At last someone looked round and saw that the police were already in the gallery and we realised that we were to be taken away in order that the Resolution might be “talked out” without our having an opportunity to protest. Irene Miller could no longer be restrained. She called out loudly, “Divide! Divide!” as they do in the House of Commons, and “We refuse to have our Resolution talked out.” Then we all followed suit, and Theresa Billington thrust a little white flag bearing the words, “Votes for Women” through the historic grille. It was a relief to thus give vent to the feelings of indignation which we had been obliged to stifle during the whole of the evening, and though we were dragged roughly out of the gallery, it was with a feeling almost of triumph that we cried shame upon the men who had wasted hours in useless talk and pitiful and pointless jokes with which to insult our countrywomen.
But the rough usage of the police was not by any means the hardest part of the experience. When we reached the Lobby, we learnt that our action had been entirely misunderstood. A number of non-militant Suffragists were present, and most of these believed, as the Members of Parliament were telling them, that, but for our “injudicious” action, a vote would have been taken upon the Resolution. They met us with bitter reproaches and disdainful glances, and even those Members of Parliament who had proved themselves to be absolutely careless of our question, now took it upon themselves to come up and scold us. On all sides we were abused, repudiated and contemptuously ridiculed, but, after a few days, public opinion began to turn somewhat in our favour. It leaked out that the Speaker had not intended to allow a Resolution calling for the closure of the debate to be moved, and it therefore became known that we had judged correctly in thinking that the Women’s Suffrage motion was to be talked out.
Writing in the Sussex Daily News for May 2nd, Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes, well known under his pen name “Sub Rosa,” recalled the account given in Lady Mary Montague’s “Memoirs” of the way in which the Peeresses of the eighteenth century had frequently disturbed the serenity of the House of Lords debates, and how they had triumphed over the Lord Chancellor Philip Yorke, First Earl of Hardwicke, who had attempted to exclude them from the House of Lords. Lady Mary describes the “thumping,” “rapping” and “running kicks” at the door of the House of Lords, indulged in by the Duchess of Queensberry and her friends, the strategy by which they finally obtained an entry, and the way in which, during the subsequent debate, they “showed marks of dislike not only by smiles and winks (which have always been allowed in these cases), but by noisy laughs and apparent contempts.” Mr. Hughes ended by saying, “After this excellent and pertinent account of the action of the Peeresses in the House of Lords, I suppose no one will be so silly as to complain of what the women did the other day in the House of Commons.”
Mr. Stead in the Review of Reviews published an article by a “Woman’s Righter,” who said:
Patience has been tried long enough, and what has it brought? Less than one ten minutes’ expression of the divine impatience that the Suffragists showed in the Ladies’ Gallery that memorable night! … “Surely it was unwomanly?” Pshaw! It was not anything like so unwomanly as it was unmanly to allow a cause admittedly just to be stifled without a single indignant protest.
Nevertheless, our supporters were still in the minority. Instead of upholding what we had done to rebuke the anti-Suffragists for their mean and cowardly policy of obstruction (a policy which had prevented the enfranchisement of women for so many years), the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and some of the members of the Parliamentary Committee, which was at the time engaged in arranging the deputation to the Prime Minister, now urged that the Women’s Social and Political Union had disgraced itself too deeply to form part of the deputation. Efforts were made to induce us to withdraw from it, but this we refused to do. At last, both because some Members of Parliament — and it is said Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman himself — strongly supported our claim to be represented, and because it was well known that if we were not received we should simply agitate for another deputation, the attempt to exclude us had to be abandoned.
On the morning of May 19th our procession started from the Boadicea statue on Westminster Bridge. First came the members of the Deputation to the Prime Minister, amongst whom were to be seen the veteran Suffragist, fragile little Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, with her grey curls, Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Mr. Keir Hardie, and Annie Kenney, wearing the clogs and shawl which she had worn in the Lancashire cotton mill. Amongst the deputation marched a body of women textile workers from Lancashire and Cheshire, who had joined us, carrying the bright banners of their respective trades. Then came the great red banner of the Women’s Social and Political Union, inscribed in white letters with the words, “We demand Votes for Women this Session.” The poles of the banner were lashed to a big forage lorry in which rode a number of women, who were either too old or too feeble to walk. After these came the members of the Women’s Social and Political Union and women members of various other societies and last of all, a large contingent from the East End of London, a piteous band, some of them sweated workers themselves, others the wives of unemployed working men, and many of them carrying half-starved-looking babies in their arms.
