MAY TO AUGUST, 1906
DEPUTATIONS TO MR. ASQUITH AT CAVENDISH SQUARE; WOMEN ARRESTED
AND IMPRISONED; THE BY-ELECTIONS AT COCKERMOUTH; ADOPTION OF THE
ANTI-GOVERNMENT POLICY.
As Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had told the deputation that he could
not do anything for us because some members of his Cabinet were opposed
to Women's Suffrage, we determined to bring special pressure to bear
upon the hostile Ministers, the most notorious of whom was Mr. Asquith,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Strangely enough, just as we had
decided upon this course of action, we were virtually advised to adopt
it by no less a person than Mr. Lloyd George, at that time, President
of the Board of Trade. When interrupted by Suffragettes in Liverpool
Mr. George claimed the sympathy of the audience on the ground that he
himself was a believer in Votes for Women, and said: "Why do they not
go for their enemies? Why do they not go for their greatest enemy?" At
once there was a cry of "Asquith! Asquith!" from all parts of the hall,
and as Mr. Lloyd George made no attempt to repudiate the suggestion
that he had referred to Mr. Asquith, it was very generally assumed that
he had done so. An opportunity to "go for" Mr. Asquith soon presented
itself on the occasion of his speaking at Northampton on June 14th.
A few days before the meeting, Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney
visited the town and in a series of open-air meetings took the people
of the place entirely into their confidence, with the result that Mr.
Asquith was welcomed not by cheering but by hooting crowds.
During the meeting and at the end of his speech Mr. Asquith was
questioned by several women, all of whom were ejected with the greatest
violence, whilst the audience broke into the now familiar turmoil. The
cowardly and unnecessary brutality shown to them by the stewards at
recent Liberal meetings, had by this time aroused great indignation
amongst the women. Theresa Billington, who was of strong and vigorous
physique and whose instinct, like that of every man, was to strike back
if she were hit, had come to feel that she could no longer quietly
endure the disgraceful treatment to which she had been subjected on
several occasions. To this meeting therefore, she had gone armed with a
dogwhip, the weapon she felt most suitable to employ against cowardly
men. Her intention was not to use it if she were merely dragged out of
the meeting, just as a man might have been, but only if her assailants
should seek to take advantage of the fact that she was a woman and
should behave in a peculiarly objectionable way.[7] Therefore, when
the stewards had torn down her hair and treated her with every form of
indignity and violence, not merely in dragging her from the hall but
outside in the corridors as well, she had pulled out her whip and made
a fairly free use of it.
The general trend of events now made us feel the necessity of securing
a personal interview with Mr. Asquith, and we therefore wrote asking
him to receive us. He replied that his rule was not to receive any
deputation unconnected with his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and we then wrote as follows:--
TO THE RIGHT HON. H. H. ASQUITH, CHANCELLOR OF
THE EXCHEQUER.
_Sir_:
I am instructed by my Committee to say that the subject of the
enfranchisement of women, which they desire to lay before you, is
intimately bound up with the duties of your office. Upon no member
of the Cabinet have women greater claims than upon the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Your Budget is estimated on a system of taxation
which includes women. Women not being exempt from taxation have a
right to claim from you a hearing. Women are told that you are mainly
responsible for the refusal of the Prime Minister to deal with their
claim. But being convinced of the justice of giving votes to women
they renew their request that you receive a deputation on an early
date in order that their case may be presented to you.
Faithfully yours,
E. SYLVIA PANKHURST.
Hon. Sec. of the London Committee of the Women's Social and Political
Union 45, Park Walk, Chelsea, S.W.
Mr. Asquith returned no answer to this our second letter, and
therefore, without making any further attempt to obtain his consent, we
wrote to him saying that a small deputation would call at his house,
No. 20 Cavendish Square, on the morning of Tuesday, June 19th. On the
appointed day the women arrived just before 10 o'clock in the morning,
but, early as it was, they were told that Mr. Asquith had already gone
to the Treasury. They thereupon decided that half their number should
wait on the doorstep and that the other half should go to look for
him. Those who went to the Treasury were told that Mr. Asquith had not
arrived, and those who remained on guard at his house were equally
unsuccessful, for whilst they had been standing there waiting, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had escaped through the back door in a
closed motor car.
