Annie, who was then twenty-five, was unlike her sisters in many ways. She frequently said that she was not so “clever” as her sisters, but when any decisive step was to be taken or any question of principle to be decided, it was always Annie who took the lead. There is not much that is beautiful in a small Lancashire manufacturing town, but what little there was, Annie Kenney contrived to make the most of. She was a regular attendant at the Church, and delighted in the beauty of the music; the Whitsuntide processions, in which she walked with the other Sunday-school children all in their white dresses, being vivid memories with her still. She early commenced to carry on a literary campaign amongst her work-mates and, having come across a copy of the penny weekly paper “The Clarion,” in which Robert Blatchford was publishing a series of articles on his “favourite books,” contrived to procure some of the works which were there mentioned, and introduced them to her companions.
On the few holidays which fall to the lot of the cotton worker, or when the mills were stopped owing to bad trade, Annie Kenney and her sisters and some of their favourite work-mates would put together a simple luncheon and set off roaming for miles across the moors. The grass and the trees might be blackened with the smoke of the factories, the sight of whose tall chimneys the girls could never leave behind, but, blighted as it was, this was the only country that Annie had ever known, and it was all beautiful to her. When they had walked till they were tired, the girls would lie down on the grass, and then they would read to each other in turn, and Annie would talk to them about the flowers and the sky.
Just as she was intensely alive to all that was beautiful, so too Annie Kenney realised keenly the ugly and sordid side of life. When speaking of her early days to a conference of women in Germany, in 1908, she said:
I grew up in the midst of women and girls in the works, and I saw the hard lives of the women and children about me. I noticed the great difference made in the treatment of men and women in the factory, differences in conditions, differences in wages and differences in status. I realised this difference not in the factory alone but in the home. I saw men, women, boys and girls, all working hard during the day in the same hot, stifling factories. Then when work was over I noticed that it was the mothers who hurried home, who fetched the children that had been put out to nurse, prepared the tea for the husband, did the cleaning, baking, washing, sewing and nursing. I noticed that when the husband came home, his day’s work was over; he took his tea and then went to join his friends in the club or in the public house, or on the cricket or foot-ball field, and I used to ask myself why this was so. Why was the mother the drudge of the family, and not the father’s companion and equal?
From the first we found Annie ready with excellent ideas for spreading our propaganda. In Lancashire every little town and village has its “Wakes Week.” The “Wakes” being a sort of Fair, at which there are “merry-go-rounds,” “cocoanut shies,” and numberless booths and stalls where human and animal monstrosities are shown and all kinds of things are sold. In every separate town or village the “Wakes” is held at a different date, so that within a radius of a few miles one or other of these fairs is going on all through the summer and autumn. Annie told us that on the Sunday before the “Wakes” almost all the inhabitants of the place go down to the “Wakes-ground” and walk amongst the booths, and that Salvation Army and other preachers, temperance orators, the vendors of quack medicines and others seize this opportunity of addressing the crowds. She suggested that we should follow their example. We readily agreed, and all through that summer and autumn we held these meetings, going from Stalybridge to Royton, Mosely, Oldham, Lees where Annie lived, and to a dozen other towns.
* * *
1 When the School Boards were abolished, Mrs. Pankhurst became the Trades Council Representative on the Education Committee.
2 In Booth’s classic book, Life and Labour in London, the result of a canvass of the then 186,982 women occupiers, shows
3 Even a first place is useless if the Government and the Speaker are hostile.
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF THE MILITANT TACTICS
ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF CHRISTABEL PANKHURST AND ANNIE KENNEY. OCTOBER, 1905.
WHILST the educational propaganda work of the Women’s Social and Political Union was being quietly carried on, stirring events were in preparation. The resignation of the Conservative Government was daily expected. The Liberal leaders were preparing themselves to take office, and every newspaper in the country was discussing who the new Ministers were to be. A stir of excitement was spreading all over the country and now the organisers of the Liberal Party decided to hold a great revival meeting in that historic Manchester Free Trade Hall, which stands upon the site of the old franchise battle of Peterloo. The meeting was fixed for October 13, and here it was determined that the old fighting spirit of the Radicals should be revived, the principles and policy of Liberalism should be proclaimed anew and, upon the strength of those principles and of that policy, the people should be called upon to support the incoming Government with voice and vote.
