The Suffragette

by Sylvia Pankhurst

  Members of Parliament could scarcely fail to have been impressed by the extraordinary scenes which had taken place, and when the adjournment of the House was moved that night a Unionist Member, Mr. Claud Hay, asked the Home Secretary whether it had been necessary to inconvenience its Members by surrounding Parliament with a body of police, both upon horse and foot, as great as though it had been a fortress instead of a deliberative assembly. It appeared to him, he said, that Mr. Gladstone was afraid of the women, but they were entitled to make a protest even if it were not agreeable to Members of Parliament, and there was no need to brow-beat them by using force. Mr. Gladstone replied that he had very little knowledge of what had been going on outside the House, but Mr. Claud Hay interrupted him with, “Then you ought to have!” At that he hesitated and changed his tone, saying that it was the police who were responsible for keeping open the approaches to the House, that they had only done their duty, and that he hoped they would continue to do it in the same way.

  Next morning all the world was talking of the mêlée, and in the newspapers there were long accounts and startling headlines describing the scenes that had taken place. These were very much more favourable to the women than any which had been published hitherto, for, though the Press was still far from admitting the extreme urgency of the cause of Women’s Suffrage, or the need for the militant tactics as a means of obtaining the Parliamentary vote, still a large section of both Press and public were unanimous in condemning the Government for the violent measures which it had employed to suppress the women’s deputation. Many compared the sending out of mounted police against a procession of unarmed women to the employment of Cossacks in Russia, and the Liberal Daily Chronicle published a cartoon called “The London Cossack” which showed a portly policeman riding off with a trophy of ladies’ hats.

  At ten o’clock on Thursday morning, January 14th, the fifty-seven women and the two men who had been arrested on the previous day appeared at the Westminster Police Court. The women were put in one of the side rooms, and then a band of policemen filed in and each one identified his prisoner. For most of the women this was a first visit to the police court, and, though many of them were severely bruised by the previous day’s encounter, they were all determined to make the best of the experience and to dwell, as far as possible, upon the humorous side of the situation. Whilst the Suffragettes were ready to forgive, the constables seemed mostly anxious to forget the violence, and many of the men asked their captives to give them the round white “Votes for Women” buttons which they were wearing as mementoes of the women’s famous “raid” on the House of Commons. After waiting until the drunkards and pickpockets had been disposed of, the Suffragettes were taken into the Court one or two at a time. Christabel Pankhurst, as organiser of the Demonstration was, at her own request, the first to be placed in the dock. She explained clearly that many of our members had suffered very seriously, but that the W. S. P. U. wished to fix the blame for what had occurred, not upon the police, but upon the Government that had dictated the use of these measures for clearing the women away. If the Government refused to take “the only just, simple and proper way out of the difficulty — that of giving women their undoubted right to vote,” she said, “the responsibility must be theirs, and if lives are lost in this campaign the Liberal Government will be directly responsible. One thing is certain; there can be no going back for us, and more will happen if we do not get justice.” Mr. Curtis Bennett, the magistrate, here intervened, saying with what he evidently thought was unanswerable firmness, that the women undoubtedly were responsible for all the trouble, that there were other means of obtaining votes; and that these disorderly scenes in the streets must be stopped. “They can be stopped,” she retorted, “but only in one way.” He looked at her sternly, and “twenty shillings or fourteen days,” was his sole reply. Then she was hurried away, and, in an incredibly short space of time, fifty-four Suffragettes had been tried and sentenced to undergo punishment varying from ten shillings or seven days’ imprisonment to forty shillings or one month. Forty shillings or one month’s imprisonment had also been imposed on a working man, Mr. Edward Croft, who had been arrested for trying to defend one of the women in Parliament Square. All those who had been convicted refused to pay their lines and decided to go to prison, and whilst Mr. Croft was removed to Pentonville, we Suffragettes were taken away in the van to Holloway Gaol.

