The Suffragette

  We shall not be at the offices at 4, Clement’s Inn until six o’clock to-day, but at that hour we shall all three be entirely at your disposal.

  This did not appease the authorities in any way and a warrant for their arrest was immediately issued with an order to Inspector Jarvis to execute it without delay. Having guessed that this might happen Mrs. Drummond had quietly arranged to spend her last day of liberty with friends whilst my mother and sister had merely made their way to one of the upper flats in Clement’s Inn, No. 119, which was rented by Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and to which a roof garden was attached. This had scarcely been done when the police swooped down upon our offices to demand the three, and on no information being forthcoming they remained roaming about the passages and standing in the doorways, trying to get information from postmen, porters and tradesmen, all day long.

  At six o’clock, Mrs. Drummond returned, promptly to the moment, and the two other prisoners walked calmly downstairs and into the offices. Inspector Jarvis and a detective in plain clothes were already waiting and, after the warrant for their arrest had been read out to them, they were taken in a cab to Bow Street. The Court having risen, it was impossible for the trial to be proceeded with that evening and when they applied to be allowed out on bail until the next morning their application was refused and they were hurried away to the cells. The police court cells are about five feet wide by seven feet long, exceedingly badly lit and furnished only with a wooden bench attached to the wall and a sanitary convenience. There are neither washing utensils nor bed of any kind, but each prisoner is given a dark and dirty-looking rug in which to wrap herself during the night. Mrs. Pankhurst at once claimed her right as an untried prisoner to communicate with the outside world and immediately despached telegrams to several Members of Parliament. A weary hour or two went by. Then the door of Mrs. Pankhurst’s cell was thrown wide open, and the tall, breezy presence of Mr. Murray, Liberal Member of Parliament for East Aberdeenshire, appeared. He was horrified to find the three ladies in these unpleasant surroundings and, promising to return soon, he hurried to the Savoy Hotel, and there arranged for various comforts to be sent in to the prison. Then he prevailed upon the authorities to allow the three Suffragettes to take their evening meal together and, in an incredibly short space of time, they were ushered into the matron’s room.

  The bare little place with its dingy walls, its wooden chairs and two deal tables, had been wonderfully transformed. Numbers of tall wax candles had been lighted, the tables were laid with silver, flowers and brightly coloured fruit, and three waiters were ready to serve the prisoners with a most elaborate meal. At the same time, Mr. Murray, with his face wreathed in smiles, was superintending the carrying in to the cells of three comfortable beds. The management of the Savoy had thrown themselves into the enterprise with the greatest eagerness and, having acted throughout with almost overwhelming kindness and courtesy, ended by refusing to charge anything at all for what they had provided. As well may be imagined, the three comrades were in no haste to finish the meal and return to the dark and solitary cells.

  Reading the Warrant, October 13th, 1908

  Meanwhile there were stirring doings at Westminster. All police leave had been stopped for the day in the whole of the metropolitan area, and every mounted policeman had been called up to headquarters. Parliament Square itself was cut off from the rest of London as though it were in a state of siege, by double cordons of foot police, each of them five deep, which were drawn up across all the streets leading to it. Within these barriers the great area, usually thronged with vehicles of all kinds and hurrying passers-by, was emptied of all but the few mounted police who rode about in it, the ring of their horses’ hoofs sounding strangely sharp and loud, and an occasional wheeled vehicle carrying some Member to the House of Commons.

  Outside the massed ranks of police the whole population of London seemed to have gathered. The newspapers said that it was just like Mafeking night without the disorder. Members of Parliament came out from time to time to watch the scene, amongst the spectators being Mr. John Burns, Mr. Haldane, Mr. Walter Long and Mr. Lloyd George, who came with his little daughter, a fair haired child of six years old. Soon a deputation of eleven women with Miss Wallace Dunlop a descendant of the great William Wallace, as their leader, marched out of the Caxton Hall with Mrs. Lawrence’s instructions to oppose with spiritual force the physical force which the authorities had arrayed in such strength against them, ringing in their ears.

