The surname ‘Pankhurst’ is synonymous with the British suffrage movement and the fight for women’s rights – but it was a different belief that brought the daughter of the movement’s famous leader Emmeline Pankhurst to Jersey 90 years ago.
In October 1936, Dame Christabel Pankhurst, also a suffragette, visited the Island to give a series of addresses to Islanders, and her presence aroused considerable interest.
However, the subject of her lectures did not relate to the women’s movement, but instead the second coming of Christ.
After the conclusion of the First World War, Pankhurst had settled in the United States and become an Evangelical Christian, talking often about her religion in public across the United States, Canada and many European countries.
A powerful and persuasive speaker, she was invited to Jersey by the Independent Church in Halkett Place.
The title of her talks was ‘A Christian Message for these Serious Times’.
A letter in the Evening Post from Philip Ollivier, of Fairvale, Mont au Prêtre, suggested that everyone should go and listen to her: “Dame Christabel is a convincing and logical speaker; and no one in Jersey can hear her without being impressed by the flaming zeal for Her Lord that possesses her and by the logical presentiment of her theme.
“As it was my privilege while living in New York in 1924 to hear Dame Christabel eloquently address large audiences, I can recommend all in Jersey who can to go and hear her and be convinced.”
She delivered two talks at the Independent Chapel on Sunday, 11 October.
Presiding was Reverend R Gregory, who was at the rostrum with Reverend E J Gallichan and Mr M Baker.
Pankhurst, in addressing the congregation, said that it was with great joy that she was speaking in Jersey for the first time and she was grateful for the invite from her friends.
Within her speech, she referred to her former campaigning and said: “They had been striving for votes, for women, for better houses and better wages, but that, good as it was, was not enough, because they themselves were not enough.”
She went on to refer to the world’s political situation and referred to the fact that governments were re-arming.
In seemingly prophetic words, given the outbreak of the Second World War only a few years later, she said that if these preventative measures did not work, “the conflict would be far greater than it was 22 years ago”.
The following evening, she addressed a packed crowd at the Town Hall, talking on the same subject.
She held forth on the state of the world, concluding that “she had every confidence, however, that in the near future there would be a great spiritual revival and that the churches would be filled again.
“It would indeed be a great thing if that revival could commence in Jersey”.
Pankhurst gave a number of other talks at the Independent Church to interested audiences before leaving the Island.
