For some time it was impossible to proceed with the meeting. Whilst the noise was at its height the interrupter sat down and waited; then, as soon as quiet was restored and Mr. Churchill attempted to continue his speech without replying, she again got up and pressed for an answer to her question. The Chairman endeavoured to induce Mr. Churchill to give an answer, but without success. The stewards threatened to throw the woman out but were afraid to do so because many of the men showed that they were prepared to fight for her, and in any case, the meeting was so crowded that it would have been difficult to get her through the press of people. The woman asking for votes seemed likely to have the best of it for once. Someone suggested that if Mr. Churchill would only answer, or if the men in the audience would not get so very much excited, things might go better, but the advice was unheeded.
At last the Chairman announced that, if the lady would promise to be quiet afterwards, she should speak from the platform for five minutes. To this she was not disposed to agree, but went up to the foot of the platform to explain that all she wanted was an answer to her question. Speaking directly to Mr. Churchill she said, “Don’t you understand what it is I want?” But hiding his face with a quick impatient movement of his arm he answered crossly, “Get away, I won’t have anything to do with you.” Then the Chairman appealed to her: “You had better come up to the platform,” he said, “we can hear you then; as it is, half the people in the meeting do not know what all the fuss is about.” She consented, and for the next five minutes tried to make her explanation, but the enthusiastic Liberals of the three front rows set up the wildest tumult of shouts and yells in order to drown her words.
When the five minutes were over the woman turned to go, but Mr. Churchill seized her roughly by the arm and forced her to sit down in a chair at the back of the platform saying, “No, you must wait here, till you have heard what I have to say,” then turning to the audience he began complaining of the way in which the women were treating him and concluded, “nothing would induce me to vote for giving women the franchise,” and, “I am not going to be henpecked into a question of such grave importance.” As he finished this declaration of hostility the men on the platform rose, as if by prearranged agreement, and the woman questioner stood up also, wishing to leave. Instantly two men hurried her to the side of the platform where, screened from the audience by a group of others, they swung her roughly over the edge and dragged her into an ante-room.
Thinking that she was merely to be put outside she had made no resistance, but now one of the men went to find the key to lock her in whilst the other remained in the room, standing with his back to the door. As soon as they were alone he began to use the most violent language and, calling her a cat, gesticulated as though he would scratch her face with his hands. Knowing that the room was on the ground floor, she ran to the window, and threw it open, only to find that it was barred. She called to some people who were passing in the side street saying: “I want you to be witnesses of anything that takes place in this room,” and they came running up and shouted to the man to behave himself. He at once became quieter, and presently on a key being brought to him, he locked the door and went away. Now, some of those in the street discovered that one of the windows had no bars, and they called to the prisoner to go and open it in order that they might help her to escape. This was easily done and an indignation meeting was immediately held on a piece of waste ground near by. Meanwhile Mr. Churchill was going on to his other meetings, but he found a woman readily to question him at every one.
Next day there were long columns in the Manchester papers dealing with these incidents whilst Mr. Churchill’s angry assertion that he would not be “henpecked” drew forth innumerable jokes from the humorous writers. A verse from one of these, entitled “The Heckler, and the Hen-pecker, with apologies to Lewis Carroll” ran as follows: —
“‘The price of bread’ the Heckler said, ‘is what we have to note.
Answer at once, who caused the war, and who made Joseph’s coat?’
But here the Hen-pecker, shrieked out, ‘Will women have the vote ?’
‘I weep for you’ the Heckler said, ‘I deeply sympathise, We have asked a hundred questions and yet had no replies.’ But here the Hen-pecker spread out a flag of largest size.”
Day by day the warfare with Mr. Churchill continued, a large proportion of the inhabitants of the district gradually becoming more and more completely converted to the women’s point of view. In some cases after violent scenes of disorder, the entire audience got up and left the meeting to show their sympathy with them.
In our Manchester election campaign we did not confine ourselves, however, merely to questioning and Heckling Mr. Churchill. We also held numberless meetings of our own and distributed thousands of leaflets.