Our determination to meet Mr. Asquith face to face was still strong,
and after our failure to see him on the Tuesday we at once wrote to say
that we were sending a larger deputation to interview him in two days'
time. We had now three flourishing branches of the Union in London,
one in the centre and two in the East End, and some thirty or forty
representatives, partly drawn from these branches and partly from our
central Committee, formed the deputation.
Carrying little white Votes-for-Women flags and headed by Theresa
Billington, some thirty of the East End members marched off in
procession for Mr. Asquith's house; but on arriving at the edge of
Cavendish Square, they were met by a strong force of police who told
them that they must at once turn back. The poor women stood still
in affright, but would not turn. Then the police fell upon them and
began to strike and push them and to snatch their flags away. Theresa
Billington tried in vain to prevent this violence, "We will go
forward," she cried. "You shall not hit our women like that," but a
policeman struck her in the face with his fist and another pinioned her
arms. Then she was seized by the throat and forced against the railings
until, as was described by an onlooker, "she became blue in the face."
She struggled as hard as she could to free herself but was dragged away
to the police station with the East End workers following in her train.
Immediately afterwards Annie Kenney, with a number of others, most
of whom were members of our Committee, came into the Square. Annie
knew nothing of what had taken place and, preoccupied and intent on
her mission, she walked quickly across the road, but, as she mounted
the steps of Mr. Asquith's house and stretched out her hand to ring
his bell, a policeman seized her roughly by the arm and she found
herself under arrest. Following this, Mrs. Knight, one of the East End
workers, who, because she suffered from hip disease had felt that she
could not walk in the procession, came into the Square and crossed the
road. On seeing none of the other women she concluded that they had
already gone into Mr. Asquith's house. She intended to join them but,
just as she was about to step on to the pavement opposite No. 20, she
was roughly pushed off the curb-stone by a policeman and arrested as
soon as she attempted to take another step forward. Mrs. Sparborough,
a respectable elderly woman dressed with scrupulous neatness in worn
black garments, who by the work of her needle supported herself and her
aged husband, stood watching this scene in deep distress. Noticing that
two maid servants and some ladies at the window of Mr. Asquith's house
were laughing and clapping their hands, she turned to them protesting
gravely: "Oh, don't do that. Oh, don't do that. It is a serious matter.
That is how _the soldiers were sent to Featherstone_."[8] A policeman
immediately pounced upon her and dragged her away.
At the police court afterwards Theresa Billington, on being charged
with an assault upon the police, refused either to give evidence or to
call witnesses in her defence, saying that she objected to being tried
by a court composed entirely of men and under laws in the framing of
which men alone had been consulted. Her plea was abruptly swept aside
and she was ordered to pay a fine of £10 or in default to go to prison
for two months.[9]
Miss Billington chose imprisonment, but her resolution was balked by
"an anonymous reader of the _Daily Mirror_," who handed the amount of
her fine to the Governor of Holloway Gaol.[10]
The charges of disorderly conduct against the other three women were
adjourned until July 14th.
Every charge against the prisoners, except that of being in Cavendish
Square with the object of seeing Mr. Asquith broke down, but Mr. Paul
Taylor, the magistrate, who seemed quite incapable even of trying to
understand their motives, decided that they had created an obstruction
and ordered them to enter into their own recognisances in the sum of
£50 and to find one surety for the same amount, to be of good behaviour
and to keep the peace for twelve months. In the event of their not
finding such sureties and consenting to be so bound over he ordered
that they should be sent to prison for six weeks.
