The Suffragette Bombers

by Simon Webb

  The trial of the Wheeldons and Alfred Mason opened at the Old Bailey on 6 March 1917. The case for the Crown, outlined by the Attorney General, Frederick Smith, was that a plan had been hatched to fire a dart tipped with the South American poison curare at Lloyd George as he played golf near his home at Walton Heath. It was, he alleged, also the intention of the conspirators to kill at the same time Arthur Henderson, a Labour member of the cabinet. It was for this reason that the poison had been obtained. According to statements from Alex Gordon and Herbert Booth, or Comrade Bert as the Wheeldons knew him, Alice Wheeldon had said that Lloyd George was ‘the cause of millions of innocent lives being sacrificed. The bugger shall be killed to stop it’.

  Herbert Booth also said that the Wheeldons had revealed a previous plot to assassinate Lloyd George – when the suffragettes were active before the start of the war – by smearing poison on a nail and then arranging for it to penetrate his boot. It was alleged that she had told Booth and Gordon that a member of the WSPU had taken a job at a hotel in order to put this plan into execution, but when Lloyd George had left suddenly it had come to nothing.

  Herbert Booth made a convincing witness, as did the head of his department, Major William Lauriston Melville Lee. Notable by his absence though, was the man who had apparently uncovered this plot. Alex Gordon was not called to give evidence and this omission on the part of the crown was never properly explained. Emmeline Pankhurst was called to give evidence during the trial, in order to show that the suffragettes now regarded Lloyd George as a precious national asset, rather than a bogey man.

  The defence alleged that Alex Gordon had set up the whole scenario. Rather than acting as an informant, he was the one who had instigated the obtaining of the poison. This had not been done, according to Alice Wheeldon and her daughters, to kill Lloyd George. It was part of a deal that she had struck with Alex Gordon, whereby she would help him in exchange for a favour which he had promised to do for her. In this version of events, Alex Gordon had told the Wheeldon’s that a camp where conscientious objectors were being held was guarded by fierce dogs. He wished to free some prisoners from the camp and would need first to kill the guard dogs. If Alice Wheeldon could get hold of some poison from her son-in-law for this purpose, then he would help arrange for her son William to evade military service by travelling to America.

  There was little to choose between the two stories on offer to the jury. On the one hand, it was perfectly plausible that a former suffragette arsonist had concocted a bizarre plan to dispose of the man whom many members of the WSPU had been indoctrinated to see as their main enemy in the fight for women’s suffrage. On the other, it was equally possible that a shadowy secret agent had dreamed up an elaborate fantasy in order to increase his own importance.

  The jury had no such doubts and took less than half an hour to bring in verdicts of guilty against Alice Wheeldon, her daughter Winnie and son-in-law Alfred Mason. Hettie Wheeldon was acquitted. Alice Wheeldon was sent to prison for ten years, Alfred Mason for seven and his wife Winnie for five. None served anything like their full sentences.

  Predictably enough, Alice Wheeldon went on hunger strike almost immediately. She was forcibly fed for a time, but her health declined rapidly. On 27 December 1917, the deputy Medical Officer at Holloway Prison reported that her condition was worsening. Her pulse was weak and her heart unsteady. It was in nobody’s interests for a former suffragette to starve to death in prison and on 29 December, Lloyd George interceded. He wrote to Home Secretary Herbert Samuel, urging that Mrs Wheeldon be freed. On 31 December, she was released from prison, only to die a little over a year later in the great influenza epidemic of 1919.

  After the war had ended in November 1918, Prime Minister Lloyd George made it plain that he wanted the other two ‘conspirators’ to be freed and on 26 January 1919, Alfred Mason and his wife left prison. They had spent less than two years behind bars.

  So what was the truth about the plot to kill the Prime Minister? In recent years, a campaign has been launched to have the case reviewed, with the intention of securing a posthumous pardon for the Wheeldons and Alfred Mason. Derby City Council have placed a blue plaque on the house where Alice Wheeldon and her family once lived to commemorate an, ‘anti-war activist, socialist and suffragist’ (see Plate 2). No mention is made of her being a would-be assassin of the prime minister! Perhaps the safest verdict to bring in, based upon the evidence as we have it, would be the Scottish verdict of ‘not proven’.

  The greatest irony of all is that at the very time when Alice Wheeldon might have been conspiring to murder him, Lloyd George was actually in the process of arranging the legislation which would grant women the parliamentary vote. It would be interesting to know the effect that his assassination might have had upon those plans.

  Chapter Eleven

  How the Vote was Won

  ‘ … the heroic patriotism of the women workers during the war had now made their claim irresistible. ’

  (Lloyd George, writing after the granting of the vote to women in 1918)

  At the outbreak of war in 1914 there seemed to be little prospect of women in the United Kingdom being given the parliamentary vote in the near future, and yet by 1916, there was cross-party agreement on the subject and even the Conservative-dominated Lords submitted tamely to passing a bill which gave over eight million women the vote.

