Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary

by Anand, Anita

  The Blathwayt family, who had recorded Sophia’s conversion to the suffragette cause in their journals and had financially supported and physically cared for leading suffragettes for years, also stopped giving money to the WSPU. Theirs was a particularly painful separation from the cause since they had loved one of the most prominent WSPU suffragettes, Annie Kenny. Mr Blathwayt had even named the summer house on his estate ‘Suffragette’s Rest’, because he wanted it to be a haven for women recovering from force-feeding. However when a house near the family was fire-bombed, it rattled them all. Emily Blathwayt wrote in her diaries: ‘I am glad to say Mary is writing to resign membership with the W.S.P.U. Now they have begun burning houses in the neighbourhood I feel more than ever ashamed to be connected with them.’16

  Sophia steadfastly refused to distance herself from her WSPU friends. Instead she ramped up her contributions to the organisation, giving a colossal £30 in 1913,17 when the average pledge amounted to just a few shillings. Unlike the Blathwayts, when trouble came to her own doorstep, she stayed true to Emmeline and the WSPU. Reading the cuttings Sophia sent with her letters, Catherine and Bamba must have wondered just how far the suffragettes would have to go before they alienated their little sister.

  The police were out in force at Bow Street magistrates’ court on 9 May for one of the most sensational trials of the decade. Supporters and detractors were turned away in droves and only a handful of suffragettes were allowed in to the courtroom. They were searched for banners, missiles or pamphlets, and police were stationed close to where they sat in the public gallery. The authorities did not want a repeat of past hearings where noisy women had disrupted proceedings with noise and the throwing of boots, heavy books and rotten fruit. They were taking no chances this time.

  Newspaper reports focused on two high-profile aristocrats sitting in court, supporting their friends, the accused: ‘Among the women present were Muriel, Countess de la Warr and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh.’18 Their attendance alone condemned them as women who sympathised with the militant extremists. Annie Kenney, Edwy Godwin Clayton, Flora Drummond, Beatrice Sanders, Rachel Barrett, Geraldine Lennox, Agnes Lake, Harriet Kerr and Andrew Drew were all charged with conspiracy under the Malicious Damage to Property Act. The name of the law did little to live up to the police case against the accused. The nine had been charged with planning arson attacks on locations in Trafalgar Square, St Martin’s Lane, Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street, Bloomsbury, Westminster, and the head office of the British telephone system. The prosecution argued that their campaign of terror, had it not been foiled, would also have brought chaos to the north of England, where they were intending to firebomb cotton mills and timber yards.

  Incriminating documents had been found during a police raid of Annie Kenney’s flat. These included a letter from Edwy Clayton, who was an analytical chemist by trade, apologising to Kenney for the delay in supplying the materials she had asked for: ‘by next week I shall be able to manage the exact proportion . . . I will let you have the results as soon as I think them good enough.’19 Clayton lamented his failure to produce a good enough compound for the suffragette’s needs.20 The sign-off Clayton used in his letter would be one of the prosecution’s most damning pieces of evidence: ‘Please burn this . . .’21 It seems that Annie Kenney had forgotten to do so, and had tucked the letter away, along with other papers, in a book called Bristol Riots, 1851.

  The case against the nine was strong. In another handwritten note, police found a list marked ‘various suggestions’. The first proposed ‘a scheme of simultaneously smashing a considerable number of street fire alarms. This appears to me to be an especially good idea. It will cause tremendous confusion and excitement, and should be at once, easier and less risky than some other operations.’22 In another communication read by the prosecutor, one of the accused was said to have written: ‘on the ground floor of the building is a series of rooms with seven or eight closed windows half covered with green blinds . . . I do not doubt that it will be easy to smash the closed windows and escape. After having broken the windows benzoline and methylated spirits might be thrown in.’23

  The case dominated the news and the coverage was heady and dramatic, with headlines such as ‘A Bomb at St Pauls’, and ‘Diabolical Suffragist Plot’, alongside descriptions of a ‘fiendish plot’ to disrupt plays around the capital, under the banner ‘Sneezing Powder for London Audiences’.24 The public, alarmed by the news reports, began to turn against the suffragettes and those who supported them. Sitting quietly in the Bow Street courtroom, Sophia did not care. She would not desert her sisters. Others were willing to go further still.

