalities and organisations with which the book is concerned. To cite a few examples from the chapters dealing with the earlier part of Sylvia’s life: her principal colleague in the East End, Norah Smyth, appears consistently as Nora Smythe (see index). Teresa Billington’s Christian name has been changed to Theresa and her married name, Billington-Greig, is sometimes misspelt Billington-Grieg (pp. 43, 55, 282, 283, 292); Charlotte Despard has been re-christened Janet and her family name appears as Despart (p. 55). The index has the wrong Christian name but the right surname; Jessie Kenney is called Kennie so that her relationship with her more famous sister Annie cannot be surmised (and is not mentioned, p. 123). Other names which receive such treatment are Ethel Smyth, dubbed Ethyl Smythe (pp. 59, 73, 126, 290; the index has the right Christian name but the wrong surname); Elizabeth Robins, who becomes Robbins (p. 3 19); Henry Nevinson, who is called Nevison (pp. 82, 112, and index): Arthur MacManus, referred to as Arthur, and even more incorrectly, Albert, McManus (pp. 125, 130, and index); and William Liebknecht, who becomes Leibknecht (p. 127). The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom would appear to have almost achieved its aim as Romero has named it the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom. The Manchester Guardian-before its change of title-is almost invariably referred to as the “Manchester Guardian” (pp. 22, 101, 206, 261,274,288), though correctly named on p. 180 and in the index. The personalities in the lower picture on p. 100 are identified in an incorrect order in the caption, and footnote 75 on p. 155 is incorrect, as are several others. Five of Sylvia’s own publications are incorrectly cited:

Woman’s Dreadnought, the paper Sylvia edited in the East End of London, ap-

249

pears throughout as Women-3 Dreadnought (Too many citations to quote). The Home Front, her book on the East End phase of her life, invariably appears as The Homefront (pp. 103, 110, 111, 119, 176, 177, 191, 192). India and the Earthly Paradise becomes India: an Earthly Paradise (pp. 179, 307, and index). This significantly changes the sense of the title. Ethopia and Eritrea is mis-titled Eritrea and Ethiopia (pp. 253-254). Ethiopia Observer, her monthly journal, is referred to as Ethiopian Observer (pp. 3,254, 277, and index). We fare little better when it comes to chronology, as the following examples will indicate: Clara Zetkin is said, on p. 137, to have been born in 1857 “a year after Mrs. Pankhurst.” Emmeline was born in 1858. The “Match Girls’ Strike” did not take place in 1889, as stated on p. 70, but the following year. The date of publication of The Suffragette (E. S. Pankhurst, 1911) is given correctly as 1911 on p. 292 but as 1912 on p. 37. A drawing which Sylvia made prior to the First World War is surmised to have been a tribute to Princess Tsehai after World War Two (p. 272). The proper dating could have been obtained by consulting Richard’s Sylvia Pankhurst: Artist and Crusader (R. Pankhurst, 1979), where the drawing in question is reproduced on. 153. The announcement that the Dreadnought would continue was made in The Times on October 6, 1921, not October 27, 1961 (p. 305, footnote 71); a period of time described by Romero as being “a few days” is actually three weeks (p. 155). EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY LABOUR AND SOCIALIST HISTORY The book also contains numerous ill-informed remarks on early 20th century European history to which Dr. Ian Bullock, the historian, has drawn my attention. To cite three examples: Hardie had welded together a party which presaged the Trades Union Congress and led to the establishment of a Labour Representation Committee (L.R.P.) [sic] in Parliament, direct ancestor of the Labour

250

RITAPANKHURST

Party formed to fight the general election in 1906. (p. 31) Apart from the incorrect abbreviation there are two misunderstandings: Firstly, the TUC had been in existence since 1868. Keir Hardie, in the early 20th century, could scarcely therefore have “welded together a party which presaged the ‘Bades Union Congress.” Secondly, the Labour Party had changed its name but was not a new organ formed to fight the election of 1906. It had already contested other elections under its previous name of Labour Representation Committee. the Social Democratic Party had been a syndicalist group modelled to some extent on the American-based International Workers of the World. (p. 133) Here there are three mistakes in one sentence: Firstly, Romero assumes that the I in IWW stands for International, whereas the organisation’s name was Industrial Workers of the World. Secondly, the Social Democratic Party cannot in an unqualified way be called a syndicalist organisation. Although some members were sympathetic to syndicalism the dominant group in the party were doctrinaire Marxists hostile to syndicalism and suspicious of it. Thirdly, the (British) Social Democratic Party had been in existence as the Social Democratic Federation since 1884. It could hardly have ben modelled on the IWW, founded in 1906. In France . . . the far left broke away to join with the newly formed Trotsky movement in 1920, with headquarters in Amsterdam, while the remaining radical socialists affiliated with the Third International. (p. 127) In 1920 Trotsky was still one of the leaders in the Bolshevik Government, the second man after Lenin. He fell into disgrace only after Lenin’s death in 1924. Although there were dissident “council” communists in the 1920s (with whom Sylvia was in touch) who took the idea of Soviets seriously, there was no dissident “Trotsky movement” until 1938. (Romero is equally out of her depth in

filling in the 19th and early 20th century Ethiopian background to Sylvia’s activities in connection with that country. The book’s numerous and major errors in this area will not be mentioned in this paper, but the degree of inaccuracy can be gauged from her assertion that the British Expedition of 186718 against Emperor Theodore was launched from “the Sudan” (p. 218) whereas in reality it entered Ethiopia from an entirely different direction, namely the Red Sea coast .) SYLVIA’S ATTITUDE TO THE SOVIET UNION Romero later makes great play of the alleged fact that Sylvia never mentioned to Princess Viazemsky, a member of the Princess Tsehai Hospital Council in London, that she had visited Russia in 1920 (p. 276). Being actively involved in issues of the day it was not Sylvia’s habit to reminisce much about her life. However, she did not hide her attitude to the Russian revolution. For example, in her entry in Who’s Who, which she wrote, and added to each year, she consistently stated that she had “supported the Russian revolution,” “formed People’s Russian Information Bureau,” and that her publications included Soviet Russia as I Saw It (E. S. Pankhurst, 1921). An objective assessment of Sylvia’s political opinions could well have noted that her weekly newspaper, New Times and Ethiopia News, hereafter abbreviated NT & EN, was one of the first British journals to publicise the revelations of the Soviet defector General W. G. Krivitsky who told how the “old Bolsheviks” had been wrongly executed by Stalin. She was also highly critical of the latter’s role in the Spanish Civil War (NT & EN November 4, 1939 to January 13, 1940). Mention might in addition have been made of Sylvia’s passionate criticism of the SovietGerman pact of 1941. ANTI-FASCISM, THE INVASION OF ETHIOPIA AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR A major weakness throughout the book, as already noted, is its author’s failure to consider political context. Romero tends to focus