  On arriving at the prison we found that, as was now the rule, most of our number were to be treated as first class misdemeanants, though some few, without any apparent reason were to be placed in the second division. Those of us who had been there some months before now found that several minor innovations had been introduced since our last visit to Holloway. When we had originally been put in the first class, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, who was a vegetarian, was daily served with the usual prison diet, and though she was obliged to leave the meat, no extra vegetables were allowed her, and she was obliged to exist on her potatoes and bread. Now a special dietary had been introduced for vegetarians, which consisted at this season of an alternation of carrots and onions, with occasional rather stale eggs as a substitute for meat, and milk, night and morning, instead of cocoa and tea. Butter was sometimes allowed by the doctor’s special order. Now that so large a number of us occupied adjoining cells in one corridor and were sent out to exercise together apart from the other prisoners, the authorities found it difficult to enforce the full rigour of the prison régime. They found it difficult to prevent our speaking to each other occasionally when we stood together in line waiting to be marched to exercise or chapel; they could scarcely stop the tapping out conversations on the cell walls which was carried on by neighbouring Suffragettes. Sometimes, when the wardresses were off duty, one of our number would strike up a hymn or march to which words suitable to our movement had been adapted. The others would join in chorus; and when the officers came hurrying back it would be some moments before silence could be restored.

  For one cause or another many of us were sent to the hospital, some being placed in a ward with some twenty or thirty other prisoners, others in separate hospital cells.

  With the exception of Mrs. Despard and myself all the Suffragettes were released at the end of the first fortnight, but our sentences did not expire until a, week later. A procession had been organised to welcome our comrades, and a band had played for an hour outside the prison gates. It is difficult to describe the effect upon ourselves which was created by the music. We knew that it was being played by our friends. We felt almost as though they were speaking to us, and to hospital prisoners who are not even allowed to attend service in the chapel, the very sound of the music in that dreary place was, extraordinarily impressive. It made one’s pulses throb and filled one’s eyes with tears.

  The poor ordinary prisoners were filled with excitement and delight and when we were out at exercise with them on the day before our release, woman after woman contrived to walk for a few moments either before or after one or other of us in the line and to ask if we also would be met by a band. “How splendid for you!” said one of the girls to me wistfully. “I only wish I had friends to meet me. But I am glad for you.” “We are looking forward to the band, but we shall be sorry to lose you,” another said.

  Whilst so many of us had been in prison, a by-election had taken place in South Aberdeen, where Mrs. Pankhurst, at the head of the Suffragettes’ forces, had vigorously opposed the Government candidate whose majority had fallen by more than 4,000 votes.

  The figures were: —

  At the General Election the figures had been: —

  The Suffragists, too, had not been inactive, for Mrs. Henry Fawcett, and four of her colleagues, had written to the Prime Minister asking that they might be allowed to plead the cause of Woman’s Suffrage at the Bar of the House. They pointed out that in 1688, Anne, the widow of Edward Fitz Harris, who was executed for treason in 1681, had been allowed to speak for herself and her children at the Bar, and that Mrs. Clarke, mistress of th
e Duke of York, had been summoned thither to give evidence in regard to the charges of corruption against the Duke. Nevertheless, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman refused to grant their request on the ground that there was no precedent for women to appear at the Bar of the House in support of a petition.