To agree to be bound over to keep the peace would have been both an
admission of wrongdoing and a promise to refrain from similar methods
of agitation. Rather than this Annie Kenney preferred to suffer a
second imprisonment and the other women, though they had but recently
joined the Union and though many friends urged that they had already
done good work and might now fairly return to their homes, decided that
they too would go to gaol.
In the meantime there were stirring doings in Manchester. On June 23rd
there had been a great Liberal Demonstration at the Zoological Gardens,
Belle View, on the outskirts of the town, where Mr. Lloyd George,
Mr. John Burns and Mr. Churchill had been the principal speakers.
Representatives of the Women's Social and Political Union had been
present to question the Cabinet Minister and had been thrown out as
soon as they had raised their voices. In the scuffle Mr. Morrissey, a
Liverpool city councillor, intervened to protect his wife from the
violence of the stewards and was very roughly used. As the Suffragettes
were flung by the stewards into the public road outside they were
ordered to move on by the police and because Mr. Morrissey, whose leg
had been seriously injured by his assailants, was unable to walk away,
he was arrested. Seeing this my youngest sister, Adela, then scarcely
out of her teens, and only about five feet in height, expostulated
with one of the constables and in doing so laid her hand upon his
arm, saying, "Surely you can see that Mr. Morrissey cannot walk!" But
at that she was accused of attempting to effect a rescue, and was
also taken into custody. The councillor's wife and a friend, who both
offered similar protests, were treated in the same way. The case of
these four people came up in Manchester simultaneously with that of
Annie Kenney and her comrades in London, with the result that Adela was
committed to prison for a week on refusing to pay a fine[11] of five
shillings and costs whilst Mrs. Morrissey and Mrs. Mitchell on refusing
to be bound over to keep the peace were imprisoned for three days. Of
course this punishment was for daring to urge an unwelcome question
upon Members of the Government, but as this was not a punishable act
the charges of disorderly conduct outside in the road had been trumped
up.
The question of these trials was raised in the House of Commons by
Mr. Keir Hardie, who declared that it was stretching the law too
far to forbid a deputation to approach a private house. He also
pointed out that Mr. James Kendall, one of the magistrates who had
tried the case of the Manchester Suffragettes, and had been Chief
Steward at the Liberal meeting from which they had been ejected, Mr.
Cremer and Mr. Maddison both delivered vindictive speeches against
the Suffragettes, the former describing the sentence passed upon them
as "extremely lenient" and the latter referring to them as "female
hooligans." The more sensational and less reputable of the newspapers
adopted a similar line speaking of the women as "Kenney," "Knight"
and "Sparborough," calling them "mock martyrs" and "martyrettes" and
publishing hideous and libellous drawings of them. Even the staider and
more serious periodicals gave one-sided and biassed accounts of what
had taken place, rebuking the Suffragettes for what they termed their
"disgraceful behaviour," telling them that they were "ruining" their
cause, and urging them to save it by returning to "Constitutional" and
"orderly" methods of propaganda.
The following interesting and valuable letter to the press from Mr.
T. D. Benson, the Treasurer of the Independent Labour Party cleverly
exposed the hypocrisy of these strictures:--
_Dear Sir_:
Having had, through illness, plenty of time on my hands this last
week, I have made a calculation of the number of years which the lady
Suffragettes have put back their movement. I find that it amounts to
somewhat about 235 years. The realisation therefore, of their aims is,
according to this mode of chronology, as far off in the future as the
Plague and the Fire of London are in the past. Nevertheless, I shall
not be surprised if they succeed within the next twelve months, or two
or three years at the most.
