The Suffragette

by Sylvia Pankhurst

  * * *

  1 Mr. Lloyd George’s baseless insinuation was of course indignantly and publicly repudiated by the men concerned.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  DECEMBER, 1909, TO JANUARY, 1910

  THE APPEAL OF PANKHURST AND HAVERFIELD V. JARVIS. THE FREEDOM LEAGUE PICKETS. MRS. PANKHURST RETURNS FROM AMERICA. MRS. LEIGH’S ACTION AGAINST THE HOME SECRETARY AND THE GOVERNOR AND DOCTOR OF WINSON GREEN GAOL, BIRMINGHAM. MISS DAVISON’S ACTION AGAINST THE VISITING JUSTICES OF STRANGEWAYS GAOL, MANCHESTER. ILL TREATMENT OF MISS SELINA MARTIN AND MISS LESLIE HALL AT WALTON GAOL, LIVERPOOL. LADY CONSTANCE LYTTON IMPRISONED IN WALTON GAOL AS JANE WARTON.

  WHILST Mrs. Pankhurst was still in America, the case in which she, Mrs. Haverfield and the ninety-two other women were concerned, which had been hanging over since the summer, was heard in the Divisional Court on December ist. It will be remembered that the Suffragettes had sought to put into practice the constitutional right to petition the Prime Minister as the representative of the Government and of the King. They held that this right was especially defined by two Acts, the Bill of Rights which declares that, “It is the right of the subject to petition the King and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal,” and the Statute 13, Charles II, which states:

  That no person or persons whatsoever shall repair to His Majesty or both or either Houses of Parliament upon pretence of presenting or delivering any petition, complaint, remonstrance, or declaration or other address, accompanied with excessive number of people, nor at any time with above the number of ten persons; upon pain of incurring a penalty not exceeding the sum of £100 in money or three months’ imprisonment without bail or mainprise for every offence; which offence to be prosecuted at the Court of King’s Bench or at the Assizes or general quarter sessions within six months after the offence committed and proved by two more credible witnesses. Provided always that this act or anything therein contained shall not be considered to extend to debar or hinder any person or persons not exceeding the number of ten aforesaid, to present any public or private grievance or complaint to any Member or Members of Parliament. …

  Though the women had complied with every provision of the Act, Sir Albert de Rutzen had decided at Bow Street that they had broken the law. In appealing against that decision In the Divisional Court, Lord Robert Cecil contended that in this country there was, and always had been, a right of petition and he urged that this right was a necessary condition of all free and indeed of all civilised Government. He pointed out that the right of petition had three characteristics; in the first place it was the right to petition the actual repositories of power; in the second place it was the right to petition in person, and in the third place it must be exercised reasonably.

  In support of his contention that petitions might be presented in person he quoted several historic instances including a petition of women to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in the reign of Henry IV, many petitions to various powerful personages from all sorts of men and women in the time of the Civil Wars and the disputes immediately preceding them; and petitions to the Lord High Steward asking for the conviction of Strafford. In addition to these he cited numbers of petitions presented in 1640, when deputations came to the House of Commons and the Members were instructed to go out and interview the petitioners and hear what they had to say; a great petition of 1680 as well as the petitions from the Gentlemen of Kent in 1701; that of the Silkweavers in 1765; and that of the Trade Unionists in 1834; all of which were presented in person. Throughout our history it was clear, he declared, that petitions had been presented, sometimes to the Houses of Parliament, sometimes to powerful individuals and sometimes to the King. He referred to a case mentioned in Sir Walter Scott’s “Fortune of Nigel,” in which, on King James II complaining of the way in which a petition was thrust into his hand in the streets, a gentleman named Jingling Geordie, had taken the opportunity of presenting a petition to him then and there in his private closet.

  Even without these historic examples the Statute 13, Charles II (already quoted) was enough to establish the right to present petitions in person. The Bill of Rights had specially confirmed the right of petition in so far as the King was concerned because the right to present a petition to the King had recently been called into question by the case of the seven Bishops, which had taken place on June 29th and 30th, 1688, in the reign of James II.