The deputation which assembled at the Foreign Office was introduced by Sir Charles M’Laren, and it was arranged that there should be eight women speakers. The first of these was the aged Miss Emily Davies, LL.D., one of the two women who in 1866, more than forty years before, had handed to John Stuart Mill the first petition for Women’s Suffrage ever presented to Parliament, and whose part in opening the University examinations to women, and in founding Girton, the first of the women’s colleges, will be gratefully remembered by women of all ages. In pleading for the removal of the sex disability Miss Davies said: “We do not regard it as a survival which nobody minds. We look upon it as an offence to those primarily concerned, and an injury to the community.” Then Mrs. Eva M’Laren, Miss Margaret Ashton and Mrs. Rolland Rainy, representing respectively some 80,000, 99,000 and 14,000 women Liberals in England and Scotland, urged, each in her own way, that the Party for which these women had done so much should extend the franchise to them.
Miss Eva Gore Booth and Mrs. Sarah Dickinson, who had herself been a factory worker for sixteen years and a Trade Union Organiser for a further eleven years, then spoke on behalf of the fifty delegates from the Lancashire and Cheshire Textile and other Workers’ Representation Committee. They dwelt on the low wages — often no more than six or seven shillings a week, and the other heavy economic hardships under which the women whom they represented were obliged to labour. They pointed out that these women, millions of whom since leaving school had never eaten a meal which they had not earned, were not only helping to produce the great wealth of the country but were caring for their homes and their children at the same time, and urged that they were every day more gravely conscious of the heavy disadvantage under which they suffered from their absolute lack of political power. Industrial questions were now becoming political questions, they said, and the vast numbers of women workers had their point of view and their interests which ought to be taken into consideration, but which were disregarded because they were without votes.
Next followed Mrs. Gasson, the speaker for 425 branches and 22,000 members of the Women’s Cooperative Guild. She said that the Co-operative movement, with its 62,000,000 members and annual trade of £60,000,000, had often been called a “State within a State.” In that State women had votes, they attended quarterly business meetings and voted side by side with men on questions of trade, employment and education. Women were elected as directors of Co-operative societies and also on Educational Committees connected with the Co-operative movement. And yet the prosperity of the co-operative “State” continued to increase, although in many places the women members outnumbered the men. The Co-operative Guild Women saw that when questions affecting the Co-operative movement came before Parliament the movement lost much of it
s power because the women had no vote. Unwise or unjust taxation was injurious to the Co-operative trade, and women were the chief sufferers by unjust taxation. Whatever taxes were put upon necessaries men did not receive larger incomes, and so women had less to spend. That very month Mr. Birrell had received Resolutions from large conferences of the Co-operative Guild members, urging that medical examination should be made compulsory under the New Education Bill, but the Resolutions were worth nothing without a vote behind them. The women who had sent up these Resolutions felt “like a crying child outside the door of a locked room, demanding entrance with no one to open it.” Most of the Co-operators were married working-women. Their houses were both their workshops and their homes, and therefore Housing and public Health questions were especially important to them. Their incomes were affected by laws relating to trades, accidents, pensions and all industrial legislation that went to secure the good health of the workers. Therefore they appealed that this common right, the right of a citizen, should be granted to them and to other women.
Mrs. Watson spoke on behalf of the Scottish Christian Union of the British Women’s Temperance Association, with a membership of 52,000 women. Then Mrs. Mary Bateson presented a petition for the franchise from 1,530 women graduates, amongst whom were Doctors of Letters, Science and Law in the Universities of the United Kingdom, the British Colonies and the United States.