  Meanwhile, since the so-called “Raid” on the House that had led to our imprisonment, candid friends had been constantly telling us that we had entirely alienated the sympathy of those who had hitherto supported the enfranchisement of women. Yet, even whilst the “Raid” had been in progress, a very much larger number of Parliamentary representatives were agreeing to give their places in the private Members’ ballot to a Woman’s Suffrage Bill than had ever done so before. When the result of the ballot became known, it was found, that for the first time in the history of the movement, the fortunate member who had secured the coveted first place out of 670 was willing to devote it to introducing a measure to give votes to women. It was a Liberal member, Mr. Dickinson, who had won the first place and had decided to introduce the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill. The Anti-Suffragists at once began to work actively against the measure and the first Women’s Anti-Suffrage Society that had ever been formed was inaugurated to oppose it. Two petitions against the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill, one of them said to be signed by 21,000 and the other by 16,500 persons, were presented to Parliament on March 5th and March 22nd. They were heralded by the jubilations of our opponents but when the petitions came to be examined they were rejected by the Petitions Committee of Parliament as “informal.” This was because the separate sheets upon which the signatures had been written were not each headed by the prayer against the granting of Women’s Suffrage, and there was consequently no evidence to prove that the signatories had known for what purpose their names were being collected. Afterward Mr. J. M. Robertson examined the Anti-Suffrage Petitions and reported that “whole batches of signatures had been written in by a single hand,” that “the batch work began on the very first sheets,” and that it appeared as though the petitions “had been got up wholesale in this fashion.” Mr. J. H. Wilson, M.P., Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Petitions, afterwards stated in the House of Commons, that the names of whole families of persons had undoubtedly been written in by the same hand. But even had these petitions been so evidently authentic as to have been accepted by Parliament without question, they would still have been quite insignificant as compared with the great petitions and memorials in support of Votes for Women, which had been presented year after year since 1866. But the days in which women might have won or lost the Parliamentary vote by petitioning had long gone by, and all politically minded women knew this.

  For a Member of Parliament to declare himself in open opposition to Votes for Women, rendered him extremely unpopular, many of the anti-Suffragists, especially of the Liberal Party, now pretended that their reason for objecting to Mr. Dickinson’s Bill was that they did not consider it to be a democratic measure. They declared that it would “disfranchise married women” would give the vote to women of wealth and property only and! would exclude all those who had to work for their own living. So emphatically was this statement made that it was difficult to convince many people that the measure in question was the old equal Women’s Enfranchisement Bill, and that there was no intention of introducing some new-fangled, fancy franchise. Yet as a matter of fact, Mr. Dickinson’s Bill contained only a slight alteration in the wording, though not in the sense, of the last clause of the original measure. Instead of the phrase “any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding,” which occurred in the original Bill and was intended to strike at the disability of coverture which affects married women, the words, “A woman shall not be disqualified by reason of marriage from being so registered and voting, notwithstanding any law or custom to the contrary,” were substituted.

  On moving the Second Reading of the Bill, Mr. Dickinson dealt especially with the objections of those who declared that the measure was anti-democratic. He stated, that in 1904, the women electors in his constituency of North St. Pancras had numbered 1,014. Of these women three per cent, had belonged to the wealthy upper class, thirty-seven per cent, to the middle class, and sixty per cent, to the working class; many of the latter being exceedingly poor.

  When asked by the Secretary of the Local Women’s Suffrage Society in his constituency of Dunfermline, whether he would support the second reading of the Bill, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had replied, “I will with much pleasure give my support to Mr. Dickinson’s Bill when it comes before the House of Commons.” Now that the moment for fulfiling his promise had arrived, however, the Prime Minister threw cold water upon the measure. “I am not very warmly enamoured of it,” he said, and after casting doubt upon the accuracy of Mr. Dickinson’s figures he added, that in his opinion, the Bill would merely “enfranchise a small minority of well-to-do women.” Where the Prime Minister had led, the rank and file Anti-Suffragist Liberal Members of Parliament followed. Though they had neither facts nor figures of their own to quote in support of their contention, and, in face of both of Mr. Dickinson’s figures and Mr. Snowden’s reminder that the I. L. P. census of 1904 had shown that eighty-two per cent, of the women on the Municipal Register belonged to the working classes, they still continued to assert that only “a handful of propertied women” could obtain votes under this Bill. At the same time, although they themselves belonged almost exclusively to the middle and upper classes, they persistently stated their belief in the dangerous influence of the women who belonged to those same classes.

