Sally Lindsay on the Emmeline Pankhurst story

Video interview: Sally Lindsay on the Emmeline Pankhurst story

Visitor attractions in modern Manchester provide the beautiful backdrop for a new BBC documentary about suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.

Many of the historic Manchester locations which shaped the story of votes for women 100 years ago feature in Emmeline Pankhurst: The Making of a Militant.

Presented by former Coronation Street actress Sally Lindsay - see video interview above - the documentary was premiered in front of 400 guests at the Radisson Blu Edwardian Manchester Hotel. The hotel is on the site of the Free Trade Hall, which hosted the first public meetings about women’s suffrage in 1868.

With the help of Emmeline’s surviving relatives, including the suffragette leader’s great-granddaughter Dr Helen Pankhurst, the documentary sees Sally dig deep into the archives to reveal her roots in radical Victorian Manchester.

She finds a city brimming with political activists – including Emmeline’s own family – where women set up the first meetings and societies demanding the vote, years before the suffragettes.

She finds out more about young Emmeline’s political heroines, and unearths amazing archive of a Manchester woman who voted in an election 50 years before the landmark act of 1918.

She says that Manchester was ‘massively’ important in making Emmeline Pankhurst the iconic figure she is today and that it was a privilege to have been able to find out more about her life.

“I don’t know why we haven’t celebrated her more as a Mancunian hero before now actually,” she added. “I think maybe people have always associated her more with London and forgotten her Manchester roots – hopefully this film will put that right. 

“Maybe it’s partly down to the Mancunian spirit – so many amazing things have happened here, like anti-slavery campaigns, the Peterloo Massacre, that I suppose as a city we take it for granted that all these radical things have happened here.

“Making this film though we really noticed that the tide was turning – with the centenary of some women getting the vote this year there is a definite interest in Emmeline and finding out more about her.  And celebrating her on her home turf I think.”

The Free Trade Hall premiere of Emmeline Pankhurst: The Making Of A Militant concluded with a Q&A session with Emmeline Pankhurst’s great-granddaughter, Dr Helen Pankhurst, Sally Lindsay, and producer/director Helen Tither.

Commissioned by MediaCityUK-based BBC North West to mark the centenary of Votes for Women, the documentary was made by Saffron Cherry and Lion Eyes.

Other locations visited by Sally during filming included Chetham’s Library, Central Library, the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, the People’s History Museum and The Pankhurst Centre.

Emmeline Pankhurst: The Making of a Militant will be shown on BBC One in the North West at 7.30pm on June 8 and nationally on BBC 4 and the BBC iPlayer.