My own story
Samuel--Evans was the man who had incensed women by talking out a
suffrage resolution introduced into the House by Keir Hardie. So we went
to two of his meetings and literally talked him out, breaking up the
gatherings amid the laughter and cheers of delighted crowds.
On October 23d Parliament met for its autumn session, and we led a
deputation to the House of Commons in another effort to induce the
Government to take action on woman suffrage. In accordance with orders
given the police, only twenty of us were admitted to the Strangers'
Lobby. We sent in for the chief Liberal whip, and asked him to take a
message to the Prime Minister, the message being the usual request to
grant women the vote that session. We also asked the Prime Minister if
he intended to include the registration of qualified women voters in the
provisions of the plural voting bill, then under consideration. The
Liberal whip came back with the reply that nothing could be done for
women that session.
"Does the Prime Minister," I asked, "hold out any hope for the women
for any session during this Parliament, or at any future time?" The
Prime Minister, you will remember, called himself a suffragist.
The Liberal whip replied, "No, Mrs. Pankhurst, the Prime Minister does
not."
What would a deputation of unenfranchised men have done in these
circumstances--men who knew themselves to be qualified to exercise the
franchise, who desperately needed the protection of the franchise, and
who had a majority of legislators in favour of giving them the
franchise? I hope they would have done at least as much as we did, which
was to start a meeting of protest on the spot. The newspapers described
our action as creating a disgraceful scene in the lobby of the House of
Commons, but I think that history will otherwise describe it. One of the
women sprang up on a settee and began to address the crowd. In less than
a minute she was pulled down, but instantly another woman took her
place; and after she had been dragged down, still another sprang to her
place, and following her another and another, until the order came to
clear the lobby, and we were all forced outside.
In the melee I was thrown to the floor and painfully hurt. The women,
thinking me seriously injured, crowded around me and refused to move
until I was able to regain myself. This angered the police, who were
still more incensed when they found that the demonstration was continued
outside. Eleven women were arrested, including Mrs. Pethick Lawrence,
our treasurer, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, Annie Kenney and three more of our
organisers; and they were all sent to Holloway for two months. But the
strength of our movement was proved by the number of volunteers who
immediately came forward to carry on the work. Mrs. Tuke, now Hon.
Secretary of the W. S. P. U., joined the Union at this time. It had not
occurred to the authorities that their action would have this effect.
They thought to crush the Union at a blow, but they gave it the greatest
impetus it had yet received. The leaders of the older suffrage
organisations for the time forgot their disapproval of our methods, and
joined with women writers, physicians, actresses, artists, and other
prominent women in denouncing the affair as barbarous.
One more thing the authorities failed to take into account. The
condition of English prisons was known to be very bad, but when two of
our women were made so ill in Holloway that they had to be released
within a few days, the politicians began to tremble for their prestige.
Questions were asked in Parliament concerning the advisability of
treating the Suffragettes not as common criminals but as political
offenders with the right to confinement in the First Division. Mr.
Herbert Gladstone, the Home Secretary, replied to these questions that
he had no power to interfere with the magistrates' decisions, and could
do nothing in the matter of the suffragettes' punishment. I shall ask
you to remember this statement of Mr. Herbert Gladstone's, as later we
were able to prove it a deliberate falsehood--although really the
falsehood proved itself when the women, by Government order, were
released from prison when they had served just half their sentences.
The reason for this was that an important by-election was being held in
the north of England, and we had distributed broadcast throughout the
constituency hand bills telling the electors that nine women, including
the daughter of Richard Cobden, were being held as common criminals by
the Liberal Government who were asking for their votes.
I took a group of the released prisoners to Huddersfield, and they told
prison stories to such effect that the Liberal majority was reduced by
540 votes. As usual the Liberal leaders denied that our work had
anything to do with the slender majority by which the party retained the
seat, but among our souvenirs is a handbill, one of thousands given out
from Liberal headquarters:
+------------------------------+
| MEN OF HUDDERSFIELD |
| DON'T BE MISLED |
| BY SOCIALISTS, SUFFRAGETTES |
| OR TORIES |
| VOTE FOR SHERWELL |
+------------------------------+
Meanwhile, other demonstrations had taken place before the House of
Commons, and at Christmas time twenty-one suffragettes were in Holloway
Prison, though they had committed no crime. The Government professed
themselves unmoved, and members of Parliament spoke with sneers of the
"self-made martyrs." However, a considerable group of members, strongly
moved by the passion and unquenchable ardor of this new order of
suffragists, met during the last week of the year and formed a
committee whose object it was to press upon the government the necessity
of giving the franchise to women during that Parliament. The committee
resolved that its members would work to educate a wider public opinion
on the question, and especially to advocate suffrage when addressing
meetings in their constituencies, to take Parliamentary action on every
possible occasion, and to induce as many members of Parliament as
possible to ballot for the introduction of a suffrage bill or motion
next session.
