Photograph

A woman with three little girls in a garden. Handwritten on the back is 'Mary Joan Kathleen'.
In 1915 Emmeline Pankhurst adopted four illegitimate children born during World War I, Mary Gordon, Joan Pembridge, Kathleen King and Elizabeth Tudor, She raised money to establish a home for the children in Kensington. They later went to live with Emmeline Pankhurst in Canada, then Bermuda. By 1924 Emmeline Pankhurst’s financial situation meant that she could no longer provide for so many children. Joan Pembridge and Kathleen King returned to England, where Pembridge was adopted by the Russells, a wealthy Scottish couple and King was adopted by ‘Evening Standard’ journalist John Coleridge Taylor. Mary and Elizabeth stayed with Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst.