My own story
by overstrain. Miss Henria Williams died on January 2nd, 1911, from
heart failure. Miss Cecelia Wolseley Haig was another victim. Ill
treatment on Black Friday resulted in her case in a painful illness
which ended, after a year of intense suffering, in her death on December
21st, 1911.
It is not possible to publish a full list of all the women who have died
or have been injured for life in the course of the suffrage agitation in
England. In many cases the details have never been made public, and I do
not feel at liberty to record them here. A very celebrated case, which
is public property, is that of Lady Constance Lytton, sister of the Earl
of Lytton, who acted as chairman of the Conciliation Committee. Lady
Constance had twice in 1909 gone to prison as a result of suffrage
activities, and on both occasions had been given special privileges on
account of her rank and family influence. In spite of her protests and
her earnest pleadings to be accorded the same treatment as other
suffrage prisoners, the snobbish and cowardly authorities insisted in
retaining Lady Constance in the hospital cells and discharging her
before the expiration of her sentence. This was done on a plea of her
ill health, and it was true that she suffered from a valvular disease of
the heart.
Smarting under the sense of the injustice done her comrades in this
discrimination, Lady Constance Lytton did one of the most heroic deeds
to be recorded in the history of the suffrage movement. She cut off her
beautiful hair and otherwise disguised herself, put on cheap and ugly
clothing, and as "Jane Warton" took part in a demonstration at
Newcastle, again suffering arrest and imprisonment. This time the
authorities treated her as an ordinary prisoner. Without testing her
heart or otherwise giving her an adequate medical examination, they
subjected her to the horrors of forcible feeding. Owing to her fragile
constitution she suffered frightful nausea each time, and when on one
occasion the doctor's clothing was soiled, he struck her contemptuously
on the cheek. This treatment was continued until the identity of the
prisoner suddenly became known. She was, of course, immediately
released, but she never recovered from the experience, and is now a
hopeless invalid.[2]
I want to say right here, that those well-meaning friends on the outside
who say that we have suffered these horrors of prison, of hunger strikes
and forcible feeding, because we desired to martyrise ourselves for the
cause, are absolutely and entirely mistaken. We never went to prison in
order to be martyrs. We went there in order that we might obtain the
rights of citizenship. We were willing to break laws that we might force
men to give us the right to make laws. That is the way men have earned
their citizenship. Truly says Mazzini that the way to reform has always
led through prison.
The result of the general election, which took place in January, 1911,
was that the Liberal Party was again returned to power. Parliament met
on January 31st, but the session formally opened on February 6th with
the reading of the King's speech. The programme for the session included
the Lords' veto measure, Home Rule, payment for members of Parliament,
and the abolishment of plural voting. Invalid insurance was also
mentioned and certain amendments to the old age pension bill. Women's
suffrage was not mentioned. Nevertheless, we were singularly lucky, the
first three places in the ballot being secured by members of the
Conciliation Committee. Mr. Philips, an Irish member, drew the first
place, but as the Irish party had decided not to introduce any bills
that session, he yielded to Sir George Kemp, who announced that he would
use his place for the purpose of taking a second reading debate on the
new Conciliation Bill. The old bill had been entitled: "A Bill to give
the Vote to Women Occupiers," a title that made amendment difficult. The
new bill bore the more flexible title, "A Bill to Confer the
Parliamentary Franchise on Women," thus doing away with one of Mr.
Lloyd-George's most plausible objections to it. The L10 occupation
clause was omitted, doing away with another objection, that of the
possibility of "faggot voting," that is, of a rich man conferring the
vote on a family of daughters by the simple expedient of making them
tenants of slices of his own property. The Conciliation Bill now read:
"1. Every woman possessed of a household qualification within the
meaning of the Representation of the People Act (1884) shall be entitled
to be registered as a voter, and when registered to vote in the county
or borough in which the qualifying premises are situated.
"2. For the purposes of this Act a woman shall not be disqualified by
marriage for being registered as a voter, provided that a husband and
wife shall not both be registered as voters in the same Parliamentary
borough or county division."
This bill met with even warmer approval than the first one, because it
was believed that it would win votes from those members who felt that
the original measure had fallen short of being truly democratic.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister showed from the first that he intended
to oppose it, as he had all previous suffrage measures. He announced
that all Fridays up to Easter and also all time on Tuesdays and
Wednesdays usually allowed for private members' bills were to be
occupied with consideration of Government measures. Hardly a Liberal
voice was raised against this arbitrary ruling. The Irish members indeed
were delighted with it, since it gave the Home Rule Bill an advantage.