  Of all the militant suffragettes in the WSPU, there were few, if any, who could match the zeal of Emily Wilding Davison. Emily, formerly a teacher, was described by Sylvia Pankhurst as ‘tall and slender, with unusually long arms, a small narrow head and red hair. Her illusive, whimsical green eyes and thin, half-smiling mouth, bore often the mocking expression of the Mona Lisa.’25 She had been a member of the WSPU since 1906, and almost from the start had displayed a willingness to go to extremes for the cause.

  Emily had been imprisoned eight times for offences including obstruction, assault, throwing stones at politicians, smashing windows and setting fire to letter boxes. Every time she was locked up, she demanded to be treated as a political prisoner and was refused. Emily would then go on hunger strike and the authorities would feed her by force. It took a terrible toll, both physically and psychologically. On 22 June, the latest attempt to feed her via a pipe down her throat had been so painful that Emily threw herself from a balcony in protest. It was only the netting three floors below which stopped her from being killed. When questioned by prison staff, Emily told them ‘the tragedy was wanted’. A year passed until she was a free woman again, planning her next big gesture for the cause. It would be her last.

  The Epsom Derby on 4 June 1913 was a cause of particular excitement. It was more than a horse race, it was an event of national celebration and seen as the greatest sporting carnival in the world; Disraeli once described it as ‘an epitome of human life, with its comedy and tragedy, its irony and pathos, and its revelation of the whole range of man’s passions and emotions’. Commoners had the chance to rub shoulders with aristocrats. It was traditional for the royal family to attend, and to enter their horses for the races. King George V was due to be there with his wife, Queen Mary, and their handsome bay colt, Anmer. Named after a village on the Sandringham Estate, Anmer was causing some frisson at the bookmakers.

  Emily Davison travelled to Epsom on the day with two large suffragette banners folded and pinned to the inside back of her coat. Carried by the tide of spectators pushing their way to the course, Emily seemed to know exactly where she wanted to be. She forced her way to the railings at Tattenham Corner, a sharp bend on the flats, and waited patiently. While nobody was watching, she retrieved her banners and held them in her hands, out of sight till the horses thundered into view. As the front runners passed, Emily ducked under the barrier and ran out onto the course, right in front of Anmer. The jockey, Herbert Jones, was sent flying from his saddle as the horse hit Emily with full force, knocking her body several feet in the air and somersaulting in the process. Emily landed heavily on the ground, limp and bleeding, as the crowds converged. She lay there on the racecourse surrounded by spectators furious at her audacity and she slipped into a coma from which she never regained consciousness. Emily died four days later at Epsom Cottage Hospital. Doctors confirmed that her skull had been fractured and she had suffered significant internal injuries.

  Emily Wilding Davison became the first martyr of the suffragette cause and news of her death was met by an outpouring of grief. A momentous funeral was hastily arranged and suffragettes planned to travel from all over the country to pay their respects. Just hours after she was declared dead by physicians, the suffragettes showed how hotly their rage was burning.

  About a mile away from Hampton Court Palace stood Hurst Par
k racecourse in East Molesey. On 9 June, shortly after midnight, a police officer on his bicycle saw an unusual glow coming from the grandstand of the racecourse. As he dismounted and wheeled his bike over to take a closer look, he saw the seats in the ‘King’s stand’ burst into flames. The local fire brigade was quick to react and firemen arrived within minutes, but their steam pump was no match for the inferno which took hold of the timber construction. Flames leapt so high, they could be seen from Carshalton, twelve miles away.