  As the afternoon wore on attempts were made to move the closure of the debate in order that a vote on the Bill might be taken, but the Speaker refused to accept the resolution, and at five o’clock Mr. Rees, the Liberal Member for Montgomery Burghs talked the measure out after a five hours’ debate. There was no protest from the Ladies’ Gallery this time as the Suffragettes had all been rigorously excluded, but both Suffragettes and Suffragists combined in urging the Government to give another day for the discussion of the Bill. This they curtly refused, and though the Suffragettes had not agreed to accept the decision as final and intended to renew their demand until it was granted, Mr. Dickinson shortly afterwards withdrew his Bill in order to make way for a Women’s Suffrage Resolution, a place for which had been obtained by Sir Charles M’Laren. No sooner had Mr. Dickinson’s Bill been withdrawn and Sir Charles M’Laren’s Resolution set down in its stead than it was blocked by a discreditable move on the part of a well known Anti-Suffragist, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Maurice Levy. Taking advantage of a rule of the House of Commons by which a Resolution cannot be proceeded with, if a Bill dealing with a similar subject has been introduced, this Liberal member now brought forward a Bill which he never intended to be discussed to give a vote to every adult man and woman. Therefore Sir Charles M’Laren’s Resolution was thus entirely shelved. This was not by any means the first time that the trick had been used in the case of a Women’s Suffrage motion, but the device was acknowledged to be an unjustifiable abuse of the Procedure rules. Mr. Levy refused even the Speaker’s request to withdraw his dummy Bill. Protests were raised on all sides of the House, because it was realised that, if the practice of bringing in dummy Bills to prevent discussion were to become common, the right of private Members to introduce Resolutions would be entirely destroyed. A Resolution embodying this point of view was therefore agreed to, and Mr. Asquith promised that the Government would take action in the matter.1 Though the question Was raised again three months later, however, the promise Was never kept, and though the general feeling Was that Mr. Levy had offended against the recognised etiquette of Parliament, it must be remembered, that, as the Standard put it “if the Government had chosen to exercise pressure Mr. Levy Would have proved complaisant.”2

  But after all this was only a Resolution, and, realising that the Government, with practically all the time of Parliament at its disposal, could easily provide the few days necessary for carrying into Law a Woman’s Su
ffrage measure, the Women’s Social and Political Union were now preparing for further militant action.

  On the day of the talking out of Mr. Dickinson’s Bill a meeting had been held by the Union in the Exeter Hall at which Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had called for subscriptions to inaugurate a £20,000 campaign fund, and over £1,400 had been sent up to the platform during the meeting. On March 20, 1907, the second Women’s Parliament assembled in the Caxton Hall.3 This Parliament was specially characterised by the large numbers of delegates from the provinces, amongst whom was a contingent of Lancashire Cotton Operatives, led by Annie Kenney and wearing their clogs and shawls. As before, the decision to carry a resolution to the Prime Minister was heralded with an enthusiasm that was almost fiercely overwhelming. Then, when Christabel Pankhurst called out from the platform, “Who will lead the deputation?” Lady Harberton, for many years a Suffragist of the old school, eagerly answered “I,” and at once hundreds of women sprang up to follow her. As soon as the deputation gained the street the police began to push and hustle them, but though overwhelmingly outnumbered, they bravely strove hour after hour to carry out their purpose. Rigid lines of police drawn up across the approaches to the House prevented their even getting near to it, and though at one point a number of Lancashire mill hands drove up in a couple of waggonettes, and, being mistaken for sightseers, succeeded in reaching the Strangers’ Entrance, they were discovered and beaten back.

  Meanwhile Caxton Hall was kept open all the afternoon and on into the evening, and the disabled women were constantly returning thither. They brought with them the news that numbers of women had been arrested, and that though Lady Harberton had at last got into the House of Commons, her petition had been ignored. Christabel Pankhurst then advised any who might succeed in entering Parliament to take sterner measures,— to rush, if they could, into the sacred Chamber of debate itself, to seat themselves upon the Government bench and demand a hearing. “If possible,” she cried, “seize the mace, and you will be the Cromwells of the twentieth century!” The women rushed back with renewed zeal.