  When the war began in the summer of 1914, an election was due by the end of 1915. By 1915, however, the country was being governed by a wartime coalition and it would hardly have been possible to hold a general election with so many men fighting abroad. It was this that led to the need for an urgent reform of the franchise. As we have seen, for men the parliamentary vote was dependent on residence and property qualifications. Men had to have lived in the same place for a length of time before being able to register to vote. Since it was intended to hold an election as soon as the war ended, this would have meant, under the law as it stood, that all the soldiers and sailors returning home from active service overseas would effectively have been disenfranchised by virtue of their military service. Moreover, many of the young soldiers fighting in the trenches would not in any case have been entitled to vote, because they had been living with their parents and were not themselves householders.

  Obviously, this was all absurd. Then again, what of those men who had been directed to carry out war work in another part of the country, rather than serving at the front? It would be unfair if they too were to be disenfranchised, just because they had served in factories and mines, rather than on the Western Front. This consideration of the men doing war work at home led some MPs to raise the question of the women who were doing exactly the same sort of work. Surely, it was only fair if they too should be given the vote? After all, they were doing the same work as men on behalf of their country.

  We have examined a number of myths and misrepresentations about the struggle for female suffrage before the First World War. We come now to another of the dubious assertions that are often made – one presented in many books as an established fact – that women finally gained the vote because of the way the majority of them behaved during the war. It is sometimes claimed today, and it was certainly asserted during the First World War when the decision was being made, that women were eventually granted the parliamentary vote in this country because of the war work so many of them undertook. From this perspective, the franchise was awarded like a medal for all the labouring in munitions factories, nursing and working as bus conductors that women did, among many other things. This is almost certainly untrue.

  Lloyd George wrote after the war that ‘the heroic patriotism of the women workers during the war had now made their claim irresistible’. Asquith said at the time that it was the efforts made by women in support of the war that had changed his mind about female suffrage. Yet the majority of the war work was undertaken by women under the age of 30. For instance, there were almost a million workers in the munitions factories, all, at least officially,
aged between 18 and 30; although in fact at some factories over 60 per cent of women were under 18. So, if it was really the case that the efforts of those young women in their twenties, who had been taking over the men’s jobs while they were away on active service, changed Asquith’s mind, then one would have thought that they would have been given the vote in 1918. They were not. They were, in fact, specifically excluded from the franchise, as it was only for women over the age of 30. This was in contrast to the voting age for men, which was 21 at that time.

  The idea that women were granted the vote as a reward for their war work provided a convenient excuse for politicians who had opposed female suffrage. The main sticking point, the desire not to appear to be giving in to the threat of violence, had gone. The Lords had been tamed and with the passing of the Parliament Act could no longer block the legislative programme of the Commons. The mood in the Commons had long been in favour of female franchise and so, with the terrorism ended, the way was now clear.

  Of course, there were some politicians, men like Asquith, who had fought for years against the principle of women being allowed to vote in parliamentary elections and for them, the excuse of war work was very handy. Such men might otherwise have felt a little foolish if, after having strongly opposed votes for women for a decade or so, they suddenly announced that they had been wrong about this all along! By citing the contribution of women to the war, they were enabled to make a volte face, claiming that circumstances had changed so dramatically that they had been forced to change their views.

  Having capitulated to the demand for the female franchise, it was necessary only to work out the fine details. Nobody in parliament was keen to see every woman suddenly given the vote, if that were to happen, then women would at once become a majority of the electorate. Instead, the same process by which men had gradually been enfranchised over the last 80 years or so would be followed, so it would be done in stages.

  In 1916, Asquith set up a Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform. This consisted of backbench MPs from all the political parties. This committee hammered out a new framework for the franchise. Chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the conference had 13 Conservative members, the same number of Liberals, 4 from the Labour Party and 4 Irish Nationalists. After meeting 26 times, they reported back to the Prime Minister in January, 1917. By that time, Asquith had resigned and been replaced by Lloyd George.

  The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies arranged for a delegation of women to put the case to the conference for female suffrage. Emmeline Pankhurst, whose ability to fall out with everybody with whom she came into contact was legendary, refused to attend on the grounds that women’s suffrage was no longer an important issue, compared, that is, to winning the war. From 1914 onwards, Mrs Pankhurst seemed to lose all interest in women’s suffrage. When a group of representatives from all the main suffrage societies went to Downing Street to make some final remarks on the proposed legislation, they in turn refused to have Emmeline Pankhurst as a member of their deputation.

  Lloyd George accepted in full the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference, which were that practically all men over the age of 21 should have the vote, regardless of property qualifications. Some women, property owners, the wives of property owners and university graduates over the age of 30 should also be given the vote. By the end of the year, the Representation of the People Act had been passed by the Commons by 364 votes in favour to 23 against. The House of Lords, not wishing for another confrontation with the Commons, also passed the bill. It became law in February 1918.

  When women were finally given the parliamentary vote, it was on the terms of neither universal nor equal suffrage. Nevertheless, it was a start and ten years later, the law was changed so that both men and women had the vote on equal terms.