  By morning, nothing was left but a twisted skeleton of iron, the remnants of the stand. The fire had burned so ferociously that even the glass in the nearby buildings had melted. Among the debris, police found suffragettes’ calling cards. The arsonists had also placed a placard near the scene, which read, ‘Give the Women the Franchise’.26

  Emily Wilding Davison’s funeral took place on 14 June 1913. Even those who felt uncomfortable with recent militancy turned out in great numbers. The guard of honour, suffragettes wearing white dresses and black sashes, escorted her body from Epsom to St George’s church in Bloomsbury, central London. Thousands had come from all over the British Isles, and wreaths had been sent from all over the world. The outpouring of emotion was overwhelming, particularly as the suffragettes prepared to move Emily’s coffin onto the train which would take her remains north, to her family burial plot in Morpeth, Northumberland.

  The sight of her coffin galvanised many to continue in their own acts of militancy, and the police were kept busy with numerous outbreaks of violence and vandalism over the weeks that followed. The galleries of Hampton Court were closed after police received a tip-off that militants were going to strike, though nobody knew whether the threat was one of arson, paint-throwing or window-smashing.

  Instead of distancing herself from the cause, as the Blathwayts had when militancy began to impact on their home, Sophia once again decided to show the world her support for the WSPU and their tactics. She had dabbled with selling the WSPU newspaper The Suffragette during the spring. Now she began to sell it regularly, and right outside the gates of Hampton Court Palace. The sight of the Indian princess in her expensive furs with a satchel strapped across her body, sandwich board by her side, waving around a paper and shouting ‘Votes for Women’ caused a scandal at the very highest levels.

  William Carrington, Keeper of the Privy Purse and sometime sounding board for the sovereign’s private rages, was forced to take to his writing desk. Carefully cutting out a picture from the most recent copy of The Suffragette, he dropped the smudged picture of Sophia selling her papers into an envelope. Before sealing it, he also dropped in a compliment slip bearing the crest of Buckingham Palace. No words needed to be written, the recipient would know what was expected.27

  The note was conveyed directly to the Marquis of Crewe, Secretary of State for India. He had already heard a barrage of complaints from the Palace about the woman in the picture. This last act of hers had pushed the King over the edge and he wanted her thrown out of Hampton Court. Crewe circulated the note to his senior civil servants, noting that he had already spoken to George V’s private secretary about Princess Duleep Singh. He did not think it was up to the India Office to do the King’s bidding: ‘I have shown this to Lord Strathfordham who thinks the Lord Chamberlain is the person to warn the lady that she must not make herself compromised at H Court, or in the immediate neighbourhood. Inform Sir W Carrington of this and of our inability to help,’28 and he signed off the letter with his customary ‘C’. After sealing his response, Crewe placed the photo of Sophia, still attached to the Palace stationery, in the file held on the princess by the Political and Secret Department. He also wrote a letter to his private secretary and most trusted aide, Sir Arthur Hirtzel, apprising him of his response. Crewe had been grateful for his guidance.

  Hirtzel had already warned the Secretary of State about the oncoming tirade from Buckingham Palace. ‘Lord Crewe, Sir William Carrington telephoned me about this picture which appeared in this week’s Suffragette. He asked “If anything could be done to ‘stop her’?” We have no financial hold over the Dhuleep Singh princesses, but of course it is for the King to say whether her conduct is such as should call for her eviction from the lodging she now enjoys in Hampton Court by his Majesty’s favour. May I so reply to Sir W Carrington?’29

  The King had no desire to personally sanction Sophia’s eviction. The headlines which undoubtedly would have followed if he acted were too ghastly to contemplate. Sophia was his own grandmother’s ward, and since Queen Victoria had given Faraday House to her, George V felt in no position to take it away. Instead, an even closer watch was kept on the troublesome princess, while the King and his courtiers fumed over her ingratitude.

