As Treasurer of the Union, Mrs. Lawrence bore upon her shoulders the special responsibility of meeting the very heavy cost of the demonstration as well as the other great expenses which were now being incurred; but that magnetic power of hers which had hitherto proved so invaluable to the movement was as infallible as ever. Whatever the sum she asked, it was immediately paid down. To make the forthcoming demonstrations known to everyone an immense poster, measuring thirteen feet by ten feet, containing the photographs of the twenty women who were to preside at the twenty platforms from which the audience was to be addressed, as well as a map showing the route of each of the seven processions and a plan of the meeting place in Hyde Park was displayed upon the hoardings in London and all the principal provincial towns at a cost to the Union of more than £1,000. Our organisers stationed in various parts of the country arranged for thirty special trains to run from seventy different towns in order to carry contingents of women demonstrators from the various provincial centres. At the same time London itself was systematically organised for the demonstration. My experiences as organiser of the Chelsea district which included also Fulham and Wandsworth, are vividly present with me as I write. At many of the open air pitches from which we then spoke, no Women’s Suffrage meetings had ever been held before, but wherever we went our experiences were, in their main essentials, always the same. Our first meeting was, usually, almost wholly a fight to subdue a continued uproar. On more than one occasion the little box or the chair used as a platform was overturned by a gang of hooligan youths, and the meeting had to be abandoned. But, whatever may have happened at the first meeting in a fresh place, we always found that at the second meeting the majority of the audience were sympathetic. At the third meeting all was harmony, and we were generally seen to our homeward trams or busses by cheering crowds.
Those splendid people, the Suffragettes of Kensington, not only contrived to carry on a constant campaign of meetings but at the same time to make all their own banners and bannerettes.
In the meantime the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, in conjunction with a number of other organisations, had decided to organise a women’s procession, and on June 13th, a week and a day before the Hyde Park demonstration, some 13,000 Suffragists assembled on the Embankment and marched to the Albert Hall where a meeting was held. It was a striking pageant with its many gorgeous banners, richly embroidered and fashioned of velvets, silks and every kind of beautiful material and the small bannerettes showing as innumerable patches of brilliant and lovely colour, each one varying both in shape and hue. Seventy of the large banners had been prepared by the Artists League for Women’s Suffrage. Some were blazoned with the figures of women great in history, amongst them, Boadicea, Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth; others bore emblems commemorating women’s heroic deeds, or reforming achievements,— Elizabeth Fry, Lydia Becker, and Mary Wollstonecraft, being amongst those recalled. Walking in the procession were many of Lydia Becker’s comrades and contemporaries, including the aged Miss Emily Davies, Dr. Garrett Anderson, and her sister, Mrs. Fawcett, the President of the National Union of Suffrage Societies. After these came a contingent of international Suffragists; Australians, Americans with their Stars and Stripes headed by Dr. Anna Shaw, and representatives from Hungary, Russia, South Africa, and other countries, each with their national flags and colours. The professional women were led by Mrs. Ayrton and other scientists and a great band of medical women in their, splendid robes of crimson and black, with hoods of purple, red and blue. Other graduates followed and the representatives of Newnham and Girton were in great force. Amongst the women writers, headed by the Scrivener’s banner, were Beatrice Harraden, Elizabeth Robins and Evelyn Sharpe. Then came the artists, the actresses. Next, the nurses, all in uniform, and, after these, a host of others, gardeners, pharmacists, physical trainers, typists and shorthand writers, shop assistants, factory workers, and home-makers. Next came the militant Women’s Freedom League, the Women’s Co-operative Guild, the National Union of Women Workers, and the members of various women’s organisations connected with the political parties including the Women’s Liberal Associations, and the women of the Independent Labour Party and the Fabian Society. Altogether the procession was acknowledged to be the most picturesque and effective political pageant that had ever been seen in this country, and every newspaper spoke of its impressive dignity and beauty.
Now the Women’s Social and Political Union and all whom they could press into the service were busily engaged on a ten days’ crusade for the winding up of the Hyde Park Demonstration campaign. How the women worked! They held innumerable meetings; they went out canvassing from door to door; they stood in the streets with flags and posters; they distributed handbills broadcast; chalked announcements upon the pavements and met the workmen’s trains to give out little purple, white and green mock railway tickets, a million of which had been printed. On the Thursday evening before the Demonstration, Mrs. Drummond and a dozen other members of the Union set sail for the Houses of Parliament in a steam launch decorated with banners and posters announcing the Demonstration. At the little tables on the terrace many members, including Mr. Lloyd George, were entertaining their lady friends at afternoon tea, when the sound of a band playing heralded the Suffragettes’ arrival. Everyone crowded to the water’s edge as the boat stopped, and Mrs. Drummond began to speak. She invited all Members of Parliament, and especially Cabinet Ministers, to join the womens’ procession to Hyde Park on the twenty-first of June, assuring them that it was their duty to inform themselves as to the feelings of the people. She twitted the Government who were supposed to be democratic with remaining always behind barred gates under the protection of the police, and urged, “Come to the Park on Sunday; you shall have police protection there also, and we promise you that there shall be no arrests.” The Members appeared both pleased and interested and many more came flocking out to listen, but somebody, a waiter it was said, hurriedly telephoned to the police and in a few moments Inspector Scantlebury with a number of officers appeared on the Terrace, whilst at the same time one of the police boats hove in sight. Seeing this, the Suffragettes steamed away.