Of course, when men wanted the franchise, they did not behave in
the unruly manner of our feminine friends. They were perfectly
constitutional in their agitation. In Bristol I find they only burnt
the Mansion House, the Custom House, the Bishop's Palace, the Excise
Office, three prisons, four toll-houses, and forty-two private
dwellings and warehouses, and all in a perfectly constitutional and
respectable manner. Numerous constitutional fires took place in the
neighbourhoods of Bedford, Cambridge, Canterbury and Devizes. Four men
were respectably hanged at Bristol and three in Nottingham. The Bishop
of Lichfield was nearly killed, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was
insulted, spat upon, and with great difficulty rescued from amongst
the yells and execrations of a violent and angry mob. The Suffragists
in those days had a constitutional weakness for Bishops, and a savage
vandalism towards cathedrals and bishops' palaces. A general strike
was proposed, and secret arming and drilling commenced in most of the
great Chartist centres. Wales broke out even into active rebellion,
and nine men were condemned to death. At London, Bradford, York,
Sheffield, Liverpool, Chester, Taunton, Durham and many other towns
long sentences of penal servitude were passed. In this way the males
set a splendid example of constitutional methods in agitating for the
franchise. I think we are well qualified to advise the Suffragettes to
follow our example, to be respectable and peaceful in their methods
like we were, and then they will have our sympathy and support.
Yours truly,
T. D. BENSON.
"The Downs,"
Prestwich,
July 3rd, 1906.
The day after the trial Mrs. Pethick Lawrence received from Annie
Kenney a little note hastily scribbled in pencil and posted by some
kind-hearted person just as she was being taken away from the Police
Court cell. "I am writing this," it read, "before going in the van. I
am very happy and I shall keep up and be brave and true, and when I
come out I shall be fully prepared to do anything the Union asks of me."
As yet most of us knew little of the interior of a prison, but, on
those burning July days, we knew enough to think with sorrow and
anxiety of our comrades shut away from the beauty of the summer in the
heat of their small, stifling cells. We heard with joy that they were
happy and contented to suffer imprisonment for the women's cause.
And now it seemed to us as though the spirit of revolt against
oppression were flowing onward and spreading, like some great tide
to all the womanhood of the world. We read of that wonderful Marie
Spiridonova, the Russian girl who after enduring the most incredible
and unspeakable torture and dying in the agony of her wounds, was yet
upborne by the greatness of the cause for which she suffered, and cried
with her last breath, "Mother, I die of joy." The movement towards
liberty then springing up amongst the women of the Far East also
inspired us. We read of the words of one of the Korean women leaders
who said:--
The women of our country are the most pitiable of all civilised
humanity.... They are enclosed like prisoners, bottled up like fish.
But we must remember that after the cock crows the dawn comes, and
after work there is reward. Should we but put forth together our
feeble efforts a way will be found of accomplishing our object and
women will gradually be able to stand in the shining light of the sun
and to breathe the sweet heavenly air freely and happily.
News of the Women's cry for freedom came to us from North, South,
East and West, and we felt ourselves part of a Universal movement. We
were keyed up to any sacrifice. We felt that the fate of other women
depended upon us. We knew that our battle to overcome the first and
greatest barrier--to obtain political liberty--was to be a sharp one.
We hoped it would be short. We heard that on June 14th, but a month
before our women had gone to prison, the women of Finland had gained
their vote. We believed then that the franchise would be won for
British women within a few months' time.
