The paper was started by Mary Patterson, Zelie Emerson, and Sylvia Pankhurst (after she was been expelled from the Suffragette movement by her mother and sister) who were also involved with the Workers' Socialist Federation and the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) in the East End of London at the time.
In 1917 the name was changed to Workers' Dreadnought with a circulation of 10,000.