Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.

Pankhurst saw imprisonment as a means to publicise the urgency of women's suffrage; in June 1909 Emmeline Pankhurst struck a police officer twice in the face to ensure Emmeline Pankhurst would be arrested. Due to lack of funds however the home was soon turned over to Princess Alice. Soon after her birth the family moved to Seedley on the outskirts of Salford where her father had co-founded a small business.

Eventually arson became a common tactic among WSPU members and more moderate organizations spoke out against the Pankhurst family. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century stating: "Emmeline Pankhurst shaped an idea of women for our time; Emmeline Pankhurst shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back. In her later years Emmeline Pankhurst became concerned with what Emmeline Pankhurst perceived as the menace posed by BolEmmeline Pankhurstvism and – unhappy with the political alternatives – joined the Conservative Party.