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

on personal issues which she often fails to understand and frequently misrepresents. We read, for example, of a “public battle” between Sylvia and Professor Jevons of the Abyssinia Association (p. 228). Romero does not explain the subjects on which it was fought. One of these, which for ,obvious reasons was shrouded from publicity, was Jevons’s approval and Sylvia’s complete rejection of the idea that the Emperor should return to Italian-occupied Ethiopia as “King of Amharaland.” Also, Romero states that Sylvia “antagonized” certain London antifascists (p. 214), but the reasons for this are not explained. A more serious study would have shown, for example, that many Italian anti-fascists did not agree with her view that post-fascist Italy should renounce its colonies, nor did they all share her opposition to the restoration of the Savoyan monarchy. Romero’s reference (p. 235) to Sylvia’s review of Margery Perham’s book on Ethiopia (Perham, 1948) likewise fails to address itself to the differences .of political approach between the two women. Romero fails to understand Sylvia’s involvement in the Ethiopian struggle which Sylvia and many other anti-fascists, such as, for example, Carlo Rosselli in Paris, saw as an extension of the struggle against fascism in Italy in which they had long been engaged. The discussion of Sylvia’s political thought and action in the period after Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 is at times no more than a caricature. One of the theses in the book is, for example, that Sylvia’s “old republicanism and pacifism gave way to a cry for military action- and that in favour of one of the few remaining ‘unconstitutional’ monarchs wielding real power” (p. 199). An objective assessment would show (a) that Sylvia was at this time (19341935) calling for more effective League of Nations sanctions, for example, an embargo on oil and the closing of the Suez canal rather than military action; and (b) that her concern was to rally British and international support not for “unconstitutional” monarchs, but for their peoples then threatened by Italian fascist occupation. It was merely a coincidence that Ethiopia and Albania, the two countries attacked by Italy, were not democracies. The statement that her “service to one king wronged by Mussolini,” that is, Haile Sellas-

251

sie, “spilled over into the service of King Zog of Albania” (p. 212) is unsubstantiated. Though a Foreign Office note cited by Romero states that the Friends of Albania, a society with “no political colourisation,” was “probably dominated by Miss Pankhurst, an ardent Zogite” (p. 212) there is no evidence in Sylvia’s own newspaper that she gave any particular support to Zog. The paper opposed Italian fascist ambitions toward Albania: that is all. To understand Sylvia’s position it may be recalled that the Italian invasion of Ethiopia was followed, and the seizure of Albania was preceded by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in which NT & EN and its editor espoused the cause of Republican Spain and gave unqualified support to the cause of its anarchist leaders. The paper published numerous photographs of fascist atrocities in Spain, for example in its issues of November 21 and December 12, 1936, March 19, 1938 and July 30, 1939. One of the paper’s slogans was “Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy” (NT & EN, September 17, 1938). Also on the question of republicanism and monarchism Romero has omitted one important aspect of history of NT & EN: after the fall of Mussolini the newspaper was one of the few journals in Britain to campaign consistently for the deposition of the Italian monarchy, which in Sylvia’s view had discredited itself both by conniving at the rise of fascism in 1922, and by collaborating in the unprovoked invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-1936. The Ethiopian crisis was regarded by Sylvia, and by many other internationally minded persons of her time, as the great test of the League. It may, moreover, be noted that after Mussolini’s invasion, the League branded Italy as the aggressor and imposed sanctions. These highly significant developments, which Romero has not troubled to mention, were important in moulding Sylvia’s attitude to the international organisation in which she had previously had little faith. Romero goes on to complain that Sylvia’s choice of causes in the Appeasement Period was “idiosyncratic” because she “spent far more energy opposing Fascism in Italy . . . than Nazism in Germany, or even Sir Oswald Mosley’s English version of Fascism” (p. 207). The reasons for this “idiosyncracy” are

RITAPANKHURST

252

not difficult to find. Sylvia, as perusal of her serialised article “Fascism as It Is” (NT & EN, 1936- 1937) shows, regarded Mussolini as the doyen of fascism for he had seized power before Hitler- it was indeed for that reason - and not because of anyone’s “idiosyncracy” that fascism, a word of Italian derivation, gained greater currency than the German term nazism. Sylvia’s opposition to Italian fascism had begun before the rise of Hitler, and, because of her earlier visits to Italy and her friendship with Italian anti-fascists, she was more familiar with the Italian than the German side of the movement. It should, at the same time, be noted that there was less awareness in Britain of the evils of Italian fascism than of German nazism: proof of this can be seen, for example, in the sympathy for Mussolini displayed in the 1920s by the anti-nazi Winston Churchill. For this reason, she felt greater need to direct her activities against the Italian movement. She nevertheless opposed both, and wrote a long article entitled “How Hitler Rose to Power” which she serialised in NT & EN from October 22, 1938 to February 18, 1939. The paper often carried such mottos as “Remember, Everywhere, Always, Fascism means War!” It is, moreover, naive of Romero to put Mosley, who never achieved either power or a mass movement, on a par with the Italian founder of fascism who, over Ethiopia, had been able to defy the League of Nations and the world, and who was actually Mosley’s financial backer. ETHIOPIAN INFLUENCE Romero, in our view, exaggerates the influence on Sylvia of Emperor Haile Sellassie by presenting him, though eight years her junior, as a “father figure” (p. 210)-a somewhat naive psychological interpretation. She took the decision to found New Times and Ethiopia News, at a time when he was far away at the Ethiopian northern front, and the first issue, bearing the date May 9, 1936, was printed and on sale before his arrival in England. In considering Sylvia’s attitude to the Emperor it should be noted that she was aware of his importance during the anti-fascist struggle, as a symbol of Ethiopian independence, and later as the most powerful person in Ethiopia and therefore the