  A cheer from the waiting crowd greeted them as they gained the street, and though some fifty constables attempted to bar their passage into Victoria Street, the people swept them through. At last near the end of Victoria Street, they were met by a body of police and the Inspector in Charge asked Miss Wallace Dunlop that the deputation should wait for a few moments in order that he might bring up some mounted police to clear a way to the House of Commons. She agreed to wait until eight o’clock but when that time came the Inspector returned and said the deputation could not pass. Then, faithful to their trust, the little band of women pressed bravely forward and commenced their hopelessly unequal struggle with the police. In a moment their ranks were broken and they were scattered hopelessly amongst the crowd of constables and sightseers. Before long a number had been arrested and the others were swept far away from their destination. When the news of the first deputation’s fate reached the Caxton Hall a second body of women numbering some thirty or forty, marched out to take their place. Like their predecessors, they too reached the top of Victoria Street where the mounted police were still waiting. Then suddenly, Mrs. Leigh, a slight agile figure in white, dashed forward from their midst and threw herself into the mounted line, seizing a police horse by the bridle with either hand. The horses reared and kicked furiously, the constables closed upon her and she was flung to the ground. From time to time several isolated women succeeded by strategy in getting quite close to the House of Commons and one even found her way into one of the underground passages used by Members of Parliament. In every case they were captured by the police and either placed under arrest or dragged away and pushed outside the guarding cordons into the crowd. At last so fearful did the authorities become that the women might be concealed at other strategic points that they proceeded to thoroughly search every corner of Westminster Abbey and with their lanterns were to be seen amongst the buttresses and pinnacles of St. Margaret’s Church, searching for Suffragettes. Yet with all their vigilance they were circumvented, for one woman succeeded in outwitting everyone and entered the sacred chamber itself. The lady in question was Mrs. Margaret Travers Simons, Mr. Keir Hardie’s Parliamentary Secretary, who, whilst a believer in the Votes for Women Movement, had never taken any active part in it. On her way to the House that evening she had been deeply moved by the violent scenes. As she sat thinking of them in the Lobby, and realising that the Suffragettes, struggle as they might, would never reach the House, the thought suddenly flashed across her mind that she herself had the power to make the appeal and protest which was impossible to them. Seized by an irresistible impulse, she sent in for Mr. T. H. W. Idris, the Liberal Member for Flint Boroughs, and asked him to take her to look through a little window, known as the “peep hole,” which is situated on the left side of the glass doors leading into the House of Commons, and to which Members of Parliament had the privilege of taking their lady friends. He agreed, and, on reaching the window, she mounted a seat, which is in front of it in order that she might get a clear view of the chamber. After a moment or two she descended and Mr. Idris turned towards the outer Lobby thinking that she was about to accompany him. In that instant, she pushed open the double glass doors and, before anyone could prevent her, darted into the Chamber and rushed up the central aisle towards the Speaker’s chair, calling upon the House to “attend to the women’s question!” She was seized by one of the attendants at the Bar, a big, powerful man who carried her back into the lobby, and in a very short space of time she had been handed over to a police ins
pector, conducted out of the House of Commons, and allowed to go free.

  Mr. Curtis Bennett listening to Miss Pankhurst’s speech from the Dock, October, 1908

  Outside in the street the conflict still continued and went on until midnight when it was found that ten persons had been injured and treated at Westminster Hospital, and that twenty-one women and a number of men had been arrested.

  * * *

  1 My authorities in these cases are the report in the Times and the evidence given in the witness box at Bow Street.

  CHAPTER XV

  OCTOBER, 1908

  THE TRIAL OF THE THREE LEADERS. MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE AND MR. LLOYD GEORGE IN THE WITNESS Box.

  ON the morning of October 14th began the trial both of the three leaders who had been arrested by warrant and the twenty-one women whom they were said to have incited to break the peace. Excited crowds early assembled in Bow Street, and besieged the doors of the Police Court, begging the unyielding custodians for admission. In the dark passageways and lobbies of the Court were numbers of women, imploring the officials to allow them to pass into the Court itself. The public enter by a door at the back of the room and here there is a space where visitors may stand. This space was now crowded with women, pressing closely against the wooden barrier which cut them from off the narrow rows of equally crowded wooden seats, where the friends and relatives of the prisoners, who could obtain the ear of some kindly officer, were allowed to sit. In front of these seats is the dock itself — a wooden bench some six feet long, empty as yet, and surrounded by a heavy iron railing on three sides, the fourth to be guarded by a policeman when the prisoners arrive. In front and at one side of the dock are the benches for the Press, which that morning contained representatives from all the leading newspapers. In front of this again, divided by a barrier and on a lower level so that one sees little more than the heads of its occupants, was another bench where Mr. Muskett, the solicitor for the Prosecution who had so often appeared against the Suffragettes, and other minions of the law now sat. In front again and placed at right angles to this bench is the witness box — a little wooden pen with a foolish wooden canopy which looks as though it were meant for keeping out the rain. On the right, opposite the witness box, are two rows of seats, each entered by a little wooden door, like church pews, where counsel and distinguished strangers sit. In the well between the witness box and these seats sit the recording clerks and other officials, and opposite to them, and facing the whole court is the Magistrate’s high-backed chair and his table. Mr. Curtis Bennett, the Magistrate who was to try the case, sat there now, handsome and dignified, and looking the picture of a high-bred eighteenth-century squire.

  The familiar figures of Mrs. Pankhurst, Christabel and Mrs. Drummond were soon ushered into the dock, and then Christabel began by asking the Magistrate not to deal with the case in that Court, but to send it for trial by Judge and Jury, her object being to secure that Suffragette cases should no longer be decided by a body of Police Court officials, whom we had every reason to believe were acting under the direct instructions of the Government against whom our agitation was directed, but should instead be submitted to a body of ordinary citizens. She urged that, under section seventeen of the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879, she and her co-defendants were entitled to the option of being tried where they desired, and she wished now to state that they desired that the case should go before a jury. Mr. Curtis Bennett bent his head and smiled, saying, “Yes, yes, but we will go on with the case now.” She pressed him to at once give an answer to the point which she had raised, but he replied that he could not do so until he had heard the case.