  The case had arisen because the King had ordered that his Declaration of Indulgence should be read in all the Churches in the country and the seven Bishops headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury being of opinion that the Declaration of Indulgence was beyond the power of the King, had therefore presented a petition to him setting forth this view. The King declared the petition to be a seditious libel, and the Bishops had been brought before the Court of King’s Bench. In summing up the case for the jury, Mr. Justice Holloway said, “So that if there was no ill-intent and they were not (as it is not nor can be pretended they were) men of evil lives, to deliver a petition cannot be a fault, it being the right of every subject to petition. The jury found the seven Bishops to be guiltless and the right of petition was thus confirmed.

  In quoting Mr. Justice· Holloway’s summing up, Lord Robert Cecil pointed out that the use of the words “to deliver a petition” clearly indicated that the right was to present the petition in person. If that were so, the women who had gone to Parliament Square on June 29 had done so in the exercise of a constitutional right. So long as they were denied votes, this was their only constitutional method of agitation for the redress of their grievances.

  If, as was contended, the right not only to petition, but to petition in person, belonged to each and every subject, the only point left to consider was as to whether the right had been exercised reasonably. If one wished to interview the Prime Minister or any Member of Parliament it was surely reasonable to go to the House of Commons by means of the Strangers’ Entrance. The evidence clearly showed that Mrs. Haverfield and the others had been on the public highway and had been brought up to the door of the House of Commons by Superintendent Isaacs of the Police, so that up to that point they could not possibly have done anything wrong. Opposite the door of the House of Commons an open space had been kept clear by the presence of a police cordon, the crowd not being allowed to reach this point. Within the cordon there were only members of the police force, persons who had business in the House of Commons and the eight members of the Women’s deputation. Therefore it was absurd to say that these eight ladies had caused an obstruction.

  It was suggested that the women ought to have gone away because, as he put it, “a casual policeman” had said that the Prime Minister was not in the House of Commons, but that was really not a sufficient answer. The ordinary procedure certainly was not to take an answer from a policeman in the street if one wished to interview a Member of Parliament. The police had no right to stop anyone from going into the House of Commons. It was also said that the women had been given a letter from the Prime Minister saying that he would not or could not see them. “Had he said, ‘I cannot see you here and now, but I will see you on such and such an occasion, this is not a convenient time,’ that,” argued Lord Robert, “would have been a sufficient answer, because the right to petition must be exercised reasonably, but his letter contained an unqualified refusal, and if the right to petition exists, that is no answer at all.”

  Lord Robert then submitted that if there is a right to petition a Member of Parliament there must be a duty on the part of a Member of Parliament to receive that petition, and that no one is justified in interfering with the exercise of that right. If the women were legally justified in insisting upon the right to present their petition they were also justified in refusing the order of the police to go away for there was no obligation to obey the police if the police were acting beyond the scope of their proper duties or contrary to the law of the land. In the case of Codd v. Cave a warrant had been issued against a man and a policeman had gone to his house to arrest
him without taking a warrant with him. The man had declined to go with the policeman and had knocked him down and injured him severely but it had been held by the Court that the man was not guilty because the policeman had no right to arrest him without a warrant.

  In delivering judgment the Lord Chief Justice said that he entirely agreed that there was a right to present a petition either to the Prime Minister as Prime Minister or as a Member of Parliament, and that petitions to the King should be presented to the Prime Minister. But he said the claim of the women was not only to present a petition but “to be received in deputation.” Had it been only to present the petition he did not think that Mr. Asquith would have refused, and he expressed the opinion that his refusal to receive the women in deputation was not unnatural, “in consequence of what we know did happen on previous occasions.”