main vehicle for modernisation and social change. Romero also overestimates the role which the Ethiopian Legation, later Embassy, in London played in providing Sylvia with information, as well as in shaping her attitudes and actions. It should be recalled that it was largely the weakness of Ethiopia’s public relations services which prompted Sylvia to take up political cudgels on behalf of what she saw as the first external victim of Italian fascism. The Ethiopian Legation, though an invaluable source of information during the invasion and early occupation period, ceased to be of such significance after 1937, for by this time Sylvia had established other sources of news. Reports during much of the occupation came from an Indian correspondent at Djbouti, as well as from Ethiopian refugees in Kenya, the Sudan, and elsewhere. Their accounts were often based on word of mouth communications, and though revealing-and important to this day as source material on the Ethiopian patriots-were inevitably of varying degrees of reliability. Though Romero is justified in questioning the accuracy of some of these accounts it is unreasonable of her to complain that NT & EN did not check information “for accuracy with other papers or with the Foreign Office” (p. 229). The British press for the most part did not have correspondents in Ethiopia, and news was rigidly censored by the fascist authorities. Even one official Italian journalist, Ciro Poggialli complains in the confidence of his diary subsequently published (1971). Nor would the Foreign Office have been willing to endanger Anglo-Italian relations by releasing information to Sylvia Pankhurst. She did, however, subscribe to two press cuttings agencies, and received cuttings of most articles on Ethiopia appearing in Britain and some foreign countries. When a correspondent for The Times or for some other paper occasionally visited Italian occupied territory, the resulting reports were always quoted and discussed in NT & EN. The account, by an Hungarian physician, of the February 1937 Graziani massacre published by NT & EN is still the most detailed available, and the photographs of Ethiopian patriots which appeared in the paper on April 13, 1940 are likewise of considerable historical interest.

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

Romero asserts that, after the liberation of the country, the British Foreign Office knew that Sylvia was “being fed stories from the Ethiopian Legation and printed them without verification” (p. 243). Most of Sylvia’s information at this time, we know for a fact, did not come from the Legation, but from other sources, including Orde Wingate, whose role in Ethiopian affairs, and discussion in Sylvia’s writings, is curiously missing from the book. Documentation on this subject is, however, readily available in Christopher Sykes’s biography Orde Wingate (1959). Though seeking to belittle Sylvia’s endeavours Romero is obliged to admit that “Simply through her nuisance quality Sylvia did bring pressure to bear on Foreign Office officials” (p. 243). That, of course, was her object. RELATIONS WITH ITALIAN FASCISTS AND ANTI-FASCISTS Romero observes that Sylvia “claimed she received threatening letters from Italian Fascists in London,“. but that “nothing in the Italian secret police reports indicates that these statements reflected that government’s attitudes towards her activities” (p. 214). This non-sequitur gives the impression that Sylvia’s claim was a delusion. The fact remains that Sylvia did receive two threatening letters, one purporting to come from London-based nazis and the other from Italian fascists in London. These letters were shown to the police. The. texts of both letters appear in NT & EN, August 24, 1940, and a reproduction of the Italian fascist one is published in NT & EN, September 7, of the same year. Sylvia in no way suggested that this letter was dictated from Rome, but stated specifically that it came from “Italian fascists in London.” (The identity of the author of the letter, an Italian fascist in London, is now known.) Scrutiny of NT & EN would have shown Romero that the letter was written as a reaction to Sylvia’s exposure in NT & EN of the fact that, after Mussolini’s entry into the European war, the British police had arrested many genuine anti-fascists while leaving many known fascists untouched. Her paper ran a notable series of articles on this (“Fascists at Large, Anti-fascists Interned,” 1940). This latter aspect of Sylvia’s work is ig-

253

nored in the book, except for the brief sentence that among her “courageous” acts was that of helping to “relocate” Italian “anti-fascists in concentration camps” (p. 286). This sentence, which is unexplained in Romero’s work, entirely misses the point. Sylvia did not try to help “relocate” detainees in “concentration camps,” and had no wish to do so. She was agitating for the release of anti-fascists and the internment of fascists who had not been detained. The incompetence of the British authorities against which she was protesting resulted, inter alia, in the death of her friend, Decio Anzani. He was a longstanding Italian anti-fascist and honorary secretary of the Italian section of the League of the Rights of Man, who was one of hundreds of men drowned when the Arandora Star, (the boat taking anti-fascists from the Isle of Man to a more distant place of detention) was sunk by enemy action. Romero’s book also omits the fact that Sylvia was on several occasions attacked in Mussolini’s own newspaper articles, and, as reported after World War II, was on an official German list of persons to be arrested in the event of a German occupation of Britain. THE LIBERATION OF ETHIOPIA To understand Sylvia’s continued political activity in relation to Ethiopia it is necessary to recall that after Mussolini’s entry into the European war, the British Government, which had recognised the Italian “conquest,” was reluctant to accept the principle that Ethiopia was an ally. This attitude was revealed in many policy matters, one of which was the B.B.C.‘s refusal to play the Ethiopian national anthem with those of the other Allies (R. Pankhurst, 1971, 1972). These anthems were played weekly before the Sunday news to symbolise the common struggle against the enemy. Romero concedes that Sylvia was successful in eventually persuading the Corporation to broadcast the Ethiopian anthem, but dismisses this on the curious grounds that Sylvia’s views “did not necessarily reflect the views of the British public at large” (p. 240). Sylvia’s purpose was not to “reflect” British opinion, but to secure the British Government’s recognition of Ethiopia as an ally-at a time when much

254

RITAPANKHURST

Government opinion still regarded the country as Italian territory. After the liberation of Ethiopia, the British Government’s reluctance to accept full Ethiopian independence was accompanied by attempts to establish a virtual British Protectorate over the country. There were many controversies in which NT & EN was involved. Romero’s account of them is cavalier, as when she states that “Brendan Bracken, formerly Minister of Information, . . . felt called on to issue a public complaint [against NT & ENI in 1944” (p. 237). The fact is that NT & EN published specific charges against the British military administration in Ethiopia, entitled Gross Breach of Faith (1944), which Romero has not troubled to explain. To achieve the maximum impact, copies of the paper were posted to MPs “to be delivered in the House.” This led to Parliamentary exchanges in which the Minister of Information, Brendan Bracken, attacked the paper, and Eleanor Rathbone, a champion of many “good causes,” rose to its defence. This brief yet significant debate reported in Hansard 15 March, is ignored by Romero who chooses to refer only to the Minister’s attack. In a later passage Romero states that when Sylvia “denounced” the Anglo-Ethiopian agreement of 1944 “demands came for Ernest Bevin . . . to discipline her paper” (p. 250). It would have been useful if the author had explained Sylvia’s objection to the agreement. This was in essence that it was an unequal treaty which had been imposed on Ethiopia and provided for the continued occupation of a large stretch of Ethiopian territory by a foreign power, that is, Britain. Sylvia sought to influence British Government policy not only by her paper, but also in correspondence with Churchill and other Ministers. Romero states that Sylvia “came to believe” that Churchill was “acting on her advice” (p. 239). This is ludicrous. It was precisely because Sylvia knew that he was not, that she felt it necessary to bombard him with letters. A deeper analysis than Romero has developed, would have shown that Sylvia was strongly opposed to Churchill throughout his - and her- political life. Almost her first political act, as a suffragette, it will be recalled, was heckling at one of his meetings. It is interesting to note, though Romero does not do so, that in the post-War British Parlia-

mentary Election of 1945, when the Labour and Liberal parties decided to put up no candidates against him, she publicly announced her intention as one of his constituents to vote against him. IMAGINARY JOURNEYS