Mrs. Pankhurst spoke for the Women’s Social and Political Union, the militant organisation of which most of the others were half afraid. She urged on its behalf that the women of the country should be enfranchised during that very year, either by a clause in the Plural Voting Bill then before Parliament, or by a separate measure. Assuring the Prime Minister that the members of the Union believed that no business could be more pressing than this, she stated calmly and firmly that a growing number of them felt the question of Votes for Women so deeply that they were prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice for it life itself, or what was perhaps even harder, the means by which they lived. She appealed to the Government to make such sacrifices needless by doing this long-delayed act of justice to women without delay.
Now that the women had all clearly and carefully laid their case before him, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman rose to reply. He began as though he had been an earnest and convinced supporter of the Women’s cause and dwelt at length not only upon the benefits which the franchise would confer upon them, but also on the enthusiasm which they had shown in working for it, their fitness to exercise it and the good work which they had already done in public affairs. Then, after a long pause, he said: “That is where you and I are all agreed. It has been very nice and pleasant hitherto, but now we come to the question of what I can say to you, not as expressing my own individual convictions, but as speaking for others, and I have only one thing to preach to you and that is the virtue of patience.” With hurried hesitating accents he explained that there were members of his Cabinet who were opposed to the principle of giving votes to women, and that, therefore, he must conclude by saying, “It would never do for me to make any statement or pledge under these circumstances.” Poor blundering old man, if he really spoke truthfully to the deputation, one may well pity him in that invidious and humiliating position.
During Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s last words there had been a strange silence amongst the women, and as he resumed his seat a low murmur of disappointment ran through the room. Mr. Keir Hardie had been asked by those in charge of the arrangements to move the vote of thanks to the Prime Minister for having received the Deputation, and, though he now performed this duty with characteristic graciousness of manner, he plainly said that all present must have suffered great disappointment on hearing the Prime Minister’s concluding statement. Nevertheless, they were glad to learn that the leaders of the two great political parties in the House of Commons were now personally committed to the question, by Mr. Balfour, a statement he had made in the House a few evenings before and the Prime Minister by what he had said that afternoon. “With agreement between the leaders of the two great historic parties,” Mr. Hardie said gravely, “and with the support of the other sections of the House, it surely does not pass the wit of statesmanship to find ways and means for the enfranchisement of the women of England before this Parliament comes to a close.” At this point Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman turned and looked at Mr. Keir Hardie and solemnly shook his head.
After the resolution had been seconded Mrs. Elmy, whose name had not been placed upon the authorised list of speakers, interposed, saying that she had worked in the cause of Women’s Suffrage since October, 1865, and that during that period she had seen the men voters of the country increased from less than 700,000 to more than 7,000,000. When the Reform Act of 1884 had been under consideration, women Suffragists had been full of hope, but Mr. Gladstone had refused point blank to give them the franchise. No Parliament had ever offered a greater insult to womanhood than the Parliament of that year, for it had actually taken six or seven divisions on the point as to whether a criminal should continue to be disfranchised for more than a year after his release from prison, but only one division had been taken to decide that English women should not exercise the vote. Every year it had become more and more difficult to remedy the injustices under which women suffered. “If I were to tell you of the work of the last twenty years of my life,” she said, “it would be one long story of the necessity for the immediate enfranchisement of women.”
The vote of thanks to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was then carried with feeble spiritless clapping and some hisses. Then the Prime Minister made his reply, but he did not in any way strengthen his previous declaration and ended by saying that what women had to do was “to go on converting the country.” As he concluded Annie Kenney suddenly rose up and cried, “Sir, we are not satisfied, and the agitation will go on.”
Then we dispersed to meet again at three o’clock in Trafalgar Square. No better meeting place could have been chosen, for it was here in Trafalgar Square, that Edmund Beales and the other leaders of the Reform movement had spoken when the Hyde Park gates had been closed against them by the authorities on that historic 23rd of July, 1866, on which the Park railings were pulled down and the blow struck which won the Parliamentary vote for the working men in the towns. It was here, too, that in February, 1886, John Burns had made that speech to the starving unemployed men of his own class which caused him to suffer a month’s imprisonment and made him a famous man, and it was here in Trafalgar Square on the 5th of November, 1887, that, in taking part in the Demonstration against the imprisonment of O’Brien and the other Irish leaders, poor Alfred Linnell had been trampled to death by the horses of the police.