  In making this remark the Lord Chief Justice showed that instead of concentrating his mind upon the actual case before him he was allowing himself to be biassed by inaccurate reports as to what had taken place on previous occasions. As a matter of fact Mr. Asquith never had received a deputation of women since he had been Prime Minister and never at any time had he received a deputation of the Women’s Social and Political Union in the House of Commons. Therefore it was absurd to talk about what had taken place on “previous occasions,” and, moreover, even if Mr. Asquith had received deputations on previous occasions and trouble had resulted, the Lord Chief Justice would have had no right to take these occurrences into account unless reliable evidence as to what actually had occurred had been laid before him in connexion with the case.

  Relying on the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839, which provides that it shall be lawful for the Commissioner of Police to make regulations and to give directions to the constables for keeping order and for preventing any obstruction of the thoroughfares in the immediate neighbourhood of the House of Commons and the Sessional Order which empowers the Police to keep clear the approaches to the House of Commons, the Lord Chief Justice decided that Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Haverfield and the other women had broken the law when they had insisted that they had a right to enter the House of Commons and that for this reason they had been properly convicted and that the appeal must be dismissed with costs.

  By this decision the Ancient Constitutional right of petition secured to the people of this country by the Act of 13, Charles II, and the Bill of Rights, was, for all practical purposes, rendered null and void. What is the use of a right that one may not put into practice? Does anyone suppose for one moment that the right of petition would have been cherished as it has been, and that people would have suffered heavy punishment for putting it into practice, in troublous times, if it had merely consisted in sending a written document obscurely, through the post, or by a messenger, to the person in power whom it was intended to influence? No, for the right could never have been anything but valueless. had the presentation of the petition not been accompanied by the pomp and circumstance, and the dramatic and spectacular character, of a public deputation, and by the influence that only personal pleading can lend. Every scrap of evidence tends to show that the right of petition was to be exercised personally. If it were otherwise why should the Act of Charles II have insisted that the signatories to the petition should be represented by a limited deputation? Moreover there is no suggestion that a written document was required and that the petition might not have been made, as it frequently was, by word of mouth.

  Shortly after this case of Pankhurst and Haverfield v. Jarvis had been decided the Divisional Court was again occupied with an appeal case bearing upon the right of petition, this time at the instance of the Women’s Freedom League. In July the League had followed the example of the W. S. P. U. in claiming the constitutional right of personal petition to the Prime Minister. After much preliminary negotiation a deputation of their number had appeared at the Strangers’ entrance to the House of Commons on July 5th and on being told that Mr. Asquith would not receive them they had announced their intention of waiting there until he should change his mind. They were allowed to wait and, reinforced by relays of others, continued to do so right on into the New Year and were constantly to be seen standing outside on the pavement both day and night, whenever the House was sitting. Many Members of Parliament appealed to Mr. Asquith to receive them and so bring their weary vigil to an end but he obstinately refused and always evaded “the Suffragette pickets,” as they were called. Usually he left the House by one of the underground passages but it was said that one night he hurried unrecognised through their lines. Punch then published a cartoon by E. T. Reed, entitled “Mr. Asquith’s disguises,” showing the Prime Minister as a cab driver, a postman, a policeman, an elderly maiden lady and in other characters.

  On July 9th, the pickets were also put on at No. 10 Downing Street, where they succeeded in waylaying the Prime Minister at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon and ran towards him crying, “A petition ! A petition! Will you give us a hearing, Mr. Asquith?” As he rushed past he snatched the document from one of them, saying, “Well, I will take the petition,” and then fled on up the steps and banged the door. The pickets were still waiting for the interview when the police arrived to arrest them. They were afterwards sentenced to three weeks’ imprisonment in default of paying fines of £3.

  On July 15th four women again picketted Downing Street, but were arrested and sent to prison without even so much as catching a glimpse of the Premier. On August 16th a line of women was drawn up between the House of Commons and the door of 10 Downing Street, where stood Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and Mrs. Despard. This time they saw Mr. Asquith, but though some of the women spoke to him, he hurried on without making any reply. Three days later, on the 19th, the line of women was again formed, but Mrs. Despard, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and six Others were placed under arrest. Mr. Tim Healy, the well-known Irish member of Parliament, was briefed for their defence, but on August 27th, Mr. Curtis Bennett decided to fine the women forty shillings or to send them to prison for seven days. He stated a case for the High Court and this was heard on January 14th, 1910, when the Lord Chief Justice decided against the women, saying that there were other means of presenting petitions than going in numbers to do so.