In an astonishing passage in which Romero invents a reason for a visit that never took place, the book states: In 1947 Sylvia and Richard visited northern Europe. Most of the travelogues on Holland, Denmark and Germany in the New Times were written by Richard, but Sylvia reserved Sweden for herself because her contacts with former missionaries to Ethiopia allowed her to combine her vacation with her Ethiopian vocation. (pp. 258-259) So far from “reserving Sweden for herself Sylvia did not visit that country or any other part of northern Europe at any time after World War II. It was Richard who visited Sweden, as Romero should have gathered since the “travelogue” on that country bore his name. Again, later, the book affirms that during her residence in Ethiopia in 1957 onwards Sylvia “wrote travelogues on Kenya and Uganda, too” (p. 278). Though she went to Kenya she did not visit Uganda, nor indeed did she write any article about that country. The issue of Ethiopia Observer in question (E. S. Pankhurst, 1959) contained, it is true, an article of hers entitled “To Kenya by Ethiopian Airlines”; what was more significant however, and is not mentioned by Romero, was that Sylvia published interviews with Tom Mboya and members of the People’s Convention Party, as well as with the President of the Kenya Indian Congress and an article by Dr. Kiano of the Kenya Legislative Council. This would not seem adequately covered by Romero’s reference to her “travelogues on Kenya and Uganda, too.” The book, it may be added, omits to mention the fact that Sylvia was at this time in contact with virtually all the Kenya African nationalist leaders not in detention. Instead, Romero at this point, quotes the reminiscences of an American adviser to the Ethiopian Govern-

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

ment who states that “‘Time and again’ she said ‘she simply walked up to a frontier, and, when no one was looking, rolled under the barbed wire fence”’ (p. 278). This may well have occurred several decades earlier, but has no bearing on her visit to Kenya on which she was accompanied by Richard and me. We can affirm that she entered and left the country in the normal way and that the only barbed wire she saw was that around a camp for Mau Mau detainees. Her journal published a rare photograph of one such camp. ERITREA AND THE FUTURE OF THE ITALL4N COLONIES Sylvia’s reading of Ethiopian history showed her that the greater part of Eritrea, a sometime Italian colony and base for two invasions of Ethiopia (in 1895-1896 and 19351936), had formerly been an integral part of Ethiopia, and that its reunion with the rest of the country was essential if Ethiopia was to have access to the sea. Several of Sylvia’s closer Ethiopian friends who had been born in Eritrea made no distinction between themselves and other Ethiopians. Such Eritreans included Lorenzo Taezaz and Ephraim Tewolde Medhen, both of whom had gone to Ethiopia for education, and Mr. Tedros, the “Ethiopian waiter” referred to by Romero, who loyally attended all her meetings. Sylvia shared their conviction that Eritrea should be reunited with Ethiopia. Romero’s account of the Eritrean issue is marred by the assumption that Sylvia had to follow the Emperor, her “father figure.” Sylvia, however, came to her conclusions about Eritrea independently of the Emperor, and in fact did so before he took up any public stance on its future. Romero’s statement that Sylvia in 1941 began “lobbying vigorously in England for a federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea” (p. 245) is anachronistic. The solution she advocated was not federation, but “the reunion of Eritrea to its Ethiopian motherland.” The idea of a federation emerged much later, around 1950. Sylvia’s view was, characteristically, an “anti-colonial” one which she shared with many panAfricanists of the time. Romero’s assertion that “what mattered to Sylvia . . . was what she believed the emperor wanted, not what the Eritreans preferred”

255

(p. 252), is simply untrue. She was fully convinced that the majority of Eritreans favoured reunion with Ethiopia and that this was the best solution for the people of Ethiopia as a whole. She published considerable evidence in support of these views, for example in her book Ethiopia and Eritrea (E. S. Pankhurst and R. Pankhurst, 1953). SYLVIA’S BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS Apart from the already mentioned incorrect citations of titles, Romero’s account of Sylvia’s works contains several major as well as many minor distortions and misinterpretations. In her evaluation of India and the Earthly Paradise (E. S. Pankhurst, 1926), Romero writes: “The book’s superficiality was further indicated by the quality of the printing. There are errors throughout the book which quite clearly show that the printer was in as much of a hurry as Sylvia” (p. 180). This is, if ever there was, a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Judged by the criterion of errors, Romero, who does not cite any of Sylvia’s, but who fails even to quote the book’s title correctly, must have been in a very great hurry. Sylvia’s book was printed in Bombay in 1926; in India, in those days, the quality of production of a book in English could not be expected to equal that normally associated with Yale University Press in present times. Romero reports that “in 1937 Sylvia published through the New Times and Ethiopia News a pamphlet which graphically illustrated Italian atrocities,” and that it bore on its cover “a photograph of a smiling Italian soldier holding up the severed head of an Ethiopian patriot” (p. 229). Romero’s dating is incorrect. The whole point about these photographs, as Sylvia explained in articles at the time, and as is stated in the caption to a photograph published in NT & EN January 20, 1945, was that they were taken by Italian fascists during the occupation, but were discovered by the Ethiopians only after the liberation in 1941. The pamphlet, Italy’s War Crimes in Ethiopia, was published not in 1937, but in 1945. Romero goes on to assert that the work included “an appeal ‘to all Christian Churches’ from Haile Sellassie, which indicates that Sylvia was working directly with the Ethiopian embassy and,