One day my brother Harry, who was then fifteen years of age, suggested to us a scheme which, though it involved some risk of prosecution, we found irresistible. Accordingly, in the small hours of the last two mornings before polling, he and two of his school fellows set off with brush and paste can and some long narrow slips called “fly posters,” with “Votes for Women” printed in black letters upon them. Whilst the other two boys kept a lookout for passing policemen, Harry pasted these slips cornerwise across Mr. Churchill’s great red and white posters which appeared on every hoarding in the constituency, just as the ordinary advertiser does when he wishes to bring out special points of attraction to heighten the public interest.
Though Mr. Churchill won the Election, his majority was smaller than that of any of the other Manchester Liberal candidates.
One of the most active workers in the new militant campaign was Mrs. Flora Drummond, a cheery, rosy-faced little woman, a native of the Island of Arran. As a girl Flora Gibson had been daring and high-spirited, a good swimmer, a splendid walker, and the leader in all kinds of out-door sports and games. On leaving school she successfully passed all examinations for the position of post mistress, but immediately afterwards the Post Master General raised the height standard for all post masters and mistresses to five feet, two inches, the same standard being exacted both for men and women although the average height of men is of course greater than that of women. Flora Gibson was only five feet one inch in height, and as it had been only at considerable sacrifice that her widowed mother had been able to pay for her education, poor Flora was in despair; but her father’s relations agreed to pay the necessary fees for her to learn shorthand and typewriting. She soon became exceedingly skilled and took a Society of Arts certificate. Shortly after this she married Mr. Drummond, a journeyman upholsterer, and removed to Manchester, his native place. Soon after her marriage she was obliged to resume her typewriting because bad trade threw Mr. Drummond out of regular employment. Eventually she became manager. of the Oliver Typewriter Company’s office in Manchester. She had joined the W. S. P. U. on hearing of the imprisonment of Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst.
Mrs. Drummond was invaluable for the work of questioning Cabinet Ministers which was carried on continuously in spite of our Manchester election campaign. When, early in January, 1906, we heard that the Prime Minister was to speak at the Sun Hall, Liverpool, she and several other members of the Union agreed to go over and question him. Mr. Balfour, who was then fighting a losing battle in the effort to retain his old seat in East Manchester, had agreed to receive a deputation from our Union. Nothing very important came of the interview, though Mr. Balfour’s reply was kindly and sympathetic, but long before Mr. Balfour’s hotel had been reached the deputation had discovered that they were being shadowed by detectives. As it had been arranged that some of the women should go straight on to Liverpool, they made every attempt to shake off their pursuers. Proceeding first in one direction and then in another, they were tracked all over Manchester and Liverpool until finally Christabel said good-bye to her companions and returned to Manchester. Then, instead of breaking up into two parties the detectives all followed her, whilst the other women, in company with a nu
mber of Liverpool members of our Union, quietly made their way to the Sun Hall, where nine of them subsequently questioned the Prime Minister and were all thrown out of the hall without receiving a reply. After the first woman had been rejected Sir Campbell-Bannerman said: “If I might have done so, I could have calmed that lady’s nerves by telling her that I am in favour of Women’s Suffrage,” but this, of course, was no answer to the question as to whether the Government was prepared to enfranchise the women of the country.
On January 15th Mrs. Drummond and a number of her friends in Glasgow attended a meeting of the Prime Minister’s in the St. Andrew’s Hall there. Heckling is a regular institution in Scotland, and the Glasgow women declared that they would certainly receive courteous replies. On asking the usual question Mrs. Drummond was at once flung out by the stewards and immediately afterwards one of her companions who had hitherto been a staunch Liberal approached her with hat awry and dishevelled clothing saying in bewilderment, “Oh my, they pet me oot!”