Our first year in London had borne wonderful fruits. We had grown from a
mere handful of women, a "family party" the newspapers had derisively
called us, to a strong organisation with branches all over the country,
permanent headquarters in Clements Inn, Strand; we had found good
financial backing, and above all, we had created a suffrage committee in
the House of Commons.
BOOK II
FOUR YEARS OF PEACEFUL MILITANCY
CHAPTER I
The campaign of 1907 began with a Women's Parliament, called together on
February 13th in Caxton Hall, to consider the provisions of the King's
speech, which had been read in the national Parliament on the opening
day of the session, February 12th. The King's speech, as I have
explained, is the official announcement of the Government's programme
for the session. When our Women's Parliament met at three o'clock on the
afternoon of the thirteenth we knew that the Government meant to do
nothing for women during the session ahead.
I presided over the women's meeting, which was marked with a fervency
and a determination of spirit at that time altogether unprecedented. A
resolution expressing indignation that woman suffrage should have been
omitted from the King's speech, and calling upon the House of Commons to
give immediate facilities to such a measure, was moved and carried. A
motion to send the resolution from the hall to the Prime Minister was
also carried. The slogan, "Rise up, women," was cried from the platform,
the answering shout coming back as from one woman, "Now!" With copies of
the resolution in their hands, the chosen deputation hurried forth into
the February dusk, ready for Parliament or prison, as the fates decreed.
Fate did not leave them very long in doubt. The Government, it
appeared, had decided that not again should their sacred halls of
Parliament be desecrated by women asking for the vote, and orders had
been given that would henceforth prevent women from reaching even the
outer precincts of the House of Commons. So when our deputation of women
arrived in the neighbourhood of Westminster Abbey they found themselves
opposed by a solid line of police, who, at a sharp order from their
chief, began to stride through and through the ranks of the procession,
trying to turn the women back. Bravely the women rallied and pressed
forward a little farther. Suddenly a body of mounted police came riding
up at a smart trot, and for the next five hours or more, a struggle,
quite indescribable for brutality and ruthlessness, went on.
The horsemen rode directly into the procession, scattering the women
right and left. But still the women would not turn back. Again and again
they returned, only to fly again and again from the merciless hoofs.
Some of the women left the streets for the pavements, but even there the
horsemen pursued them, pressing them so close to walls and railings that
they were obliged to retreat temporarily to avoid being crushed. Other
strategists took refuge in doorways, but they were dragged out by the
foot police and were thrown directly in front of the horses. Still the
women fought to reach the House of Commons with their resolution. They
fought until their clothes were torn, their bodies bruised, and the last
ounce of their strength exhausted. Fifteen of them did actually fight
their way through those hundreds on hundreds of police, foot and
mounted, as far as the Strangers' Lobby of the House. Here they
attempted to hold a meeting, and were arrested. Outside, many more women
were taken into custody. It was ten o'clock before the last arrest was
made, and the square cleared of the crowds. After that the mounted men
continued to guard the approaches to the House of Commons until the
House rose at midnight.
The next morning fifty-seven women and two men were arraigned, two and
three at a time, in Westminster police court. Christabel Pankhurst was
the first to be placed in the dock. She tried to explain to the
magistrate that the deputation of the day before was a perfectly
peaceful attempt to present a resolution, which, sooner or later, would
be presented and acted upon. She assured him that the deputation was but
the beginning of a campaign that would not cease until the Government
yielded to the women's demand. "There can be no going back for us," she
declared, "and more will happen if we do not get justice."
The magistrate, Mr. Curtis Bennett, who was destined later to try women
for that "more," rebuked my daughter sternly, telling her that the
Government had nothing to do with causing the disorders of the day
before, that the women were entirely responsible for what had occurred,
and finally, that these disgraceful scenes in the street must
cease--just as King Canute told the ocean that it must roll out instead
of in. "The scenes can be stopped in only one way," replied the
prisoner. His sole reply to that was, "Twenty shillings or fourteen
days," Christabel chose the prison sentence, and so did all the other
prisoners. Mrs. Despard, who headed the deputation, and Sylvia
Pankhurst, who was with her, were given three weeks in prison.
Of course the raid, as it was called, gave the Women's Social and
Political Union an enormous amount of publicity, on the whole,
favourable publicity. The newspapers were almost unanimous in condemning
the Government for sending mounted troops out against unarmed women.
Angry questions were asked in Parliament, and our ranks once more
increased in size and ardour. The old-fashioned suffragists, men as well