256

RITA PANKHURST

through it, the emperor.” This is a non sequitur. Since the Emperor had earlier referred to the atrocities in a widely circulated document it was not so surprising that she should have included a reference to the latter in the pamphlet. Romero later refers to an article which Sylvia wrote for the Labour weekly newspaper Tribune. Romero states that it dealt with “British atrocities Sylvia said she had personally witnessed at Massawa, the Red Sea port,” and comments: “Though it is not likely she actually saw atrocities, on the subject of Eritrea her imagination was unbounded” (p. 253). The article at no point used the word “atrocities,” and was not concerned with the issue of “atrocities.” It discussed the fact that the British authorities were “systematically destroying” installations at the port -a charge which Sylvia documented with photographs in her pamphlet IV& Are We Destroying the Eritrean Ports? (E. S. Pankhurst, 1952c). The article Romero refers to in the 7Fibune was an indignant call for a halt to such dismantling. Romero’s reference to “British atrocites”, and her assertion that it was “not likely” that Sylvia “actually saw them,” gives a distorted impression of the article, and, by suggesting that she claimed to have seen what she could not have seen, casts unwarranted asperations on Sylvia’s integrity. On the subject of the dismantling of Massawa’s port installations Romero approves Sylvia’s stand but then invents a railway line:

fore never have “stopped” this “final outrage ,” nor can Sylvia be blamed for not raising the issue. Romero asserts that Sylvia, during her visit to Eritrea in 1944, “met a number of carefully selected people who supported unification” (p. 246). The Eritreans she met were not so unrepresentative. They included the entire “Native Council” of the capital, Asmara. The careful selection of UnionistsRomero does not say by whom -could not, moreover, have been so easy, for Eritrea was not then under Ethiopian rule and the British Military Administration of Eritrea was essentially hostile to the Unionists. Elsewhere, discussing Sylvia’s book Ethiopia and Eritrea, (E. S. Pankhurst and R. K. P. Pankhurst, 1953) Romero writes that “Sylvia condemned both Italy and Britain, but . . . the British bore the brunt of the blame” (p. 254). This could scarcely have been otherwise for the book dealt exclusively with the period of the British military occupation of Eritrea after 1941, and not with the preceding Italian occupation which Sylvia had discussed, and criticised at considerable length, in other publications. Romero’s ensuing statement that Sylvia’s facts about racism “no doubt came from the Ethiopian embassy” is pure fantasy. The Embassy had little detailed information on this matter. Sylvia’s sources are stated in the book: information came from published works or her own personal observations during her visit to Eritrea.

in a move which perhaps best illustrates the pettiness of the British officials then governing Eritrea, they [the British] ordered that the railway the Italians had built from Agordat to Gondar be torn up and materials sold to Sudan for scrap . . . This final disgrace was stopped by John Spencer, the American foreign affairs adviser to the emperor. Sylvia raised these issues (except for the railway) time and again but in Parliament her complaints fell on deaf ears. (p. 253)

Romero seems not to have understood the objectives of Sylvia’s New Times and Ethiopia News, which was an anti-fascist weekly devoted to the defence of Ethiopia and the cause of “international justice.” In several passages Romero belittles Sylvia’s interest in issues other than Ethiopia. For example, the author’s grudging admission that Sylvia “noted in her paper” that Japan had invaded China (p. 212) omits to mention that several issues of the paper contained a special supplement in support of China entitled China News. It was not a question of merely “noting” the event. It is stated in the book that NT & EN during World War II “barely reflected the

The Italians never built a railway from Agordat to Gondar. It was therefore never “torn up” as Romero asserts. Spencer could there-

SYLVIA’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

fact that Britain was at war” (p. 233). Many columns were devoted weekly to the “Women’s War Emergency Council,” as well as to various aspects of the war, and many issues carried a full page of news on resistance in Axis-occupied countries of Europe under the heading “Oppression and Revolt .” Besides, as a paper dealing with Ethiopia and “international justice” it could not be expected to dwell on all aspects of wartime Britain. Romero, citing NT & EN of December 13, 1941, complains that the paper published “nothing about Pearl Harbour or America’s entry into the war” (p. 233). Comment on this event, which was by then known to all readers, may not have been deemed necessary in a weekly newspaper largely devoted to Ethiopian affairs. However, an editorial on the New Year which appeared on January 3, 1942, noted that “the blow to her proud fleet in Pearl Harbour, and many subsequent reverses, have unified America’s resistance.” Reversing her line of criticism, Romero says .that when Haile Sellassie returned to Addis Ababa after the Italian occupation “Sylvia rejoiced . . . but her paper also carried such esoteric items as a history of Fascism and several versions of Ethiopian history” (p. 233). In view of the thrust of the paper neither of these topics would seem so “esoteric.” Romero writes: “Some stories in the New Times and Ethiopia News have their light side in retrospect. Before Winston Churchill became Prime Minister Sylvia thought the “sincerity of his voice” would qualify him to be ‘an admirable Minister of Information”’ (p. 234). The passage Romero refers to appeared in the paper on February 22, 1941the year crfter Churchill had become Prime Minister. The passage quoted, which was part of an appeal that the Ethiopian national anthem be broadcast together with those of the Allies, was a piece of irony which escaped Romero . Romero observes: “The New Times [writing about Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence] announced her death on the front page, referring to her as ‘a friend of Ethiopia’, (though Ethiopia had in fact been only a passing interest of Emmeline’s)” (pp. 273-274). Though Emmeline had of course many other interests the fact remains that she was a Vice-

257

President of the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital Council, had written the Introduction to Sylvia’s book Ethiopia and Eritma, and had, over the years, co-signed numerous letters to the press about Ethiopia. Was it therefore stretching a point to refer to her as a friend of Ethiopia? Seeking, as so often, to belittle NT & EN Romero states that its editorial of May 1, 1943 “printed a glowing description of the way Ethiopian villagers carried copies of New Times and Ethiopia News in the folds of their garments,” and comments, of Sylvia, that “this was another of her periodic lapses from reality: imagining as she did that illiterate peasants (as virtually all Ethiopians were other than the priesthood who would not of course be literate in English) could be reading her paper: such was the nature of her imagined Ethiopian idyll” (p. 237). The editorial, headed “Looking Backward and Forward,” did not in fact mention peasants, but spoke, in poetic vein, declaring: “we were happy to serve as a link between the Ethiopian exiles. . . . and those patriots carrying on the fight . . . We passed all frontiers and our pages carried in the folds of the shama were translated and read.” Jumping to the conclusion that Sylvia was suffering from a lapse “from reality,” Romero fails to mention here, or anywhere else in the book, that a number of Amharic editions of NT & EN had been produced for clandestine distribution in Italian-occupied Ethiopia. A copy of one of these Amharic publications was proudly presented to Richard some 25 years latt%, when he was Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, by a Patriot from Gojjam, and is in the Institute archives. Sylvia knew that Amharic editions of her paper were reaching the patriots in Ethiopia, hence her observation. SYLVIA’S MONTHLY JOURNAL Romero’s bias is likewise apparent in her comments on Ethiopia Observer, a journal which Sylvia edited in Addis Ababa from 1956 to 1960. The book states that: “In one issue, she tried to describe the complicated and oppressive system of land tenure, but evaded the element of oppression. A peasant ‘gets to keep one-third or one-quarter of pro-