  Mr. Muskett, then rose to prosecute. Speaking quickly in a low voice and showing considerable irritation, he began by complaining that the defendants had failed to obey a summons to appear, firstly on Monday and secondly on Tuesday morning, to answer to the charge of having been guilty of conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace. Then in the most fastidious manner and with clearly expressed disgust, he proceeded to set forth the details of the case. He explained that, on October 8th, Inspector Jarvis had visited the offices of the Women’s Social and Political Union and had there seen Mrs. Drummond with Miss Christabel Pankhurst. Miss Pankhurst had said, “What about the 13th? Have you seen our new bills ?” and had produced the hand-bill which formed the foundation of the present charge. It was worded: “Votes for Women. Men and women help the Suffragettes to rush the House of Commons on Tuesday, October 13th, at 7 :30 P. M.” In showing this to Inspector Jarvis, Miss Pankhurst had said that the words “to rush” were not in sufficiently large type and that they were to be made much more distinct.

  On Sunday, October nth, the Defendants had held a meeting in Trafalgar Square, to which Mr. Muskett objected, because it had caused “an enormous amount of additional labour to be thrown upon the shoulders of the police.” At this meeting, he asserted gravely, speeches had been delivered by the defendants inciting those present to carry out the programme of rushing the House of Commons. “You will agree sir,” said Mr. Muskett, “that such conduct as that cannot be tolerated in this country.” Finally he asked on behalf of the Commissioner of Police that the defendants should be ordered to be bound over to keep the peace.

  Stout, red-faced Superintendent Wells, whom we usually found most friendly and obliging, now, looking very cross and uncomfortable, lumbered into the witness box. After taking the oath he gave evidence in regard to a visit of his own to the offices at Clement’s Inn. He said that Mrs. Pankhurst had then shown him a copy of a letter which had been sent by the Women’s Social and Political Union to Mr. Asquith. This document pointed out that at many large demonstrations all over the country, resolutions had been carried, calling upon the Government to adopt the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill and also that, at a succession of by-elections, the voters had shown unmistakably their desire that the Government should deal with the question without further delay. It concluded by asking the Prime Minister to inform the Union as to whether the Government would carry the Bill into law during the autumn session.

  After the Superintendent had read the letter, Mrs. Pankhurst had told him that, if Mr. Asquith returned a satisfactory reply to it, nothing would take place on October 13th save a great cheer for the Government, but that, if he did not, there would be a demonstration and the women would get into the House of Commons. “I said, ‘You cannot get there for the police will not let you unless you come with cannon,’” the Superintendent went on, looking very imposing, and explained that Mrs. Pankhurst had then stated that “no lethal weapons” would be used. She had also said, “Mr. Asquith will be responsible if there is any disorder and accident.”

  Superintendent Wells next described the meeting in Trafalgar Square where he had seen Mrs. Drummond distributing the “rush” hand-bills. He said that he looked upon her as a “very active leader of the Suffragettes” and that she frequently wore a “uniform” with the word “general” or “generalissimo” on the cap. He had told her that she and Mrs. Pankhurst would be prosecuted. When questioned by Mr. Muskett as to the happenings of, the previous evenings, Superintendent Wells said that traffic had been “wholly disorganized” in the vicinity of the House of Commons for four hours and that for three hours the streets had been in “great disorder”; that a very large body of police indeed had been required to maintain the peace, that ten persons had been treated at Westminster Hospital and that seven or eight constables and sergeants had been more or less injured.

  It was now Christabel Pankhurst’s turn to cross-examine the Superintendent and he looked across the dock at her very nervously. She first questioned him as to the statement that had been made that she and her companions in the dock had broken their promise to appear at the court either on the Monday or Tuesday morning, and drew from him the admission that he had not received any undertaking “in actual words.” She then changed the subject and brightly asked him whether he was in the habit of reading the official organ of the Union “Votes for Women,”
to which he replied in the negative. “You are not aware, then,” she said, “that Mrs. Pankhurst wrote the following words:

  On October 13th in Parliament Square there will be many thousands of people to see fair play between the women and the Government. Let us keep their support and cooperation by showing them, as we have done before, with what quiet courage, self-restraint and determination, women are fighting against tyranny and oppression on the part of a Government which has been called the strongest of modern times. It is by the exercise of courage and self-restraint and persistent effort that we shall win in this unequal contest.

  “There is nothing very inflammatory in those words,” she urged. “Does it really occur to you that those words were circulated to incite a riot?” But Mr. Wells shrugged his shoulders and answered gruffly, “I am not complaining of that article, I am complaining of those bills.”