  Sophia became used to fury. She was now surrounded by it every time she left her house. The picture galleries at Hampton Court remained closed for months; all the while Sophia continued to sell her newspaper outside the palace. The loss of visitors to the tourist attraction was crippling local businesses, especially the restaurants and nearby hotels. Traders begged Hampton Court to reopen or else they feared bankruptcy. Sophia with her sandwich board was a constant reminder of the money they were losing and the reason they were losing it.

  If Buckingham Palace and the residents of East Molesey had hoped Christmas would bring them some respite from Sophia’s antics, they were wrong. The Daily Mail published a graphic account of her latest suffragette activities on 30 December. They even sent a photographer to capture the moment when the princess, swathed in expensive black furs with an ornate feather hat on her head, left Feltham police court. She was not there to support her friends. It was Sophia’s turn to take her place in the dock. Although she had been arrested before, this was the first time she had found herself facing prosecution.

  In an article headlined ‘Princess’s Unpaid Taxes. Fines Upon Four Summonses’, the Mail gave details of the charges against her:30

  The Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, residing at Hampton Road, Hampton Court, attended at Feltham Police Court yesterday upon summonses for refusing to pay taxes . . . She employed a groom without a licence, and also kept two dogs and a carriage without payment of the necessary licence. She came to court wearing the badge and medal of the Tax Resistance League and was accompanied by six other ladies including the secretary of the league, Mrs Kineton Parkes.

  After the Inland Revenue presented its evidence, her lawyer Leon Castello rose to his feet. Having conferred briefly with his client, Castello informed the judge that on this occasion, the princess would be speaking for herself. When Sophia rose, her voice was steady, although the piece of foolscap paper in her hands trembled a little. The Daily Mail journalist reported two lines of what she said to the court: ‘When the women of England are enfranchised and the State acknowledges me as a citizen, I shall, of course, pay my share willingly to its upkeep . . . I don’t say I will pay these fines either.’31 Other newspapers, including The Times, printed her speech in full:

  I am unable conscientiously to pay money to the state, as I am not allowed to exercise any control over its expenditure, neither am I allowed any voice in the choosing of members of Parliament, whose salaries I have to help to pay. This is very unjustified. When the women of England are enfranchised and the State acknowledges me as a citizen, I shall, of course, pay my share willingly towards its upkeep, if I am not a fit person for the purposes of representation, why should I be a fit person for taxation?32

  The judge told her he had no interest in her politics and that she risked prison if she continued her refusal. ‘Mr White (supervisor of taxes) helpfully informed the judge that the princess was convicted of a similar offence in May 1911.’ With that, the judge brought down his gavel and fined the princess £12 10s for the unpaid taxes, and gave her until the first week of the new year to pay her dues. When she calmly told him she had no intention of paying now or in the new year she was told to expect the bailiffs.

  A collection of newspaper cuttings about Sophia’s day in court found
their way to the desk of the Secretary of State for India again. In one from the Daily Mail, the princess’s words had been underlined in blue pencil. Sighing, Lord Crewe wrote a note to his private secretary: ‘Dear Hirtzel, Buck Pal will probably write here again full of rage and grief. They read the Mail assiduously there . . . ,’33 and with that, he added the papers to Sophia’s file.

  18

  Indian Clubs

  The bailiffs barged their way into Faraday House early on 6 January 1914. They rifled through drawers and cupboards until they found what they were looking for: a necklace comprising 131 pearls, and a diamond-and-pearl-studded gold bangle with a heart-shaped diamond talisman.

  With the housekeeper’s protests ringing in their ears, they took the goods and slated them for auction at Twickenham town hall in March. Once again, when the day arrived, suffragettes flooded the sale room. Sophia swept in imperiously and took a seat at the front of the hall, locking her dark and furious eyes with those of the auctioneer. As he cleared his throat to announce the start of the sale, Sophia rose to her feet, turned her back on him and facing the seated bidders in the hall announced: ‘I protest against this sale, seeing it is most unjust to women that they should be compelled to pay unjust taxes, when they have no voice in the government of the country.’1 Having made her declaration, to loud applause, she took her seat again, placed her hands in her lap and waited.