sylviapankhurst.com was created by Redbridge Museum & Heritage Centre in 2021.
Background
The website was based on the original sylviapankhurst.com created in 2008 by Susan Homewood, who also founded the Sylvia Pankhurst Trust. This was a charity formed in Woodford in 2007 to celebrate the life and work of Sylvia Pankhurst who made Woodford (now in the London Borough of Redbridge) her home from 1924 until 1956.
In 2007-08 the Sylvia Pankhurst Trust in partnership with Redbridge Museum ran the ‘Celebrating Sylvia Pankhurst’ project which included a lecture seminar, schools’ project, publications, website, and major exhibition. The project was supported by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. After completing its work, the Sylvia Pankhurst Trust closed in 2019.
The website
In 2018 – 21, Redbridge Museum in partnership with Woodford County High School, led the Wonder Women heritage project which explored the lives of women in the London Borough of Redbridge over the last 100 years. It celebrated the centenary of the vote for (some) women in 2018 and was supported by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
sylviapankhurst.com was the final output of Wonder Women. The new website features a completely redesigned interface with updated information, resources, and newly researched content. It was produced by Redbridge Museum & Heritage Centre and designed by Christopher La Rocca.
redbridge.museum@visionrcl.org.uk
“Interest in my grandmother has increased over time as in many ways the world has moved in the direction of her thinking. She kept her focus on poorer women and those discriminated against for many other reasons.
But the growing interest remains segmented. People tend to know just one part of the story and are interested in her work as a suffragette or a socialist, or they might know about her work combatting fascism and colonialism or her work in Ethiopia, they might know she was an editor or a painter.
Yet it is the whole that is so astonishing.”
Helen Pankhurst, granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, January 2020
Quoted in Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel, Rachel Holmes, 2020