The Head of the Procession to Hyde Park, June 21st, 1908
On Sunday, the 21st, we were busy early in the morning for the processions were to start between one and two; the people were expected to begin to assemble at least a couple of hours before that time. All London seemed to have turned out to see us, and all along the Chelsea Embankment, which was thronged with people, were coffee stands, costermongers, and hawkers selling badges and programmes in the purple, white and green. When the moment for starting came our Chelsea procession numbered some seven thousand people, but the dense crowds of by-standers marched with us too, and grew in a countless number as we moved along, so that, instead of one procession we had formed three — the central one being composed almost entirely of women, wearing white dresses and scarfs of purple, white and green, and carrying banners in the same colours. The whole road was filled with people moving with us, and from balconies, windows and tops of busses people cheered and waved. The same thing was happening in each of the other six districts. At the head of each procession rode policemen on horseback and numbers of constables walked on either side of the ranks in order to keep the way clear. Six thousand police in all accompanied the seven processions, the police authorities being most helpful and courteous toward us throughout the arrangements.
In Hyde Park the railings for over a quarter of a square mile had been taken up for us in order to add a further open space to that which is usually open in the neighbourhood of the Reformer’s Tree. In the centre of this meeting-ground a furniture van was stationed to serve as an impromptu Conning Tower. Those who stood there watching saw, first the fine procession from Marylebone with great crowds marching in on either side sweep into the quiet grassy space, and then, one after another, from the seven different gates, the rest of the seven processions with their accompanying armies come streaming in. Before
we arrived from Chelsea the whole ground was a surging mass of people, and it was with difficulty that we made our way to the platform which had been reserved for us. Once we gained it we clambered hastily on to our lorry and looked around with wondering and astonished gaze. As far as the eye could reach was one vast mass of human beings — not black, as crowds usually are,— but coloured, like a great bed of flowers because of the thousands and thousands of women all dressed in the lightest and daintiest of summer garments, whilst even the men had most of them come out in cool greys and were wearing straw hats. Over the whole of the area there was to be seen not a single blade of grass. Who could attempt to estimate the number of people that were present? They were innumerable; they defied calculation and there was no one of us who had ever imagined that we should see so many people gathered together. The sky was a perfect blue; the sun poured down on us; everyone seemed to be in holiday mood, just as they were in holiday dress, and during the time in which the people waited for the speakers to begin, perfect good humour reigned. Then bugles were sounded from the Conning Tower and the speeches at each of the twenty platforms began.
A Section of the great “votes for Women” meeting in Hyde Park on June 21st, 1908
Probably less than half the people could hear the speakers, but that was of small account. They had come there to show their sympathy with Votes for Women and to take part in the greatest demonstration the world had ever seen, and if they stood there the whole of the afternoon without catching a single sentence, they had been well rewarded. At most of the platforms there was nothing but the kindliest sympathy, except at the platforms of Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel, where a number of rowdy and ignorant young men attempted to prevent the speakers from being heard.
At five o’clock the bugle sounded and the Resolution calling upon the Government to give votes to women without delay was put and carried at every platform, in most cases without dissent. Then the bugle was heard again and the cry, “One, two, three !” and the assembled multitude, as they had been asked to do, shouted, “Votes for Women!” three times, and then that great and wonderful gathering began slowly to disperse.
Next morning every newspaper devoted long columns to the demonstration. In the course of a long descriptive account the Special Correspondent of the Times said:
Its organisers had counted on an audience of 250,000. That expectation was certainly fulfilled and probably it was doubled, and it would be difficult to contradict anyone who asserted that it was trebled. Like the distances and numbers of the stars, the facts were beyond the threshold of perception.
The Standard said:
From first to last, it was a great meeting, daringly conceived, splendidly stage-managed, and successfully carried out. Hyde park has probably never seen a greater crowd of people.
The Daily News said:
There is no combination of words which will convey an adequate idea of the immensity of the crowd around the platforms.
The Daily Express:
The Women Suffragists provided London yesterday with one of the most wonderful and astonishing sights that have ever been seen since the days of Boadicea…. It is probable that so many people never before stood in one square mass anywhere in England. Men who saw the great Gladstone meeting years ago said that compared with yesterday’s multitude it was as nothing.
The Daily Chronicle said:
Never, on the admission of the most experienced observers, has so vast a throng gathered in London to witness an outlay of political force.
Lord Rosebery and other Members of both Houses watching the Suffragettes’ struggle in Parliament Square, June 30th, 1908
After the great meeting was over, its organisers returned to Clement’s Inn and Christabel Pankhurst immediately wrote to the Prime Minister forwarding the Resolution: “That this meeting calls upon the Government to grant votes to women without delay,” which had just been carried by that great gathering. At the same time she asked “what action the Government would take in response to the demand.”