During these weeks questions were also put at several other meetings including that of Mr. Asquith in the Sheffield Drill Hall. Everywhere the women were ejected. On January 25th one of the last big Liberal meetings of the General Election was held at Altrincham in Cheshire, Mr. Lloyd George being the principal speaker. The members of the W. S. P. U. who were present did not interrupt him during his speech but waited until he had finished before asking him the usual question. Mr. Lloyd George then said: “I was going to congratulate myself that I had escaped this; however, at the last meeting of the campaign the spectre has appeared.” That was all, and the women were quickly hauled out to prevent their again raising their voices.
So the General Election ended, and we were still left without that pledge from the Liberal leaders which we had set ourselves to gain. Those of us who went through the campaign will be ever at a loss to understand the motives which led the Liberal leaders to treat our first orderly and considerate questioning and even the later, more persistent heckling, as they did. They obviously had neither the wish nor the intention of giving votes to women during their term of office, and it was probably the fear of offending the ladies who canvassed for them that prevented their plainly saying so. Yet after all, they were accustomed to parrying the questioning of men and it was surely unwise, even from their own standpoint, to deal so violently with women.
All that had been done by the new militant suffragists up to now had been merely the brilliant skirmishing of an intrepid and resourceful little band of enthusiasts driven to employ somewhat unconventional methods, both by the old established custom of boycotting their cause and by the ruthless brutality of the forces that were arrayed against them. Our opponents called us “a stage army” and “a family party,” and the designations were not inapt, but the little stage army was always cleverly marshalled, and its soldiers were as cheerfully and affectionately loyal to the mother of the movement and to the young general who had initiated the new tactics as though in reality they had all been members of a single family.
During the General Election various attempts to press forward the question of Women’s Suffrage had also been made by the non-militant Suffragists. Miss Llewellyn Davies and others had organised a joint Manifesto on this question from a large number of societies. These included, amongst others, the Women’s Co-operative Guild with 20,700 members, the Women’s Liberal Federation with 76,000 members and the Scottish Women’s Liberal Federation with 15,000 members. The North of England Weavers’ Association, with 100,000. The British Women’s Temperance Association with 109,890 members, the Independent Labour Party with 20,000 members, and the Lancashire and Cheshire Textile and others Workers’ Representation Committee, whose Secretaries were Miss Eva Core-Booth and Mrs. Sarah Dickinson. The Women Textile Workers’ Committee had also run Mr. Thorley Smith as a Women’s Suffrage candidate for Wigan. Though Mr. Smith had not been elected, a good fight had been made and a very creditable vote secured; the figures had been: —
CHAPTER IV
JANUARY TO MAY, 1906
ANNIE KENNEY SETS OFF TO ROUSE LONDON — THE SCENE IN THE LADIES GALLERY AND THE DEPUTATION TO SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN.
As soon as the General Election was over, we began to make preparations for the opening of Parliament. It was decided that the work of our Union must be carried to London, and that we must have an Organiser there who would be able to devote the whole of her time to it. Annie Kenney, who, after her imprisonment, had never gone back to the Mill, was chosen for this post. The Election campaign had put a severe strain upon the resources of the Union, and from the first the raising of funds had been our greatest difficulty. Therefore, it was with only £2 in her pocket and the uncertainty as to whether more would be forthcoming that Annie Kenney set off “to rouse London.” Perhaps no one realised what a heavy task, and how many bitter rebuffs were before this sensitive, fragile girl. I took a room for her in the house where I was staying at 45, Park Walk, Chelsea, in order that we might consult, and as far as possible, work together.
The Committee in Manchester had not formulated any definite plans of campaign, but we came to the conclusion that we must organise a procession of women and a demonstration in Trafalgar Square for the day of the opening of Parliament. When Annie went to Scotland Yard to inform the police of our intentions, however, she was told that no meeting in Trafalgar Square could be allowed whilst Parliament was sitting. This forced us to the conclusion that we must hire a Hall somewhere near Westminster for our meeting place, but we knew not where to find the money to pay for it. This and other difficulties, however, were one by one smoothed away. Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Frank Smith (afterwards elected to the London County Council as member for Lambeth) were the first to help us, and they advised us to take the Caxton Hall, Westminster, and put us in touch with a sympathiser who agreed to pay the rent of it.