RITA PANKHIJRST

258

duction”’ (p. 278). This is a distortion. What Sylvia did, in Vol. 1, No. 9, was to publish an informative article-with a short editorial introduction-on “The Land System of Ethiopia” by the then leading Ethiopian authority on the subject (Mahteme Sellassie Wolde Maskal, 1957). It was the most detailed study of Ethiopian land tenure then available in English, and to this day is quoted in scholarly works on the subject. Though land reform was obviously needed, Romero’s unattributed quotation about the peasants receiving only one-third or one-quarter of their production is exaggerated. Most sources would have put the figure at one-half, two-thirds, or three-quarters. For example, John Markakis (1974), writing on the proportion of the crop taken by the landlord states, on p. 114, “the amount varied, being usually between a quarter (e&o), and a third (sisso).” Romero observes, again in relation to Ethiopia Observer, that “Sylvia was still prickly and rose to the attack when something displeased her ideologically or personally. She published an illustrated article called ‘Ethiopian Manuscript Painting’, for example, and then criticized it editorially. The editor, she wrote, ‘is not fully in agreement with the learned author in all his contentions”’ (p. 277). Does this really show her rising to attack “when something displeased her ideologically or personally?” It would, one might conclude, rather show a willingness to publish alternative views -for she was under no obligation to publish the article. There is, moreover, nothing especially “prickly” in editors dissociating themselves from articles they publish. FINANCIAL MATTERS There are a number of undocumented innuendoes connected with Sylvia’s finances. Noting that she refused to print Claude McKay’s expose of Lansbury’s employment of scab labour on the grounds that her Dreadnought was financially dependent on the socialist leader, George Lansbury, Romero writes: “Her radicalism was in this case tempered by her wallet” (p. 129). Romero does not trouble to mention McKay’s own explanation: “It is possible that Miss Pankhurst acted more from a feeling of personal loyalty. Although Lansbury was centrist and

she was extreme leftist, they were personal friends, ever since they were associated in the suffrage cause” (McKay, 1937: 79). A similar assumption that Sylvia was unduly motivated by financial considerations is made later in the book when Romero states that Sylvia gave Richard the name of Pethick, after Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence “because of her help with many of the family’s current expenses” (p. 165). This strange assumption ignores the fact that Emmeline and Sylvia had been close friends since their suffragette days. Romero states, incorrectly, that Haile Sellassie was not only Sylvia’s “father figure,” but her “employer” (p. 252). In her discussion of Sylvia’s income and wealth there are many inaccuracies and exaggerations. Romero, writing of the period of the Italian occupation, states for example that “the Ethiopian bank, under instructions from the emperor, gave ‘generous aid’ which enabled her ‘to make the paper bigger”’ (p. 232). This would seem highly unlikely in that the Bank of Ethiopia had by then been taken over by the Italians, and it is difficult to imagine how the Emperor, who was himself a virtually penniless exile, would have been able to influence it to spend its money on anti-fascist propaganda. After the country’s liberation, the Ethiopian Government made some modest contributions towards the printing of some (but by no means all) of Sylvia’s publications. There were, however, other sources of funds. The cost of producing Italy’s War Crimes in Ethiopia (1945) was largely provided by a West Indian supporter, T. R. Makormen, out of the profits of his restaurant in Manchester, while the printing of Ethiopia: A Cultural History (E. S. Pankhurst, 1955) was financed by Sylvia’s sale of her house, the Red Cottage, at Woodford. Romero is incorrect in stating that the Ethiopian Government gave Sylvia a “fulltime salary” in London (p. 251). Romero’s suggestion that Sylvia’s household and personal expenses in the early 1950s ran at what at that time would have been the high rate of f 1,000 a month (p. 261) is likewise erroneous. Sylvia lived modestly, if not frugally, seldom bought new clothes and did not employ a housekeeper, whilst Mrs Tims, we read on p.77, worked “for a pittance of f2 per week.”

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

SYLVIA’S LIFE AND WORK IN ETHIOPIA The book tells us that when Sylvia left England to live in Ethiopia in 1956, her “home in the former Italian compound was selected and presented to her by Haile Sellassie as a gift for her services to Ethiopia . . . Later, when diplomatic relations with Italy were restored she and Richard moved to a smaller but still pleasant villa near the Princess Tsahay Hospital” (p. 277). In fact on arriving in Ethiopia she did not go to the “Italian compound” at all, but to an annex of the modest Guennet Hotel. After some months she moved to a villa near the hospital she had helped to build. This house was not “given” to her, but made available for her use and that of her son who, as a member of the University College staff, was in any case entitled to accommodation like other teachers there. Romero notes that Sylvia in 1959 became “one of the founders” of the Social Service Society, and continues: “She advocated improved working conditions, playgrounds for children, reform of prisons and mental hospitals - all admirable goals but totally unrealistic in the context of underdeveloped Ethiopia” (p. 279). Romero, who, as we shall see, has even got the name of the society wrong, omits to mention its primary activity during Sylvia’s lifetime, namely the rehabilitation of Addis Ababa’s beggars which was undertaken in close collaboration with the Addis Ababa municipality. RICHARD PANKHURST On the subject of Mussolini’s entry into the European war in 1940, Romero quotes Richard as having said, “Our salvation was getting Britain in. We were happy” (p. 233). He never made this absurd remark. The point at issue was not Britain’s entry into the war, which had taken place in September 1939, but that of Italy nine months later. He was saying that Mussolini’s entry into the European war was welcomed by his parents, as well as by Italian and other anti-fascists with whom they were in contact, because they believed, rightly, that the war would result in the overthrow of the fascist regime and thus lead to the liberation of both Italy and Ethiopia.