Very soon after Annie Kenney, Mrs. Knight and Mrs. Sparborough had
gone to prison, another opportunity occurred for our Union to strike
a blow at the Government, for it was announced that there was to be
a by-election; this time at Cockermouth. Christabel was at first the
only member of the Union free to take part in the Election. She at
once introduced an entirely new departure in electioneering tactics
by hiring a stall in the market-place, where she sold Votes-for-Women
literature. When, by this means she had collected a sufficient crowd
around her, she mounted a stool and addressed the people, explaining to
the electors that she wished them to vote against the Liberal candidate
in order to show the Government that they did not approve of its
refusal to give votes to women. After a time other women joined her and
the little band of Suffragettes made a considerable impression upon the
people of Cockermouth, who had heard of the imprisonments in London
and Manchester and who were deeply moved by learning that women were
prepared thus to fight and to suffer for their cause. When on August
3rd, the poll was declared, it was found that the Liberals had lost
the seat which had long been held for them by Sir Wilfred Lawson, and
that Sir John Randles, the Unionist candidate had been returned by a
majority of 690. The figures being:
Sir John Randles (U) 4,593
Hon. F. Guest (L) 3,903
Robert Smillie (Lab.) 1,436
The Votes at the General Election had been:
Sir W. Lawson (L) 5,439
Sir J. Randles (U) 4,784
Probably because the Liberal nominee against whom she was working
had been returned to Parliament, and also because she had been
single-handed, Mrs. Drummond's campaign at Eye had passed almost
unnoticed outside the constituency itself. At Cockermouth, on the other
hand, the Liberal had been defeated, and so it naturally followed that
all the influences that had led to his defeat were carefully analysed
by the politicians and the Press. Some of the members of the Women's
Social and Political Union had formerly been Liberals and though the
Liberal leaders steadfastly declared that the action of women could
make no possible difference to the situation, they were very deeply
incensed by the thought that women should dare to put the question of
their own enfranchisement before every other consideration and, instead
of seeking to win the Government's favour as they had done in the
past, should prefer attempting to force those in power to attend to
their claims.
To a man the politicians were surprised. "Who would have dreamt,"
they said, "that women could be so selfish?" Though their candidate,
Mr. Robert Smillie, had not been attacked, the Labour men were also
discontented, for there were Labour women in the Women's Social and
Political Union, and they considered that these particular women ought
to have been working directly for the Labour Party and not to have been
subordinating its interests to the getting of votes for themselves. The
Conservatives meanwhile said very little about the matter, for their
candidate had won and having, therefore, no reason to be aggrieved,
they contented themselves with declaring that a glorious victory had
been won for the cause of Tariff Reform.
So much for the politicians. The Party-following Press, with scarcely
an exception, had been unanimous from the very first in their hostility
to the Women's Social and Political Union and its methods. Now, as
before, they either shook their heads at us, expressing sorrow and
regret that we should place ourselves in opposition to the "forces of
progress," or merely professed amusement that we should be so foolish
and conceited as to think that anything that we could say or do would
influence elections.
Timid and half-hearted friends of the Suffrage movement also condemned
the new by-election policy on the ground that it was unwise for women
to thus oppose the Government that had the power, if it wished, to
give them what they asked. All this, of course, was to be expected,
and so was comparatively easy to meet--it is what every true reformer
has had to face. But even amongst some of those who had been hitherto
the warmest supporters of the Suffragettes and all that they had
done, there was much heart-searching and heart-burning because of the
independent by-election policy, and it was felt by these that a mistake
was being made in thus holding aloof from Men's party organisations and
counting as nought the opinions of private Members of Parliament. The
W. S. P. U. pointed out to them that a large majority of the private
Members in the House of Commons had long been pledged to give their
support to Women's Suffrage but that these pledges had been useless.
This was due in the first place to the fact that private Members had
little power to carry their pledges into effect because practically all
the time at the disposal of Parliament was taken up by the Government,
and that, as had been done on the 29th of April, a few obstructionists
could easily block the question unless the party in power were prepared
to find further time for it. Besides this, private members had over and
over again shown that they would willingly break the pledges they had
made to women at the bidding of their party leaders.
But these explanations failed to reassure many faint-hearted doubters,
for though they agreed that in theory the independent policy was well
enough, they felt convinced that in practice it was doomed to fail.
They freely admitted that the women, by their clever speeches and the
undeniable justice of their cause, would be almost certain to convince
the electors that they were in the right, but they urged that the
British elector was a hard-headed individual, who could never be
induced to throw aside his party politics and to cast his vote on this
one issue alone, especially as this issue was a women's question that
did not directly affect him.
So these critics agreed that the policy would "be possible with an
electorate of heroes, but not with average men." For this reason it
must fail.
But in spite of these gloomy predictions the Women's Social
and Political Union held to its course, and did not swerve one
hair's-breadth from the plan of campaign that it had laid down.
