JUNE, 1908
HOW MR. GLADSTONE'S CHALLENGE WAS ACCEPTED. THE PROCESSION OF 13,000
SUFFRAGISTS ON JUNE 13TH. THE GREAT HYDE PARK DEMONSTRATION ON THE
TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE, AND THE DEMONSTRATION OF PROTEST IN PARLIAMENT
SQUARE ON JUNE 30TH.
The time was now approaching when the women were to take up Mr.
Gladstone's challenge to them to show that they could rival the great
franchise demonstrations which men had held in demanding the three
Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1885. In the Autumn of 1907, long before
the challenge had been made, the Women's Social and Political Union
had determined to hold a record meeting in Hyde Park on Sunday, June
21st, 1908. The greatest meeting that had ever yet been held there
was said to have numbered 72,000, but it was determined that at the
Women's demonstration there must be gathered at least a quarter of a
million people. The organisation of this great project was the work of
many months and a large part of this fell to the share of our devoted
Treasurer, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, her husband, and Mrs. Drummond who
now began to be called our "general." Mr. Lawrence carefully thought
out the scheme for the seven great processions which were to march
into Hyde Park by seven separate gates. To Mrs. Pethick Lawrence was
primarily due the introduction of the colours, purple, white and green,
which the Union now adopted for its own. The colours at once secured a
most amazing popular success for, although they were not even thought
of until the middle of May, before the month of June arrived they were
known throughout the length and breadth of the land.[27]
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
women's 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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 without 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 bands
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.
As Mr. Asquith passed from the House of Commons to Downing Street in
his motor-car he was hooted by the crowd. He arrived home to find his
windows broken, for Mrs. Leigh and Mrs. New had driven swiftly past the
guardian policemen at the entrance to the street in a taxicab and had
each thrown two small stones through two of the lower windows of Number
10 before an arm of the Law had been stretched out to drag them away to
Canon Row. Meanwhile Miss Mary Phillips had endeavoured to dash into
the House of Commons by way of Palace Yard in the midst of a little
company of Parliamentary waitresses but half way across the Yard had
been seized and dragged back. Miss Lena Lambert had chartered a little
rowing boat and had set off in the darkness to reach the House from the
river side. Crowds of Members were lounging on the lighted terrace that
hot summer's night when she and her little craft appeared out of the
darkness, to urge them to determine that the simple measure of justice,
which was being so hardly fought for, should be carried into law. But
not many words had she spoken, when the police boats swooped down on
her and she was towed away, lest she should irritate and annoy the
people's representatives by telling them of the battle whose dull roar
nothing could shut out.
So the night wore on and that weary fight continued. Not until twelve
o'clock did the police at last succeed in clearing the streets, and it
was then found that twenty-nine women had been arrested.
Next morning twenty-seven of the women were brought up at Westminster
Police Court before the Magistrate, Mr. Francis, and were charged
with obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. With the
usual callous haste their trial was hurried through. The magistrate
had always had all the political rights that he cared to use and would
not trouble to imagine what it is like to be without them. He testily
brushed aside the defence of the women that the Government had driven
them to adopt these methods of obtaining the franchise and that Mr.
Asquith by his ignoring of the Great Hyde Park Demonstration had taught
them once and for all the uselessness of peaceful propaganda. The
sentences ranged from one to three months' imprisonment in the second
division. Mrs. Leigh and Miss New were dealt with separately at Bow
Street but, as this was not generally expected, very few people were
present. In the dimly lighted Court, with the magistrate in his high
backed chair regarding them sternly from deep cavernous eyes, the two
little women in the great dock with its heavy iron railings looked
strangely forlorn. What dreadful sentence, we wondered, was in store
for these, the first of the Suffragettes to deliberately throw stones!
Mr. Muskett in prosecuting them for doing wilful damage to the value
of ten shillings at the Prime Minister's residence, spoke of them with
extreme harshness, urging that they should be sent to prison without
the option of a fine. Though the Magistrate rebuked the women for
the methods they had adopted, we felt that he was impressed by their
demeanour and that he was loth to sentence them. He ordered that they
should go to prison for two months in the third division without the
option of a fine. The sentence was heavy enough, but lighter than we
had feared in view of the fact that many of the other women were to
remain in prison for three months.
[Illustration: Christabel Pankhurst inviting the public to "rush" the
House of Commons at a meeting in Trafalgar Square, Sunday, October
11th, 1908]
When the House of Commons met on the same afternoon, several members of
every party in the House asked, as they had done on previous occasions,
that the women should be treated as political offenders. As before,
however, Mr. Gladstone sheltered himself behind the statement, which
nobody believed, that the Magistrate was alone responsible for placing
the women in the second and third divisions and that he himself had no
power to interfere.
On the morning after the "raid" the newspapers had mostly contented
themselves with rebuking the women for what they had done, but in a few
days there came a reaction of feeling which was accelerated both by the
harshness of the sentences imposed and by Mr. Gladstone's refusal to
mitigate the rigours of the prison treatment.
The country was now overwhelmed by one of those terribly oppressive
heat waves which come upon us suddenly from time to time and are borne
with such difficulty in our usually temperate climate, and there
gradually leaked out from Holloway accounts of the Suffragist women
fainting in the exercise yards[28] and being seized with illness in
their cells. There happened to be some cases of measles in the prison
hospital, and Miss Elsie Howey, having contracted the disease there,
was exceedingly ill for many weeks.
All these things combined to focus public attention upon the harsh
treatment of the Suffragette prisoners. On July 10th the _Manchester
Guardian_ in a leading Article said:
It demands considerable obtuseness to believe, as some persons
apparently do, that close confinement in the heat of Summer or the
cold of Winter within a solitary and unwholesome cell, deprival of
exercise for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four, subjection
to menial authority, ignorance of the welfare of one's friends, the
performing of dull and alien tasks, deprivation of writing materials,
partial suffocation and the wearing of ugly, ill-fitting clothing
that has already been worn by the vilest criminals, are for delicate
and sensitive women the elements of a comedy. They compose a great
and terrible torture.... Because they are suffering for an idea
their stringent imprisonment is indefensible. It violates the public
conscience and the law and the courts cannot wage war on the public
conscience without forfeiting respect and authority.
[Illustration: Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel hiding from the police in
the roof garden at Clement's Inn, October 12th, 1908]
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Other suffrage societies soon afterwards also adopted colours. The
Women's Freedom League chose yellow, white and green, and the National
Union of Women's Suffrage Societies red, white and green.
[28] The efforts of Dr. Mary Gordon (the first lady Inspector of
Prisons, who had been appointed during the previous April, admittedly
owing to the publicity given to the condition of women in prison by the
Suffragettes) now secured that when exercising in the future the women
should be provided with cotton sun-bonnets. By her advice the prisoners
were also supplied with notebooks and pencils, but the latter privilege
was afterwards withdrawn. Eventually she succeeded in abolishing the
unsanitary wooden spoon--at any rate, for Suffragette use.