The Suffragette

by Sylvia Pankhurst

  On December 19th a strange drama was played out in Aberdeen. The Liberal officials of the town, had succeeded in inducing the Suffragettes to promise not to interrupt Mr. Asquith, if he would answer the question of one woman, and they had begged Mrs. Black, the President of the local Women’s Liberal Federation, to be the woman. Mrs. Black had agreed “in the interests of peace,” as she said. When she rose up to comply with the Liberal official’s request, however, she was howled at by their enthusiastic followers in the audience, threatened by the stewards of the meeting, and told by the chairman that she was “out of order,” almost as though she had been a real Suffragette. Though at last she succeeded in putting her question, Mr. Asquith replied in snappish and hostile manner. Mr. Alexander Webster, a Unitarian Minister and well known citizen of Aberdeen, a slender, elderly figure, with long grey hair and the face of a saint, was afterwards violently handled for trying to move a women’s suffrage rider to the official resolution. Finally Mrs. Pankhurst, who was seated at the back of the hall, rose to explain the situation to the curious and excited audience, and was immediately thrown out of the hall. Then the meeting broke up in disorder. As the Aberdeen Free Press put it, “Many a Liberal left the meeting with the uneasy feeling that the Suffragettes had had the best of it.” Nevertheless the Suffragettes were loudly censured for these incidents especially by those who had consistently boycotted the Suffrage question when women had worked quietly for it in the old days. In reply to the critics Dr. George Cooper, an honest Radical and Member of Parliament for Bermondsey, in the course of a letter to the Daily News said:

  My political life began as a member of the Reform League. It is within my recollection that in 1867 and also in 1884 very few public speakers who were opposed to the extension of the Parliamentary franchise to men, whether members of the Cabinet or otherwise, could utter a single word at a public meeting. Meetings were broken up, platforms stormed and their occupants had to escape the best way they could. In 1884 every Tory speaker used against the extension of the franchise the same arguments now used by some Liberal speakers and newspapers against the extension of the Parliamentary franchise to women…. Why should women be condemned for using the same weapons men found so useful when demanding the vote for themselves? … Cabinet Ministers do not recognise antagonists using any other. There is one fact which cannot be denied. The activity of the Suffragettes has lifted the Women’s franchise Bill out of the category of amusing and frivolous debate into that of a serious political question.

  Meanwhile the Suffragettes were fighting at two more by-elections. The first of these was at Hull, where polling took place on November 29th, the result being that the Liberal vote was reduced from 8,652 to 5,623, and the Liberal majority from 2,247 to 241. The second of these contests, one of the most striking at which the W. S. P. U. has ever fought, was at Mid-Devon. In each of the seven elections that had occurred in this constituency since its creation in 1885 a Liberal candidate had been returned, the majority on the last occasion having numbered 1,289 votes. The Suffragettes at once opened Committee Rooms in the main street of Newton Abbott, the principal town in the division, and published a manifesto calling upon every elector who wished to see fair play for women to vote against the Liberal candidate, and concluding “We want votes for women this year. Defeat the Government in Mid-Devon as a message that women are to have votes in 1908.”

  The contest was a very trying one for the workers, for, in addition to the extensive area covered by the constituency, it took place in a season of heavy snow falls and bitter winds which came driving in from the sea. Besides this there was a most turbulent variety of human nature to contend with. The Mid-Devon Elections had always been notorious for their violent character and the roughs of Newton Abbott had long been a byword in the district. Early in the campaign the speakers representing both candidates were frequently howled down and were unable to continue their meetings, and, though on the whole we fared very much better, we ourselves had some similar experiences. On one occasion some of the Conservatives had arranged to speak at a place called Bovey Tracey, but they fled away on being told that the Liberals of the town were not only preparing to break up the meetings of their opponents but had even built a cage in which to imprison them. On the same day three young members of our Union had also appeared in Bovey Tracey. They too were warned of the terrible cage, but decided to hold their meetings in spite of it. All went well and they were told by the men who met to hear them that they had no desire to injure those who trusted them, and that the cage had only been built for cowards. On one occasion it happened that Mr. Buxton, the Liberal candidate, and the Suffragettes held simultaneous school-room meetings in the same village. The Liberal meetings had been advertised several days beforehand, but though ours was arranged on the spur of the moment, all the people came to our meeting and not a single person turned up to hear him.