On this ground, consecrate to the discontented and the oppressed, under that tall column topped by the statue of the fighting Nelson and on that wide plinth, flanked by the four crouching lions, the first big open-air Women’s Suffrage meeting in London was held. By three o’clock more than 7,000 people had assembled. I well remember every detail of the scene. In my mind’s eye I can clearly see the Chairman, my mother, with her pale face, her quiet dark clothes, her manner, calm as it always is on great occasions, and her quiet-sounding but far-reaching voice with its plaintive minor chords, I can see beside her the strangely diverse group of speakers: Theresa Billington in her bright blue dress, strongly built and up-standing, her bare head crowned with those brown coils of wonderfully abundant hair. I see Keir Hardie, in his rough brown homespun jacket, with his deep-set, honest eyes, and his face full of human kindness, framed by the halo of his silver hair. Then Mrs. Elmy, fragile, delicate, and wonderfully sweet, with her face looking like a tiny bit of finely modelled, finely tinted porcelain, her shining dark-brown eyes and her long grey curls. Standing very close to her is Annie Kenney, whose soft bright hair falls loosely from her vivid sensitive face, and hangs down her back in a long plait, just as she wore it in the cotton mill. Over her head she wears a grey shawl as she did in Lancashire, and pinned to her white blouse is a brilli
ant red rosette, showing her to be one of the marshals of the procession, whilst her dark-blue serge skirt just shows the steel tips of her clogs. How beautiful they are, these two women, as hand clasped in hand they stand before us! — one rich in the mellow sweetness of a ripe old age which crowns a life of long toil for the common good; the other filled with the ardour of a chivalrous youth; both dedicated to a great reform. But now, Annie Kenney speaks. She stands out, a striking, almost startling, figure, against the blackened stone-work of the plinth and speaks with a voice that cries out for the lost childhood, blighted hopes and weary, overburdened lives of the women workers whom she knows so well.
First Women’s Suffrage Demonstration ever held in Trafalgar Square, May 19th, 1906. Mr. Keir Hardie speaking: Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy in centre of the platform
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1 From the first, the London papers and especially the newly-inaugurated Daily Mirror, had been somewhat interested in our unusual methods of propaganda. It was just at this time that the Daily Mail began to call us “Suffragettes” in order to distinguish between us and the members of the older Suffrage Society who had always been called “Suffragists,” and who strongly objected to our tactics.
CHAPTER V
MAY TO AUGUST, 1906
DEPUTATIONS TO MR. ASQUITH AT CAVENDISH SQUARE; WOMEN ARRESTED AND IMPRISONED; THE BY-ELEOTIONS AT COCKERMOUTH; ADOPTION OF THE ANTI-GOVERNMENT POLICY.
As Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had told the deputation that he could not do anything for us because some members of his Cabinet were opposed to Women’s Suffrage, we determined to bring special pressure to bear upon the hostile Ministers, the most notorious of whom was Mr. Asquith, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Strangely enough, just as we had decided upon this course of action, we were virtually advised to adopt it by no less a person than Mr. Lloyd George, at that time, President of the Board of Trade. When interrupted by Suffragettes in Liverpool Mr. George claimed the sympathy of the audience on the ground that he himself was a believer in Votes for Women, and said: “Why do they not go for their enemies? Why do they not go for their greatest enemy?” At once there was a cry of “Asquith! Asquith!” from all parts of the hall, and as Mr. Lloyd George made no attempt to repudiate the suggestion that he had referred to Mr. Asquith, it was very generally assumed that he had done so. An opportunity to “go for” Mr. Asquith soon presented itself on the occasion of his speaking at Northampton on June 14th. A few days before the meeting, Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney visited the town and in a series of open-air meetings took the people of the place entirely into their confidence, with the result that Mr. Asquith was welcomed not by cheering but by hooting crowds.
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