The Labour members seemed complacent, and the rest of the coalition were
indifferent. One back bench Liberal went so far as to rise and thank the
Prime Minister for the courtesy with which the gagging process was
accomplished. There was some show of fight made by the Opposition, but
Conservative indignation was tempered by the reflection that the
precedent established might be followed to advantage when their party
came into power.
Sir George Kemp then announced that he would take May 5th for the second
reading of the Conciliation Bill, and the supporters of the bill,
according to their various convictions, set to work to further its
interests. The conviction of the W. S. P. U. was that Mr. Asquith's
Government would never allow the bill to pass until they were actually
forced to do so, and we adopted our own methods to secure a definite
pledge from the Government that they would give facilities to the bill.
In April of that year the census was to be taken, and we organised a
census resistance on the part of women. According to our law the census
of the entire kingdom must be taken every ten years on a designated day.
Our plan was to reduce the value of the census for statistical purposes
by refusing to make the required returns. Two ways of resistance
presented themselves. The first and most important was direct resistance
by occupiers who should refuse to fill in the census papers. This laid
the register open to a fine of L5 or a month's imprisonment, and thus
required the exercise of considerable courage. The second means of
resistance was evasion--staying away from home during the entire time
that the enumerators were taking the census. We made the announcement of
this plan and instantly there ensued a splendid response from women and
a chorus of horrified disapproval from the conservative public. The
_Times_ voiced this disapproval in a leading article, to which I
replied, giving our reasons for the protest. "The Census," I wrote, "is
a numbering of the people. Until women count as people for the purpose
of representation in the councils of the nation as well as for purposes
of taxation, we shall refuse to be numbered."
On the subject of laws made by men--without the assistance of women--for
the protection of women and children, I have a very special feeling.
From my experience as poor law guardian and as Registrar of Births and
Deaths, I know how ridiculously, say rather how tragically, these laws
fall short of protection. Take for instance the vaunted "Children's
Charter" of 1906, the measure which spread Mr. Lloyd-George's fame
throughout the world. A volume could be filled with the mistakes and the
cruelties of that Act, the object of which is the preservation and
improvement of child life. A distinguishing characteristic of the Act is
that it puts most of the responsibility for neglect of children on the
backs of the mothers, who, under the laws of England, have no rights as
parents. Two or three especially striking cases of this kind came into
notice about this time, and gave the census resistance an additional
justification.
The case of Annie Woolmore was a very pitiful one. She was arrested and
sentenced to Holloway for six weeks for neglecting her children. The
evidence showed that the woman lived with her husband and children in a
miserable hovel, which would have been almost impossible to keep clean
even if there had been water in the house. As it was the poor soul, who
was in ill health and weakened by deprivation, had to carry all the
water she used across a great distance. The children as well as the
house were very dirty, it was true, but the children were well nourished
and kindly treated. The husband, a labourer, out of work much of the
time, testified that his wife "starved herself to feed the kids." Yet
she had violated the terms of the "Children's Charter" and she went to
prison. I am glad to say that owing to the efforts of suffragists she
was pardoned and provided with a better home.
Another case was that of Helen Conroy, who was charged with living in
one wretched room, with her husband and seven children, the youngest a
month old. According to the law the mother was forbidden to have this
infant in bed with her overnight, yet part of the charge against her was
that the child was found sleeping in a box of damp straw. Doubtless she
would have preferred a cradle, or even a box of dry straw. But direst
poverty made the cradle impossible and the conditions of the tenement
kept the straw damp. Both parents in this instance were sent to prison
for three months at hard labour. The magistrate casually remarked that
the house in which these poor people lived had been condemned two years
before, but some respectable property owner was still collecting rents
from it.
Another poor mother, evicted from her home because she could not pay the
rent, took her four children out into the open country, and when found
was sleeping with them in a gravel pit. She was sent to prison for a
month and the children went to the workhouse.
These sorry mothers, logical results of the subjection of women, are
enough in themselves to justify almost any defiance of a Government who
deny the women the right to work out their destinies in freedom. No
pledge having been secured from the Prime Minister by April 1st, we
carried out, and most successfully, our census resistance. Many
thousands of women all over the country refused or evaded the returns. I
returned my census paper with the words "No vote no census" written
across it, and other women followed that example with similar messages.
One woman filled in the blank with full information about her one man
servant, and added that there were many women but no more persons in her
household. In Birmingham sixteen women of wealth packed their houses
with women resisters. They slept on the floors, on chairs and tables,
and even in the baths. The head of a large college threw open the
building to 300 women. Many women in other cities held all night parties
for friends who wished to remain away from home. In some places
unoccupied houses were rented for the night by resisters, who lay on the