259

On their views at this time see, for example, Sylvia Pankhurst: Artist and Crusader (R. Pankhurst, 1979: 204). Romero states that “another book . . . also produced with Richard’s help, was Eritrea on the Eve” (E. S. Pankhurst, 1952a: 253). This is untrue. He had nothing whatsoever to do with this work. Romero also states that in the period before Richard left for Ethiopia he was “unemployed except in the family enterprise” (p. 275). This is not the case. For much of this time he was employed in the daytime as a research worker at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London, and in the evenings taught in the Extra-Mural Department of London University and at Toynbee Hall, where I met him when we were both teaching there. His involvement in the “family enterprises” was limited to assisting his mother in the aftermath of her serious illness with the book Ethiopia and Eritrea, (E. S. Pankhurst and R. K. P. Pankhurst, 1953) and in writing the occasional article in NT & EN. During this period he also wrote three books and several scholarly articles. SYLVIO CORIO AND THE WALTHAMSTOW PRESS Romero’s statement that some of Richard’s father’s articles appeared in the Italian paper Avanti when it was edited by Benito Mussolini (p. 160) fails to explain that this was in the early period of Mussolini’s life when he was still a socialist. The description in the book of Corio as an “illegal resident” in Britain (p. 160) is scarcely meaningful. In the early years of the present century, when he came to this country, there were neither entry visas nor registration of aliens. There were therefore neither “legal” nor “illegal” residents. Melrose Road, where he lived for a short period, was not in London’s “East End” as Romero states (p. 161), but in Wimbledon, in South West London. Though we are not in a position to comment on whether the house contained any place of worship it is a misnomer to describe it as a “mosque.” Romero cites Italian police reports as stating that Corio was “printing a ‘subversive paper’ edited by Dr. Galasso” (p. 207). This paper, though “subversive” from the fascist point of view, was

260

RITA PANKHURST

published quite legally in Britain. Serious research would have established its name: II Comento. The book also contains errors about Corio’s role as a “printer!’ of NT & EN, and about the Walthamstow Press where it was printed. Romero writes that Corio did “odd printing jobs . . . with the Walthamstow Press” (p. 177), and later that he “was useful as a translator and sometimes as a printer at the Walthamstow Press” (p. 206). It is subsequently stated that he was “remarkably skilled as a printer” (p. 262). Though he had been a printer two decades earlier, he never worked as a printer at the Walthamstow Press, and he was never the printer of NT di EN, Silvio assisted Sylvia in editing NT & EN, and in designing its lay-out. He also wrote many articles for the paper, often using such pseudonyms as Baconian, Crastinus, and Lute. He was not the paper’s “printer,” and no commercial printing press-or printers’ trade union- would have allowed a member of the editorial staff to come in, once a week, as a “printer.” Romero’s statement that Silvio’s “only hope of a publisher” for a book on which he was working “was the Walthamstow Press” (p. 207), shows her misunderstanding of the character of the Walthamstow Press. It was a purely commercial firm in which neither Sylvia nor Silvio had any controlling interest. The work could have been given to any other printing business on similar terms. Romero believes he “may have become a British subject, but probably not until after the Second World War” (p. 161). This is incorrect. He lost his Italian nationality some decade or so earlier, and died stateless. Though he toyed, for a short time, with becoming a British subject he .was not interested in passports or in purchasing a new national identity. Romero’s conclusion that, in the early 195Os, Sylvia’s relationship with Corio “seemed to have disintegrated” (p. 265), appears to be based on at least one misunderstanding, leaving aside her improbable theory that Sylvia, throughout her life, was dependent emotionally on one father figure or another. Romero alleges that “The final dependence, on Haile Sellassie, overtook her relationship with Corio. Sylvia turned wholeheartedly to serve the emperor and

seems to have ignored Corio after her first trip to Ethiopia: she did not even attend his funeral” (pp. 287-288). Though Romero was not to know this, Sylvia had wanted to go, but because of her own recent heart attack (which the doctor had said she had little chance of surviving) Richard succeeded in persuading her not to attend. Silvio’s obituary in NT& EN, stated by Romero as having been published in NT & EN in “March 1954”, appeared on January 23. NAMES AND IDENTITIES IN THE LATTER PART OF THE BOOK Romero attributes incorrect names to personalities, newspapers, and organisations in the latter part of her book as profusely as in the earlier part. Thus, we find on p. 251 and in the index the inexplicable “Bishop of Canterbury,” presumably a mistake for either Archbishop or Dean. The following is a selection of other errors: Lady Mary Ethel Winifred Barton, wife of the British Minister to Ethiopia prior to the invasion, who was very active in Ethiopian women’s affairs, is called by Romero “Lady Clara Barton” (p. 214 and index). Cecil Gervase Hope Gill, the post-war British Consul in Ethiopia, becomes “Brendon Gill” (p. 237 and index). Colonel Dan Sandford, a pre-war British farmer in Ethiopia who led Mission 101 to liaise with the Ethiopian Patriots, is incorrectly described as “a former British representative to Ethiopia”- and his name is later misspelt “Stanford” (p. 230). Orde Wingate, who was attached to the Emperor’s army which entered Ethiopia from the Sudan in 1940, is said by Romero to have “commanded the British Commonwealth forces in the liberation campaign” (p. 269). He was attached to Haile Sellassie’s forces, and had little contact with, let alone command over, the main Commonwealth armies which were led by Generals Cunningham and Platt. Romero states incorrectly, on the same page, that he was “later Lord Wingate of Burma.” After his service in Ethiopia he was, as is well known, largely in disgrace for being too “pro-Ethiopian,” but later served in Burma where he died. He was never, however, made “Lord” of Burma, or of anywhere else. Dame Elizabeth Cadbury who became a

Sylvia Pankhurst in Perspective

Vice-President of the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital Council (see NT & EN October 10, 1942), is referred to by Romero as “Dame Elizabeth Fry” (p. 269). Mingistu Lemma, an Ethiopian student in Britain who became one of Ethiopia’s principal dramatists (a translation of one of his plays was published by Sylvia in, Ethiopia Observer) ,is described by Romero as “a prominent architect” (p. 266). He was never an architect, prominent or obscure. Emmanuel Abraham, a sometime secretary at the Ethiopian Legation in London and post-war Minister, is incorrectly referred to as “a Cabinet Minister in Haile Sellassie’s government-in-exile”: there was no Cabinet during the exile (p. 231). I am described as being “from a family of Jewish refugees from Romania” (p. 283). Though from Romania and of Jewish extraction, my family were not refugees, for we had emigrated from Romania some years prior to the advent of fascism in that country. The Abyssinia Association, an organisation which in its day sent many letters to the press, is referred to by Romero as the “Abyssinian Society” (pp. 211, 228-9, 232 and index). The International African Friends of Abyssinia was not founded in 1937, as Romero seems to imply, but two years earlier. Professor Ullendorff held the Chair of Ethiopian Studies, not of Linguistics (p. 246). The Social Service Society, which Sylvia helped to found in Ethiopia, is rendered by Romero as the “Social Security Society” (p. 279 and index). The Ethiopian Herald is wrongly called the “Ethiopian Herald” (p. 280). The photograph opposite p. 277, captioned “Sylvia Pankhurst with Haile Sellassie in Ethiopia” was taken in England by Richard at least a dozen years earlier, during the Emperor’s exile in Bath. It appears in Richard’s book on his mother (R. Pankhurst, 1979) with the correct caption (and was reproduced by Romero without permission or acknowledgement). The latter part of the book also has its full quota of misspellings. Among those of proper names we have noticed are: Giuseppe Peono for Peano (p. 181 and index); Mihael for Mihail Eminescu (p. 182); Arcadia for Arcadiu Petrescu (pp. 202-203 and index); Grottennelli for Grottanelli (pp. xiv 220 and index); Workeheh for Workeneh (p. 226); Grazziani for Graziani (p. 266); Ras Hyalu