As soon as we had taken the Hall, we drafted a little handbill to announce the Meeting, and then, armed with her bills and her wonderful faith in the goodness of her fellow men and women, Annie Kenney proceeded with her mission, calling day by day upon people of whom she knew practically nothing, and to whom she herself was entirely unknown. One of those who kindly helped us was Mr. W. T. Stead, who published in the Review of Reviews a character sketch of Annie Kenney, in which he likened her to Josephine Butler. It was soon plain to us that it would be easier to ask for help if we formed a London Branch of the W. S. P. U., and with my aunt, Mrs. Clarke, and Mrs. Lucy Roe, our landlady, we therefore formed a Preliminary Committee.
In about a fortnight’s time my mother joined us. She was surprised to learn that so many arrangements had been made and at first was almost inclined to be appalled at the boldness of our plans. She was afraid that we should never induce more than a handful of women to walk in procession through the public streets, and that the Caxton Hall could not be filled. But the die was cast, and she threw herself into the work determined to do her very best to prevent failure.
A few days after this we heard that Mrs. Drummond was coming from Manchester to help us. Her husband was earning little at the time, and the Union had no money to provide her railway fare, but she had walked miles through the snow in order to collect the necessary funds from her friends. When she arrived, we were all of us growing very weary and overwrought. It seemed almost impossible to stir this great city, filled with its busy millions who appeared to have no time to think of anything but their own affairs. The thoughtless apathy of those whom we met with money and leisure at their disposal, the dull, hopeless inertia of those who agreed that we were right, but would not stir themselves to help, were to us in our anxiety, almost maddening. But Mrs. Drummond, with her practical ways and her inexhaustible fund of good humour, brought with her a spirit of renewed hope and energy. Her first act was to go to the office of the Oliver Company and borrow a typewriter from them. The secretarial duties were thus enormously lightened, and after rattling off the correspondence she was always ready to join us in delivering handbills, canvas
sing from house to house, or writing announcements of the forthcoming meetings with white chalk upon the city pavement.
At last the day of the opening of Parliament, February 19th, 1906, arrived, and a crowd of some three or four hundred women, a large proportion of whom were poor workers from the East End, met us at St. James’ Park District Railway Station. We formed in procession and put up a few simple banners, some of which were red with white letters, and had been made by working people in Canning Town, whilst the rest I had made of white linen and lettered with India ink in the little sitting-room at Park Walk. Our procession had gone but a few yards when the police came up and insisted upon the furling of the banners, but they did not prevent our marching to the Caxton Hall near by. Here we found that a large audience had already assembled, and soon the hall was crowded with women, most of whom were strangers to us. We were told afterwards that amongst the rest were many ladies of wealth and position, who, inspired with curiosity by the newspaper accounts of the disturbances which we were said to have created, had disguised themselves in their maids’ clothes in order that they might attend the meeting unrecognised.
Mrs. Pankhurst, Annie Kenney and others who spoke, were listened to with much earnestness and presently the news came that the King’s speech, the Government’s legislative programme for the session, had been read, and that it had contained no reference to the question of Women’s Suffrage. My mother at once moved that the meeting should form itself into a “Lobbying” Committee and should at once proceed to the House of Commons in order to induce its members to ballot for a Women’s Suffrage Bill. This resolution was carried with acclamation, and the whole meeting streamed out into the street and made its way to the House. It was bitterly cold and pouring with rain, but when we arrived at the Strangers’ Entrance, we found that for the first time that anyone could remember, the door of the House of Commons was closed to women. Cards were sent in to several Private Members, some of whom came out and urged that we should be allowed to enter, but the Government had given its orders, and the police remained obdurate. All the women refused to go away, and permission was finally given for twenty women at a time to be admitted. Then hour after hour the women stood outside in the rain waiting for their turn to enter. Some of them never got into the House at all, and those who did so went away gloomy and disappointed for there was not one of them who had received any assurance that Parliament intended to give women the vote.
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