Mr. Asquith replied that he had nothing to add to the statement — the so-called promise of a Reform Bill, which he had made to the deputation of Members of Parliament on May 20th.
The wonderful Hyde Park Demonstration, the greatest meeting that had ever been held, and the impressive procession of the Women’s Societies both of which had been held within a few days’ space had therefore, it seemed, made no impression upon the Government. Seeing, therefore, that to argue further would be mere waste of time, the Women’s Social and Political Union immediately decided to take action. Hitherto, through all the hard battles which the Suffragettes had fought outside the House of Commons, they had never asked the general public to come to their aid, but, now that the great peoples’ demonstration in Hyde Park had been thus contemptuously ignored, it was decided to call upon both men and women to attend another monster meeting on June 30th, to be held this time in Parliament Square, in order that the Government could not fail to see.
The Commissioner of Police replied by issuing a warning to the public not to meet in Parliament Square, on the ground that danger would necessarily arise from the assembling of a large number of persons in that restricted area, through which the way must be kept for Members of Parliament.
Meanwhile, the W. S. P. U. again and again urged Mr. Asquith to receive a deputation, but he still refused, and at last he was informed that the deputation would start from the Women’s Parliament on June 30th, and would wait upon him at the House of Commons at half past four that afternoon. Once more he returned a refusal to see the women, but Mrs. Pankhurst herself replied, as their leader, that the deputation would arrive at the appointed hour. Next day Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and eleven other women set out from the Caxton Hall. At the main entrance of the building Superintendent Wells was waiting with a body of some twenty constables and, at his orders, as soon as the thirteen women had emerged, the doors were locked and even the Pressmen begged in vain to be released. Then the Superintendent constituted himself the leader and protector of the deputation and led them quickly through the cheering crowds who pressed forward pushing and struggling to catch a glimpse of the little band of women. Straight up Victoria Street he led them and right to the door of the Stranger’s Entrance where they were met by the burly and familiar form of Inspector Scantlebury surrounded by his minions. He stepped forward and addressed Mrs. Pankhurst gravely, “Are you Mrs. Pankhurst, and is this your deputation?” he asked. She answered, “Yes,” and he said, “I have orders to exclude you from the House of Commons.” “Has Mr. Asquith received my letter?” she questioned him in turn, and, replying, “Yes,” the Inspector drew the document from his pocket, adding in response to a further inquiry, that Mr. Asquith had sent no message of any kind by way of reply. Then Inspector Scantlebury turned away and walked into the House, leaving behind him a strong force of police to guard the door. For an instant or two the women stood there baffled, but they had to remember the resolve that this effort to interview the Prime Minister should be entirely peaceful. Moreover, there was the Mass Meeting of the evening. They therefore merely turned and made their way back to the Caxton Hall. Meanwhile larger and larger crowds were flocking towards Parliament from every direction, and long before eight o’clock, the time at which they had been asked to assemble, it was estimated by the newspapers that more than 100,000 people had collected in Parliament Square. The police had made most extensive preparations to prevent any meeting being held and it was said that more than 5,000 ordinary constables and upwards of fifty mounted men had been requisitioned for this purpose.
When, at eight o’clock, the women sallied forth in groups from the Caxton Hall to speak to the great multitude that had assembled in response to their appeal, the scene was already becoming turbulent. There were no platforms to speak from, and it would have been useless to provide them, for the police would instantly have dragged them from the ground. But it is possible to hold a meeting without official sanction and to make speeches w
ithout platforms and the women bravely essayed the task. Some of them clung to the railings of Palace Yard to raise themselves above the crowd, others mounted the steps of the offices in Broad Sanctuary, others the steps of the Government buildings at the top of Parliament Street opposite the Abbey, whilst others again merely spoke from the pavement wherever and whenever the police would cease for an instant from driving them along. Every woman who attempted to speak was torn by the harrying constables from the spot where she had found a foothold and was either hurled aside and flung into the dense masses that were being kept constantly on the move or placed under arrest. Meanwhile, the crowd was always surging and swaying forward shouting out mingled cheers and jeers.
Some groups of the men stood with linked arms around the women who were striving to make speeches, bodies of others pushed little band of Suffragettes forward against the rows of constables with cries of “Votes of Women,” “we’ll get you to the House of Commons,” and “back up the women and push them through !” Again and again the police lines were broken and again and again the mounted men charged and beat the people back. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Lord Rosebery and other members of both Houses stood in Palace Yard, and near the Strangers’ entrance watching the scene. As it became dark the disorder grew, and gangs of roughs who supported neither the government nor the women kept making concerted rushes, sweeping the rest of the people on before them, absolutely heedless of trampling others under foot. In some cases isolated women were surrounded by them and with difficulty rescued from their ill treatment by the soberer and more respectable members of the gathering. But, undaunted either by violence from the roughs or from the police, the Suffragettes, though their slight frames were bruised and almost worn out by the constant battering of those who were so much heavier, stronger and more numerous than themselves, still continued to address the throng. Every woman who was arrested was followed to the police station by a stream of cheering people and was saluted with raised hats and waving handkerchiefs.
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