  Meanwhile it was announced that the cases against the ninety-four women who were concerned with Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Haverfield would be withdrawn, but at the same time application was made by the authorities for the fines recorded against Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Haverfield and it was intimated that unless these were forthcoming, steps would be taken to arrest and imprison them. But immediately after this, on Monday, December 6th, an official receipt for the amount of Mrs. Pankhurst’s fine was sent to Clement’s Inn and it was stated that the money had been paid by some unknown person.1 Two days later Mrs. Pankhurst returned from her lecturing tour in the United States and Canada, which had been a most triumphant success.

  On December 9th, the action by Mrs. Leigh against Mr. Gladstone as Home Secretary, and the Governor and Doctor of Winson Green Gaol, which was to decide the question of the legality of forcible feeding by the prison authorities, was tried before the Lord Chief Justice. It was pointed out on Mrs. Leigh’s behalf that there was no rule or regulation to justify forcible feeding. Dr. Ernest Dormer Kirby, who had attended her on her release, testified that her condition was “distinctly grave,” and that she had then weighed no more than six stone six pounds. Sir Victor Horsley, Mr. William Hugh Fenton, Senior Surgeon at the Chelsea Hospital for Women, and Mr. Mansell-Moullin all declared forcible feeding by means of the nasal tube to be painful, dangerous, injurious to health, and incapable of providing adequate nourishment. Dr. Maurice Craig, Consulting Physician of Welbach Street, and late Senior Assistant Physician at Bethlehem Hospital, who was called as a witness for the defence of Mr. Gladstone and of the officials, said that the operation of nasal feeding was “a simple one on the average.” He considered it more dangerous to leave a patient starving than to overcome resistance.

  Jessie Kenney as she t
ried to gain admittance to Mr. Asquith’s meeting on Dec. 10, 1909 disguised as a telegraph boy

  Sir Richard Douglas Powell, also called for the defence, admitted that he would not willingly resort to artificial feeding unless it was “quite necessary.”

  The Lord Chief Justice said that he should rule that it was the duty of the medical officer of the prison to take all reasonable steps to preserve Mrs. Leigh’s life and to prevent her committing suicide. The only question he should leave to the jury would be whether the governor and doctor had taken the right steps. In his summing-up he assumed throughout that the jury must decide against Mrs. Leigh. They did as he directed, and she thereupon lost her case.

  On January 19th, an action was begun by Miss Emily Wilding Davison against the visiting justices of Strangeways Gaol, Manchester, for having ordered that a hose-pipe should be played upon her. Judge Parry said that the use of the hose-pipe was both ineffective and unnecessary; that the duty of the visiting justices was to prevent any abuse of authority by the officials of the gaol; and to report and make suggestions. Therefore he held that they were not justified in ordering the assault, and decided the case in Miss Davison’s favour. In assessing the damages, however, he said that he should take into account the fact that the hose-pipe incident had resulted in the prisoner’s release before the expiration of her sentence; had provided her with “‘copy’ for a vivacious and entertaining account of the affair in the Press”; and had advertised her cause. Under these circumstances the damages should be no more than forty shillings, a nominal sum. The costs which were charged against the visiting magistrates were however placed on the highest scale because the case was held to be one of great importance.

  Meanwhile there was no lack of turbulent scenes all over the country. Cabinet Ministers’ meetings were daily being interrupted both by women who had succeeded in concealing themselves and by men who urged the question of Votes for Women on their behalf. When Mr. Lloyd George spoke at Reading two women started up from under the platform, during his speech. In the Queen’s Hall, London, a few days afterwards, a forcible feeding tube was suddenly flung at him and he caught it in his hands. As the stewards fell upon the man who had thrown it, Mr. Lloyd George cried, “I do not envy him his paid job.”