261

for Haylu (p. 234 and index); Mary Rdasse for Tadesse (p. 266 and index); Ras Mackonnen for Makonnen (p. 25 1); Kwama for Kwame Nkrumah (p. 327); Amhara for Amharic (p. 246); Somali for Somalia (p. 255); Issas for Issa (p. 255); Modadiscio for Mogadiscio (p. 256); Assad for Assab (p. 218); Jigziga (p. 250) and Jijiga (map, p. 216) for Jigjiga; Reserve for Reserved Area (p. 250). CONCLUSION Patricia Romero’s book on Sylvia Pankhurst has already been extensively, and sometimes well reviewed. This paper is not a further review: primarily it is an attempt to warn the reader that Romero’s book cannot be relied upon as an authoritative source because of the innumerable factual errors and distortions it contains, only some of which are detailed here. Given their volume it would seem safe to assume that a more thorough checking of sources than we have been able to carry out would reveal many more inaccuracies. At the same time, while fully accepting Romero’s right to her own interpretation of Sylvia’s actions, beliefs and feelings, which we have not, in the main, discussed, we cannot help regretting that she has been able to develop so little empathy with her subject. I am especially conscious of a lack of sympathetic understanding when Romero considers Sylvia as a feminist. Writing about Sylvia is admittedly no easy task because of the variety of causes she espoused on behalf of underprivileged and exploited people in many lands. Romero deserves credit for undertaking a biography and for devoting to it many years of her life. To us, perhaps because of our special interest, but also because of our knowledge of Sylvia’s life, it seems that Romero’s attempt is seriously flawed. We hope that the publication of this work will not deter others better equipped than Romero to assess Sylvia in the perspective of the times in which she lived and worked. Sylvia Pankhurst still awaits a definitive biography. REFERENCES Castle, Barbara. 1987. Sylvia and Christabel Rmkhurst. Penguin, London. Ethiopia Observer. Monthly, 1956-1960, Addis Ababa. Fascists at Large, Anti-fascists interned. 1940. New

262

RITAPANICHURST

Times and Ethiopia News, August 17-December 21. (There were other articles on the same subject, preceding and following this series.) Gordon, Mary L. 1922. Penal Discipline. Routledge, London. Gross Breach of Faith! Intrigues to Dismember Ethiopia. 1944. New Times and Ethiopia News. March 4. Italy’s War Crimes in Ethiopia. (1945). New Times and Ethiopia News, Woodford Green. MacCarthy, Fiona. 1987. The Wilder Shores of Primitive Feminism. The Times, March 5. McKay, Claude. 1937. A Long Way from Home. Furman, New York. Mahteme Sellassie Wolde Maskal. 1957. The Land System of Ethiopia. Ethiopia Observer 1:223-301. Markakis, John. 1974. Ethiopia: Anatomy of a Traditional Polity. Clarendon, Oxford. New Times and Ethiopia News. Weekly, 1936-1956, Woodford Green. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1911. The Suffmgette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement 1905-1910. Sturais and Walton. New York. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1921. Sovie; dussia as I Saw it. Dreadnought, London. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1926. India and the Earthly Paradise. Sunshine, Bombay. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1931. The Suffragette Movement. Longmans, London. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1932. The Home Front. Hutchinson, London. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1936-1937. Fascism as It Is. New Times and Ethiopia News. August 15-November 6. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 19381939. How Hitler Rose to Power. New Times and Ethiopia News. October 22February 11. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1945. Italy’s War Crimes in EthioDia. New Times and Ethiooia News Books. Woodford Green. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1952a. Eritrea on the Eve. New

Times and Ethiopia News Books, Woodford Green. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1952b. Wanton Destruction. nibune, reprinted in New Times and Ethiopia News, March 22. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1952c. Why are We Destroying the Eritrean Ports? New Times and Ethiopia News Books, Woodford Green. Pankhurst, [E.] Sylvia. 1955. Ethiopia: A Cultural History. Lalibela House, Woodford Green. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia. 1959. To Kenya by Ethiopian Airlines. Ethiopia Observer 2: 294-399. Pankhurst, E. Sylvia and Pankhurst, Richard K. P. 1953. Ethiopia and Eritrea: The Lust Phase of the Reunion Struggle 1941-1952. ‘Lalibela House, Woodford Green. Pankhurst, Richard [K. P]. 1971. The Ethiopian National Anthem in 1940: A Chapter in Anglo-Ethiopian Wartime Relations. Ethiopia Observer 14: 219225. Pankhurst, Richard [K. P]. 1972. The Ethiopian Anthem in 1941: A Chapter in Anglo-Ethiopian Wartime Relations. Ethiopia Observer 15: 63-66. Pankhurst, Richard [K.P.]. 1979. Sylvia Pankhurst: Artist and Crusader. Paddington, London. Perham, Margery. 1948. The Government of Ethiopia. Faber, London. Poggialli, Ciro. 1971. Diario A.O.I. Longanesi, Milan. Romero, Patricia. 1987. E. Sylvia Rmkhurst: Portrait of a Radical. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. Spring, Howard. 1940. Fame is the Spur. Collins, London. Sykes, Christopher. 1959. Orde Wingate. Collins, London. Wilson, Monica. 1987. E. Sylvia Pankhurst. BBC World Service Book Talks, March 11. Woman’s Dreadnought. Weekly. 1914-1917. London. Subsequently Wo>ker’sDreadnought. Weekly, 19171924. London. Workers’ Suffrage Federation. 1917. Minutes. March 19.