An anti-Government election policy has frequently been employed by
men politicians; notably by the Irish under Parnell. In the course of
the agitation for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, Mrs.
Josephine Butler and her colleagues fought the Government at many
by-elections, but with that exception an anti-Government by-election
policy had never been adopted by women. In following it out now, when
many members, even of our own Committee doubted its wisdom, and few
were really enthusiastic in its favour, Christabel Pankhurst, its
originator in this case, gave evidence of that keen political insight
and that indomitable courage and determination which are so essential
to real leadership, and which have since enabled her to steer the
Suffragette ship through so many dangerous shoals and quicksands.
On August 14th the three Suffragettes, "Mr. Asquith's Prisoners,"
as they had been called, were released from Holloway. They were all
cheerfully and bravely uncomplaining. Mrs. Knight and Annie Kenney
were both white and feeble-looking but only spoke of their anxiety to
be of service to the cause, whilst Mrs. Sparborough, though she had
got rheumatism through being made to scrub the stone floor of her cell
without a kneeler, made light of the imprisonment, saying that she had
felt peaceful and happy and had sung hymns to herself to drive her
loneliness away.
And now great meetings of welcome to the prisoners were being held in
London and Provincial campaigns were being organised in various parts
of the country. Everywhere that the fiery torch of zeal and enthusiasm
was carried there was warm sympathy from the masses of the people and
the slumbering desire for enfranchisement amongst all classes of women
began to awake. Mrs. Lawrence was holding a series of fine meetings in
Yorkshire. Annie Kenney, after addressing vast and enthusiastic crowds
in Lancashire, made her way up to Scotland and with Theresa Billington
went on to Mr. Asquith's constituency of East Fife. Aroused by their
speeches the women here demanded that The Chancellor of the Exchequer
should receive them in deputation. He judged it wisest to consent, but
protected himself from meeting the two ex-prisoners by stipulating that
only residents in the constituency should be present. In his reply to
this deputation he declared himself to be still an opponent of their
cause. "Then there is no hope for women?" asked one of them; but he
only answered "Women must work out their own salvation."
In Wales the flag of the W. S. P. U. was being hoisted by Mary
Gawthorpe,[12] another new recruit, a winsome, merry little creature,
with bright hair and laughing hazel eyes, a face fresh and sweet as a
flower, the dainty ways of a little bird, and having with all so shrewd
a tongue and so sparkling a fund of repartee, that she held dumb with
astonished admiration, vast crowds of big, slow-thinking workmen and
succeeded in winning to good-tempered appreciation the stubbornest
opponents. Whilst she was in his constituency, it was announced that
Mr. Samuel Evans who had "talked out" the Votes-for-Women resolution
on the twenty-ninth of April, and who was now appointed a Law Officer
of the Crown, was coming to speak to his constituents. Miss Gawthorpe
determined to talk him out as he had "talked out" the Women's
resolution. She therefore attended two of his meetings and at the first
of these was dragged out by the stewards, but at the second a strong
force of men gathered round to protect her and insisted that she should
be heard. The Chairman then tried to checkmate her by playing the Welsh
National Anthem, but little Mary won all hearts by leading off the
singing, and so poor a figure did Mr. Samuel Evans cut that Mrs. Evans
was said to have declared that next time there was a Women's Suffrage
debate in the House of Commons she should keep her husband at home.
In London the work was being organised by Christabel, who amongst other
things was conducting an active campaign in Battersea, the constituency
represented by Mr. John Burns, the President of the Local Government
Board. The income of the Union was still very small, and everything had
to be done with the strictest possible economy. The money for meetings
in halls was only forthcoming on very special occasions, and wherever
possible the expenses of printing and advertising were curtailed. A
large number of meetings were held at street corners, with a chair
borrowed from a neighbouring shop as platform, and, in order to collect
a crowd, my sister started the custom of ringing a large muffin bell.