  As time went on the state of the district became more and more turbulent and the great party newspapers, the London Tribune, Daily News, and others, sought to stir up the wildest and most unrestrained element in the constituency. The Daily News hailed with enthusiasm the formation of what was known as the “League of Young Liberals,” which was in reality a gang of young roughs whose first act was to push a policeman through the plate glass window of the shop which served as our Committee Rooms. This and other violent acts were described by the Daily News as “diverting incidents with the Suffragettes,” but the special correspondent of the Daily Mail, said:

  Miss Mary Gawthorpe, who usually has no difficulty in maintaining good-humoured relations with audiences of every class, was not only compelled to hear language from some of the Newton Abbot Liberal partisans that brought a flush to her face and tears into her eyes, but had to resist by force the efforts of one man to mount the waggon from which she and several other ladies were speaking. And the most pitiful part of the business was that the language and the conduct seemed to be regarded by their perpetrators as engaging little gallantries, appropriate to be offered to a lady.

  A few days later the roughs dragged the lorry in which our women were speaking round and round with such violence that it was feared that it would be overturned, and they only stopped when a little boy had been run over and trampled upon and seriously injured. Still the Liberal politicians made no protest. Mr. Buxton’s reply to a newspaper correspondent who asked him what he thought of the disorder was: “You must remember that they are keen politicians down here. From the fact that Mid-Devon has had three elections within the space of four years the people have necessarily heard a great deal about politics.”

  So the contest went on — Liberals and Conservatives smashing up each other’s meetings, howling each other down, pelting each other with vegetables from the market and snowballing each other on Dartmoor. The Daily Telegraph for January 10th, writing in regard to a Liberal meeting, threatened that, if the Unionists were not admitted, the building would be stormed.

  When on January 17th the poll was declared it was found that the Liberal candidate had been defeated. Everyone was surprised except the Suffragettes. The figures were:

  At the General Election the figures had been:

  After the declaration of the poll Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Martel, the only members of the Suffragette band left in the storm centre of Newton Abbott, saw Captain Morrison Bell escorted from the Market Square by a strong force of police, and were themselves urged to hurry away and leave the town at once. The warning seemed to them absurd, and Mrs. Pankhurst laughingly said that she had never yet been afraid to trust herself in a crowd. Immediately afterwards she and her companion met a procession of young men and boys wearing the Liberal colours, who were hurrying from their work in the clay pits. As soon as they heard that the Liberal had been defeated, one of them pointed to Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Martel: “Those women have done it.” Then the whole crowd of them started running and from somewhere or other there came a shower of rotten eggs. The two women were completely taken by surprise, and, more anxious
to avoid the eggs than the angry crowd, they rushed into a grocer’s shop, whilst a big brewer’s drayman, who had been standing by jumped into the doorway and fought their assailants off until they were safe. The men and boys outside howled as their prey escaped them, and the people to whom the shop belonged, though anxious to protect the women, cried out despairingly that the windows would be broken in. Mrs. Pankhurst at once said that she could not bear to be the cause of loss to those who had sheltered her, and at her own request she and Mrs. Martel were led through a back door and across a yard leading to a narrow lane behind, whence it was thought that they would be able to escape. As soon as the door had been shut upon them, their assailants who had guessed their movements came rushing up. Mrs. Martel was seized by one who caught her by the throat and began to beat her about the head, but in a flash the shopkeeper’s wife had heard the noise and had opened the door again and, somehow or other, she and Mrs. Pankhurst had rescued Mrs. Martel and had dragged her into the yard. The door was shut and safely bolted in all haste, but just as it closed, a man struck Mrs. Pankhurst a heavy blow on the back of the head, and, as she staggered on the threshold, pulled her back and she was left outside. Then the men gave an angry shout, and one of them, seizing her by the collar of her coat and by her wrists, flung her to the ground. She caught a glimpse of them all rushing on her, then for a time she knew nothing until she felt the wet mud soaking through her clothes. There was a pause. As she lay there looking at them, she saw that they had all closed round her in a ring, and that in the centre was an empty barrel. “Are they going to put me into it?” The thought flashed through her mind. Hours seemed to pass as she watched them, all dressed in drab-coloured clothes, smeared with yellow clay, and every one wearing a red Liberal rosette. They all seemed to be puny half-grown youths, and without knowing why she did so, she asked, “Are there no men here? “For an instant they still stood. Then one of them came forward, and she felt that whatever was to be done to her was about to begin, but suddenly there was a shout, and the police came galloping up with a crowd of rescuers at their heels. Her assailants turned tail, and she was lifted up and carried back through the yard into the shop. A large force of police now surrounded the premises, but a great crowd had assembled, and it was two hours before a motor car could be brought through it and the women were able to get away. The disorder did not end here, for the rowdies flocked thence to the Conservative Club, smashed every one of its windows, and kept its members besieged there all through the night. Next morning the body of Sergeant Major Rendall of the Royal Marines, an ex-Instructor of the Newton Abbot College, was found in the mill race. Foul play was suspected, as he had been severely bruised about the head. Throughout this violent disturbance not a single arrest was made. During the whole course of the election but one man was fined five shillings and costs for assaulting one of his political opponents. Well indeed might the Suffragettes say that the treatment meted out to them was very different from that extended to men who were fighting on the Government side.

