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A family link to a famous suffragette, memories of home and war, and a burial ground in peril…
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My Pankhurst connection!
This July, as we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Equal Franchise Act, I’d like to share an interesting family connection I have with the suffragette movement. My link is through my husband’s maternal line Oram who married into the Pankhurst family: my husband’s maternal greatgrandfather James Oram, baptised in 1831 in Cuckfield, Sussex, married a Mary Pankhurst baptised in 1825 in Sussex. As I thought there could be a link between my Mary and the famous Emmeline Pankhurst, I began researching Emmeline’s line.
It took quite a while to connect the two because Emmeline was originally a Gouldon and became a Pankhurst through her marriage to a Richard Marsden Pankhurst. Mary Pankhurst was already in my family tree and her line went back to an Edward Pankhurst baptised in 1725 in Sussex.