  If women were not really granted the vote as a reward for their war service, and the fact that younger women and many working-class women were not enfranchised makes it very likely that they were not, what was the real reason for the change of heart, even in men like Asquith? It is instructive to look at what was happening in other countries in the years prior to and immediately following the end of the First World War.

  Before the start of the First World War, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Norway and some states of the USA had already given the vote to women. During and after the war, many more countries were to do so: Denmark in 1915; Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Russia in 1917; Germany, Hungary and Lithuania in 1918; Austria, the Netherlands and South Rhodesia in 1919; Czechoslovakia, Albania and the USA in 1920; and Burma and Ireland in 1922. Looked at from this perspective, Britain’s granting of the vote to some women in 1918 was simply a reflection of the trend that was sweeping the world. There had not been agitation for female suffrage in all the countries listed above, but this had not prevented the changes in the franchise being made.

  At the outbreak of war in 1914, the question of women’s suffrage was off the political menu, at least until the violence ended. Since the only people undertaking violent actions in connection with the franchise for women were the members of the WSPU and as they had called an immediate halt to their activities when the war began, there was no longer any obstacle to considering the extension of the franchise. Other countries had already taken this step and more were moving in that direction and it would be absurd for the United Kingdom to be left behind.

  With not just major nations like the United States giving the vote to women, but even small countries like Burma and Albania, to say nothing of neighbouring Ireland, Britain would have looked pretty foolish and out of step with worldwide political trends, had she not made at least some gesture towards the enfranchisement of women after the end of the war. This was particularly so when we bear in mind that colonial countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Rhodesia, Burma and Australia were also part of this movement towards greater democracy. It would have looked decidedly odd, with the rest of the empire moving in this direction, if the Mother Country alone had held out against women’s suffrage. By 1914, it was plain to most progressive and forward looking thinkers that women’s suffrage was coming to the countries of Western Europe and North America sooner, rather than later. All that Britain did was to follow a trend.

  In the next chapter, we will examine what effect, if any, the activities of the WSPU had upon the granting of the vote to women. For many years, it was taken as being almost axiomatic that votes for women were achieved as a result of relentless campaigning by various suffrage groups, most notably the suffragettes of the WSPU. It is curious though to note that women in other countries gained the vote at about the same time without extensive lobbying, let alone conducting campaigns of bombing and fire-raising.

  The popular feeling today is strongly in favour of the Pankhursts and their suffragettes having played a crucial role in gaining the parliamentary vote for women. It is no exaggeration to say that for most people, it is probably indisputable that the suffragettes forced the government to grant votes for women. It is time to look at the systematic distortion of history which has taken place over the last century and to see how the suffragettes were transformed from a gang of dangerous terrorists into a radical, mass movement struggling peacefully for civil rights.

  Chapter Twelve

  Birth of a Myth

  ‘ Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst inspired and led the Militant Suffrage Campaign. ’

  (Inscription on the statue of Emeline Pankhurst near the Houses of Parliament)

  We have seen how the Women’s Social and Political Union waged a relentless campaign of bombing and arson in the years leading up to the First World War and that these actions were not carried out by a handful of mavericks, but rather consisted of a systematic offensive conducted under the direction and control of the organisation’s leaders.

  The majority of those planting bombs and starting fires were paid employees of the WSPU. It has also been established that the suffragette contribution to the struggle for female suffrage was at best
irrelevant and most probably counterproductive, as it delayed rather than hastened the granting of the franchise to women. Despite this, the myth that the Pankhursts and their suffragettes were crucial to the gaining of votes for women is a powerful one, permeating our modern culture.

  The mistaken notion that the suffragettes played an important role in the enfranchisement of women in this country goes hand in hand with another popular misconception – that the actions of Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes were largely non-violent, being limited to heckling, smashing windows and damaging letters. This particular aspect of the mythology surrounding the suffragettes was established very soon after the death of Emmeline Pankhurst in 1928.

  The rehabilitation of Emmeline Pankhurst and her transformation from fanatical and irrational extremist to national treasure was extraordinarily swift. In May 1914, she was involved in a riot outside Buckingham Palace, in the course of which she was arrested. Just 16 years later, on 6 March 1930, a Conservative Prime Minister was making adulatory speeches at the unveiling of a statue of her in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament. This put the official seal of approval on Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes and from that time onwards, up to the present day, questioning her legacy or saying anything uncomplimentary about either her or the women who followed her has been considered to be in rather poor taste.

  Visiting that statue of Emmeline Pankhurst today is, incidentally, a rather disconcerting experience. ‘Glorifying terrorism’ is actually a specific criminal offence under the 2006 Terrorism Act, and yet an inscription on one of the low walls surrounding the statue’s plinth says, ‘These Walls and Piers have been erected in memory of Dame Christabel Pankhurst who jointly with her Mother Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst inspired and led the Militant Suffrage Campaign’. In other words, the aim of this structure, which stands in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, is to commemorate and celebrate Britain’s first terrorist bombing campaign of the twentieth century.