One of those who had been greatly impressed by the work of our Union
was Miss Elizabeth Robins, the novelist, whose impressions of these
early days of the movement are so graphically described in her novel,
_The Convert_.
The following extract from this book is a very truthful picture of a
typical Battersea meeting:
In Battersea you go into some modest little restaurant, and you
say, "Will you lend me a chair?" This is a surprise for the
restaurateur.... Ernestine carries the chair into the road and plants
it in front of the fire station. Usually there are two or three
helpers. Sometimes Ernestine if you please, carries the meeting
entirely on her own shoulders--those same shoulders being about so
wide. Yes, she is quite a little thing. If there are helpers she
sends them up and down the street sowing a fresh crop of handbills.
When Ernestine is ready to begin she stands on that chair in the open
street and, as if she were doing the most natural thing in the world,
she begins ringing that dinner bell. Naturally people stop and stare
and draw nearer. Ernestine tells me that Battersea has got so used now
to the ding-dong and to associating it with "our meetings," that as
far off as they hear it the inhabitants say, "It's the Suffragettes,
come along." And from one street and another the people emerge
laughing and running. Of course, as soon as there is a little crowd
that attracts some more, and so the snowball grows.... Last night
she was wonderful.... When she wound up "The motion is carried; the
meeting is over!" and climbed down off her perch, the mob cheered
and pressed round her so close that I had to give up trying to join
her. I extricated myself and crossed the street. She is so little
that unless she is on a chair she is swallowed up. For a long time I
could not see her. I did not know whether she was taking the names
and addresses of the people who wanted to join the Union, or whether
she had slipped away and gone home, till I saw practically the whole
crowd moving off with her up the street. I followed for some distance
on the off side. She went calmly on her way--a tiny figure in a long
grey coat between two "helpers," a Lancashire cotton spinner and the
Cockney working-woman and that immense tail of boys and men (and a
few women) all following after--quite quiet and well-behaved--just
following because it didn't occur to them to do anything else. In
a way she was still exercising her hold over her meeting. I saw
presently there was one person in front of her; a great big fellow who
looked like a carter. He was carrying home the chair.... Oh, if you
could only see her! Trudging along, apparently quite oblivious of her
quaint following, dinner bell in one hand, leather case piled high
with leaflets on the other arm. Some of the leaflets sliding off and
tumbling onto the pavement. Then dozens of hands helped her to recover
her property....
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Out of all the many hundreds of women who have taken part in the
militant Suffrage movement, and in spite of the many kinds of violence
to which they have been subjected, only three women upon three single
occasions, have ever made use of any weapon to protect themselves from
their assailants.
[8] Some years before a trades dispute had taken place at Featherstone
in the course of which Mr. Asquith was said to have ordered that the
military should be called out, and as a result the soldiers had fired
upon the workingmen who were on strike. In consequence of this Mr.
Asquith became so unpopular that he was frequently assailed at Public
Meetings by the cry of "Featherstone Asquith, the Assassin." Mrs.
Sparborough, like many other persons had of course read of this.
[9] On a protest being raised in the House, this sentence was
afterwards reduced by half.
[10] In the case of Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, the Governor
of Strangeways had refused money tendered to him by outsiders, saying
that he was not authorised to accept a fine paid in this way, but now
the Governor of Holloway, after consultation with the Home Office
accepted the fine, and told Miss Billington that she must leave the
prison.
[11] Mr. Morrissey, who could not afford to leave his business, was
regretfully obliged to pay his fine.
[12] Mary Gawthorpe had become a pupil teacher at the age of
thirteen and had worked for her living from that time. Amongst other
distinctions, she had taken a first class King's Scholarship. She had
represented the Leeds Labour Church on the Local Labour Representation
Committee. She had been a member of the Leeds Committee for the Feeding
of School Children, and the Leeds Committee of the National Union
of Teachers. In 1906 she had been elected as Labour delegate to the
University Extension Committee, she was Vice-President of the Leeds
Independent Labour Party and Secretary to the Women's Labour League.