Emmeline Pankhurst (born Emmeline Goulden) (15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back." She was widely criticized for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognized as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in Britain.

Born Emmeline Goulden and raised in Moss Side, Manchester, England by politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 8 to the women's suffrage movement. Although her parents encouraged her to prepare herself for life as a wife and mother, she attended the École Normale de Neuilly in Paris. In 1878 she married Richard Pankhurst, a barrister 24 years her senior known for supporting women's right to vote; they had five children over the next ten years. He also supported her activities outside the home, and she quickly became involved with the Women's Franchise League, which advocated suffrage for women. When that organization broke apart, she attempted to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her friendship with socialist Keir Hardie but was initially refused membership by the local branch of the Party on account of her sex. She also worked as a Poor Law Guardian and was shocked by the harsh conditions she encountered in Manchester workhouses.

Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is an English actress best known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Young Victoria (2009), and The Adjustment Bureau (2011). She has been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, two London Film Critics' Circle Awards, and one BAFTA Award. She won a Golden Globe Award for her work in the BBC television drama Gideon's Daughter (2007).

Emily Blunt was born 23 February 1983 in Roehampton, London, England. She is the second of four children born to Joanna, an English teacher and former actress, and barrister Oliver Simon Peter Blunt, QC, one of the highest-profile barristers in the United Kingdom, earning an estimated £1million annually. Her siblings are Felicity, Sebastian, and Suzanna. Her grandfather was Major-General Peter Blunt and one of her paternal uncles is Crispin Blunt, Conservative Member of Parliament for Reigate.

Blunt attended Ibstock Place School and, at the age of 16, went to Hurtwood House, a private sixth-form college known for its performing arts programme.^{[citation needed]} There, she was discovered by an agent.^{[citation needed]} Blunt made her professional debut in Bliss, a musical written by Paul Sellar, at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe while she was still an A-level student.^{[citation needed]} She went on to perform at the National Theatre and at Chichester Festival Theatre.^{[citation needed]}

Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was a militant women's suffrage activist. On 4 June 1913, after a series of actions that were either self-destructive or violent^{[citation needed]}, she stepped in front of the King's horse running in the Epsom Derby, sustaining injuries that resulted in her death four days later. It is still not known if she was attempting suicide or if she was just attempting to disturb the Derby.

Davison was born in Blackheath, London, the daughter of Charles Davison (of Morpeth, Northumberland) and Margaret Davison (of Longhorsley, Northumberland). She had two sisters, a brother and many half-siblings (from her father's first, second and third marriages) including a half-brother, retired naval captain Henry Jocelyn Davison, who gave evidence at her inquest.

She later attended Kensington High School and won a bursary to Royal Holloway College in 1891 to study literature.. Subsequently she was forced to drop out when her father died and her recently widowed mother could not afford the fees of £20 a term. She then took up employment as a private governess after which she became a school teacher in Edgbaston and Worthing, raising enough money to study Biology, Chemistry, English Language and Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford. She obtained first-class honours in her final exams, though women were not at that time admitted to degrees at Oxford. She also obtained a first class honours degree from London University. Davison obtained a post teaching the daughters of the Moorhouse family in Spratton, Northamptonshire and in 1906 joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU brought together those who felt strongly that militant, confrontational tactics were needed in order to achieve women's suffrage. In 1908, Davison left her teaching post to dedicate herself completely to the movement.

Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, DBE (22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958), was a suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914 she became a fervent supporter of the war against Germany. After the war she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.

Christabel Pankhurst was the daughter of the lawyer Dr. Richard Pankhurst and women's suffrage movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst and sister to Sylvia Pankhurst and Adela Pankhurst. Nancy Ellen Rupprecht wrote, “She was almost a textbook illustration of the first child born to a middle-class family. In childhood as well as adulthood, she was beautiful, intelligent, graceful, confident, charming, and charismatic.” Christabel and her mother, Emmeline, had a special bond that none of her other siblings had. She and her father were very close as well. In the Dictionary of National Biography, Roger Fulford says that he named her Christabel after the lines of a poem by Coleridge “The lovely lady Christabel/ Whom her father loves so well.” When her mother died in 1928, Christabel grieved deeply for two years. Her family was not wealthy growing up. Her father was a lawyer and her mother owned a small shop. She assisted her mother while Emmeline was working as the Registrar of Births and Deaths in Manchester. Her family always encouraged themselves in their financial struggles by firmly believing that they were more devoted to causes than comforts.