When the evening of the thirteenth came, the great hall was filled to overflowing with an audience mainly composed of enthusiastic Liberals, for the meeting was almost entirely a ticket one, and the tickets had been circulated amongst the Liberal Associations throughout the length and breadth of Lancashire. The organ played victorious music, and then the Liberal men, whose party had been out of office for so long and who now saw it coming into power, rose to their feet and cheered excitedly as their leaders came into the hall. After a few brief words from the chairman, words in which he struck a note of triumphant confidence in the approaching Liberal victory, Sir Edward Grey was called upon to speak. The future Cabinet Minister, in a speech full of fine sentiments and glowing promises, named all the various great reforms that the Liberal Government would introduce, and appealed to the people to give the Liberal Party its confidence, and to return a Liberal ministry to power. Whilst he was speaking, Sir Edward Grey was interrupted by a man who asked him what the Government proposed to do for the unemployed. Sir Edward paused with ready courtesy to listen. “Somebody said the unemployed,” he explained to the audience; “well, I will come to that,” and he did so, saying that this important question would certainly be dealt with. Then he came to his peroration; he spoke of the difficulties of administration, difficulties which were especially great at the present time. “We ask for the Liberal Party,” he said, “the same chance as the Conservative Party has had for nearly twenty years. … There is no hope in the present men, but there is hope in new men. … It is to new men with fresh minds, untrammelled by prejudice and quickened by sympathy, and who are vigorous and true, that I believe that the country will turn with hope. What I ask for them is generous support and a fair chance.” The thunder of applause that greeted his final words had scarcely died away when, as if in answer to Sir Edward Grey’s appeal and promise, a little white cotton banner, inscribed with the words, “VOTES FOR WOMEN,” was put up in the centre of the hall, and a woman was heard asking what the Government would do to make the women politically free. Almost simultaneously two or three men were upon their feet demanding information upon other questions. The men were at once replied to, but the woman’s question was ignored. She therefore stood up again and pressed for an answer to her question, but the men sitting near her forced her down into her seat, and one of the stewards of the meeting held his hat over her face. Meanwhile, the hall was filled with a babel of conflicting sound. Shouts of “Sit down!” “Be quiet!” “What’s the matter?” and “Let the lady speak!” were heard on every hand. As the noise subsided a little, a second woman sitting beside the first got up and asked again, “Will the Liberal Government give women the vote?” but Sir Edward Grey made no answer, and again arose the tumult of cries and counter cries. Then the Chief Constable of Manchester, Mr. William Peacock, came down from the platform to where the women were sitting, and asked them to write out the question that they
had put to Sir Edward Grey, saying that he would himself take it to the Chairman and make sure that it received a reply. The women agreed to this suggestion, and the one who had first spoken now wrote:
Will the Liberal Government give votes to working women?
Signed on behalf of the Women’s Social and Political Union,
ANNIE KENNEY,
Member of the Oldham Committee of the Card and Blowing Room Operatives.
To this she added that as one of the 96,000 organised women cotton workers, and for their sake, she earnestly desired an answer. Mr. Peacock took the paper on which the question had been written back to the platform, and was seen to hand it to Sir Edward Grey, who, having read it, smiled and passed it to the Chairman, from whom it went the round of every speaker in turn. Then it was laid aside, and no answer was returned to it. A lady, sitting on the platform, who had noticed and understood all that was going on, now tried to intervene.1 “May I, as a woman, be allowed to speak — ?” she began, but the Chairman called on Lord Durham to move a vote of thanks to Sir Edward Grey. When this vote had been seconded by Mr. Winston Churchill, and when it had afterwards been carried, Sir Edward Grey rose to reply. But he made no reference, either to the enfranchisement of women, or to the question which had been put. Then followed the carrying of a vote of thanks to the Chair, and by this time the meeting showed signs of breaking up. Some of the audience had left the hall, and some of the people on the platform were preparing to go. The women’s question still remained unanswered and seemed in danger of being forgotten by everyone concerned. But the two women were anxiously awaiting a reply, and the one who had first spoken now rose again, and this time she stood up upon her seat and called out as loudly as she could, “Will the Liberal Government give working women the vote?” At once the audience became a seething, infuriated mob. Thousands of angry men were upon their feet shouting, gesticulating, and crying out upon the woman who had again dared to disturb their meeting.
She stood there above them all, a little, slender, fragile figure. She had taken off her hat, and her soft, loosely flowing hair gave her a childish look; her cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes blazing with earnestness. It was Annie Kenney, the mill girl, who had gone to work in an Oldham cotton factory as a little half-timer at ten years of age. A working woman, the child of a working woman, whose life had been passed among the workers, she stood there now, feeling herself to be the representative of thousands of struggling women, and in their name she asked for justice. But the Liberal leaders, who had spoken so glibly of sympathy for the poor and needy, were silent now, when one stood there asking for justice; and their followers, who had listened so eagerly and applauded with so much enthusiasm, speeches filled with the praise of liberty and equality, were thinking now of nothing but Liberal victories. They howled at her fiercely, and numbers of Liberal stewards came hurrying to drag her down. Then Christabel Pankhurst, her companion, started up and put one arm around Annie Kenney’s waist, and with the other warded off their blows, and as she did so, they scratched and tore her hands until the blood ran down on Annie’s hat that lay upon the seat, and stained it red, whilst she still called, “The question, the question, answer the question!” So, holding together, these two women fought for votes as their forefathers had done, upon the site of Peterloo.
At last six men, Liberal stewards and policemen in plain clothes, seized Christabel Pankhurst and dragged her away down the central aisle and past the platform, then others followed bringing Annie Kenney after her. As they were forced along the women still looked up and called for an answer to their question, and still the Liberal leaders on the platform looked on apparently unmoved and never said a word. As they saw the women dragged away, the men in the front seats — the ticket holders from the Liberal clubs — shouted “Throw them out!” but from the free seats at the back, the people answered “Shame!”