  As a result of the attack which had been made upon her, Mrs. Pankhurst was unable to walk for some considerable time, and her ankle was so severely injured that it gave her trouble for more than a year, whilst owing to the treatment she received Mrs. Martel will probably always bear a scar upon her neck. Scarcely a word of regret for the violence which had been done to these two women ever appeared in the Liberal newspapers, who were so largely to blame for what had occurred. After the election was over the Conservative politicians claimed that they alone had kept out the Liberal and the Liberals also preferred to attribute their defeat to the Tariff Reformers rather than to the Suffragettes. Only one of-the Liberal newspapers, the Manchester Guardian admitted both during and after the election that the woman’s question had played a decisive part. The Special Correspondent of this paper, in the issue of January 20th, said:

  I think there can be no doubt that the Suffragettes did influence votes. Their activity, the interest shown in their meetings, the success of their persuasive methods in enlisting the popular sympathy, the large number of working women who acted with them as volunteers, these were features of the election which, although strangely ignored by most of the newspapers, must have struck most visitors to the constituency.

  An amusing proof that the Liberals in the district had considered the Suffragettes to be very formidable opponents came to light in the following mock mourning card which had been got out in expectation of the Liberal victory.

  Meanwhile the Suffragettes were fighting the Government at three other elections — at South Hereford (Ross), Worcester, and South Leeds. The result of the Poll at Ross was that the Liberal majority of 312 was turned into a Conservative majority of over 1,000. The figures were:

  The figures at the general election had been:

  * * *

  1 They afterwards moved to Robert Street, Strand.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE THIRD WOMEN’S PARLIAMENT, AND MORE MILITANT TACTICS

  CALLS UPON CABINET MINISTERS. THE THIRD WOMEN’S PARLIAMENT. THE PANTECHNICON VAN STRATAGEM. MRS. PANKHURST’S FIRST ARREST. MR. DICKINSON’S BILL, THE FIRST ALBERT HALL MEETING AND THE BY-ELECTION AT PECKHAM.

  INCIDENTS in the Votes for Women campaign now followed each other with such rapidity that they defy the chronicler who wishes to note them down. Because vigorous militancy was the order of the day, the Press teemed with articles upon the abstract question of Votes for Women and with notices of the doings of the Suffragettes. “SUFFRAGETTES IN DOWNING STREET,” “CABINET BAITING AS THE LATEST RUSE,” “SUFFRAGETTES IN CHAINS.” These and others of the same nature, were the startling headlines that one saw in the evening papers on January 17th and in the morning papers of the following day. It was merely that Mrs. Drummond and a number of other members of our Union, knowing that the Cabinet was sitting to decide upon the questions which should find a place in the legislative programme of the forthcoming session had made an attempt to urge upon them the necessity of dealing with the women’s claim.

  Whilst Press representatives were congregating in Downing Street, to snapshot the Ministers and to gain material for foolish paragraphs describing their appearance and manner of arrival at the first Cabinet Council of the Season, and whilst police were assembling to dance attendance upon the Prime Minister and his colleagues, three or four of the Women appeared to demand an interview. The police pulled them aside and the Cabinet Ministers brushed past as they tried to speak, and when they applied at the door of the official residence, no notice was taken. Then Miss New, well knowing that her words would be heard both inside the House and by the crowd that was collecting in the street, began to make a speech explaining what she and her friends had come for. Before beginning, she chained herself to the railings beside the Prime Minister’s front door, both symbolically to express the political bondage of womanhood, and for the very practical reason that this device would prevent her being dragged speedily away. Her example was followed by Nurse Olivia Smith and, whilst the police were struggling to break the double set of chains, a taxi-cab drove up and stopped on the opposite side of the street. Suspecting more Suffragettes, some of the constables rushed to the door of the cab which opened on to the pavement. At the same moment, Mrs. Drummond (for it was she who had devised this stratagem), opened the cab door on the road side and bounded across to the sacred Residence, where, as there was no one to bar her progress and as she now possessed the secret of the little knob in the centre of the door, she was inside and very near to the Council Chamber itself, before a number of men, some of whom she believed to be Cabinet Ministers, though owing to the violent and hurried nature of her ejection it was impossible to make quite sure, rushed upon her, and she was flung out and hurled down the steps. She was then arrested, and shortly afterwards she and four of her comrades found themselves before Sir Albert de Rutzen at Bow Street Police Court, charged with disorderly conduct. They were found guilty and on refusing to be bound, were sent to prison for three weeks. Instead of placing them i
n the first division, as had been done in the case of all the Suffragettes since the transfer of Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and the rest of us had taken place in October, 1906, the authorities reverted to the old plan of putting them in the second class.