Having been flung out into the street, the two women decided to hold an indignation meeting there, and so, at the corner of Peter Street and South Street, close to the hall, they began to speak, but within a few minutes, they were arrested, and followed by hundreds of men and women, were dragged to the Town Hall. Here they were both charged with obstruction, and Christabel Pankhurst was also accused of assaulting the police. They were summoned to attend the Police Court in Minshull Street next morning.
Meanwhile, as soon as the women had been thrown out of the hall, there came a revulsion of feeling in their favour and the greater part of the meeting broke up in disorder. Believing that some explanation was expected of him, Sir Edward Grey-now said that he regretted the disturbance which had taken place. “I am not sure” he continued “that unwittingly and in innocence I have not been a contributing cause. As far as I can understand, the trouble arose from a desire to know my opinion on the subject of Women’s Suffrage. That is a question which I would not deal with here to-night because it is not, and I do not think it is likely to be, a party question.” He added that he had already given his opinion upon votes for women and that, as he did not think it a “fitting subject for this evening,” he would not repeat it.
Thus, within a few days of the fortieth anniversary of the formation of the first Women’s Suffrage Society (perhaps even upon that very anniversary), and after forty years of persevering labour for this cause, Sir Edward Grey announced that Women’s Suffrage was as yet far outside the realm of practical politics, and the two women who had dared to question him upon this subject were flung with violence and insult from the hall.
The next morning the police court was crowded with people eager to hear the trial. The two girls refused to dispute the police evidence as to the charges of assault and obstruction, and based their defence solely upon the principle that their conduct was justified by the importance of the question upon which they had endeavoured to secure a pronouncement and by the outrageous treatment which they had received. But though ignoring the violence to which they had been subjected and exaggerating the disturbance which they had made, the Counsel for the prosecution had dwelt at length upon the scene in the Free Trade Hall; the women were not allowed to refer to it and, though it was evident that but for what had taken place in the meeting they would not have been arrested for speaking in the street, they were ordered to confine their remarks to what had taken place after they had been ejected. Both defendants were found guilty, Christabel Pankhurst being ordered to pay a fine of ten shillings or to go to prison for seven days and Annie Kenney being fined five shillings with the alternative of three days’ imprisonment. They both refused to pay the fines and were immediately hurried away to the cells.
Now the whole country rang with the story. In Manchester especially, the news created tremendous excitement. The father of one of the prisoners, was, as we have seen, a Manchester man. Dr. Pankhurst’s2 remarkable ability and learning, his wonderful eloquence, his wide range of interests, and the number of causes in which he had taken a foremost part, had secured for him an unusually large amount of public recognition. There was scarcely a man or woman in the city to whom he was not a familiar figure. Moreover, his fascinating personality, and his well-known tenderness of heart, illustrated as it was by thousands of kindly acts, as well as by his long life of service and sacrifice for the public good, had endeared him to many of his strongest political opponents. Whatever bitterness may have been aroused against him by his strenuous advocacy of advanced and frequently unpopular causes, had disappeared when the news of his sudden death, which took place in the midst of a legal case that he was conducting on behalf of the Manchester Corporation, had become known, and public sympathy had gone generously forth to Mrs. Pankhurst in her tragic home-coming when she had read of her great loss in the evening papers in the train. Mrs. Pankhurst by her work on public bodies was also known of course, and Christabel Pankhurst herself had recently attracted notice because, having wished to follow her father’s profession, she had applied to the Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn for admission to the Bar. Her application had been refused on the
ground of her sex, as had also a request to be heard by the Benchers in support of her claim, but she had not abandoned her endeavours to secure the opening of this avenue of employment to women and she was now a Law student at the Victoria University of Manchester.
Votes for Women in those days was regarded by the majority of sober, level-headed men as a ladies’ fad which would never come to anything and the idea that it could ever be a question upon which governments would stand or fall, or be associated with persecution, rioting and imprisonment had been alike unthinkable to them. Therefore, for many reasons, this trial and imprisonment came as a tremendous shock to the general public of Manchester. Questions addressed to political speakers by men in the audience both during and at the close of the speeches were, as everyone knew, the invariable accompaniment of every public political meeting in this country. These questions were almost always replied to. When dissatisfied with the answer the interrogators frequently began a running commentary of disapproval, which sometimes terminated in their ejection, but not until they had become a source of general disturbance to the meeting. These facts were of course a matter of common knowledge, but the newspapers now ignored them and treated the questioning of Sir Edward Grey in the manner adopted by the two women in the Free Trade Hall as an absolutely new and entirely reprehensible departure. They were all agreed that such behaviour would inevitably injure the Women’s Suffrage Cause of which, though they had hitherto boycotted it, most of them now implied that they were supporters. Extracts from two newspapers are enough to convey the attitude which in varying degrees of severity was adopted by them all. The Evening Standard:
The Suffragette Page 3
