The Suffragette

  When speaking in the Louth Town Hall, Mr. Lloyd George was referring to the House of Lords as an “unrepresentative chamber” when a voice from the roof remarked, “So is the House of Commons as far as women are concerned.” “I see some rats have got in; let them squeal, it does not matter,” said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, amidst a terrible uproar, Miss Hudson and Miss Bertha Brewster were dragged down from amongst the rafters where they had lain concealed for many hours. They were taken to the police station, charged with infringing the Public Meeting Act, and detained in custody from Saturday until Monday, both in the same small cell, which contained only one narrow prison mattress and some rugs. On Monday the magistrate discharged them with a caution, complimenting them on their pluck. The Government was averse to allowing them to be let off so lightly, and on Wednesday Miss Brewster was rearrested for having broken her cell windows in Walton Gaol, Liverpool, in the previous August. She was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment, but gave notice to appeal against the sentence on the ground that she had already been specially punished for this offence whilst in prison. On January 31st she was released in order that she might prosecute the appeal, and evidently thinking that the case hardly did him credit, Mr. Gladstone announced that she would not be asked to complete her term of imprisonment. The appeal was therefore dropped.

  On December 20th, Mr. Asquith had arranged to speak both at Liverpool and Birkenhead, and owing to his desire to avoid the Suffragettes, detectives smuggled him across the river, amongst the luggage. Nevertheless outside the Liberal Club Miss Selina Martin and Miss Leslie Hall, who stood in the gutter, the one disguised as a match girl, and the other as an orange seller, spoke to him as he stepped from his motor car, and urged upon him the necessity for granting the franchise to women. He dashed away without answering, and in protest, and by way of warning, Miss Selina Martin tossed a ginger beer bottle into the empty car which he had left.

  Both women were at once arrested, and were afterwards remanded in custody for six days. Bail was refused, though Miss Selina Martin promised that she and her comrade would refrain from militant action until the case should come on.2 The women were removed to Walton Gaol, and were there treated as though they had been ordinary convicted criminals. They protested by refusing to eat just as so many of their comrades had done before them. Miss Martin also barricaded her cell, but the officials forced their way in, pulled her off the bed and flung her on the floor, shaking and striking her unmercifully. Shortly afterwards her cell was visited by the deputy medical officer, who ordered that she should get up and dress. She explained that she had been wet through by the snow storm on the previous day and that her clothes were still saturated, for no attempt had been made to get them dry, but she was forcibly dressed and, with her hands handcuffed behind her, was dragged to a cold, dark punishment cell and flung on the stone floor. She lay there in an exhausted state for some hours, being unable to rise without the aid of her hands and arms, which were still fastened behind her back, until, at last, a wardress came in and lifted her onto the bed board. The irons were kept on all night. On Friday, the third day of her imprisonment, Miss Martin was brought up before the visiting magistrates. She protested against the way in which she was being treated, pointing out that she was still an unconvicted prisoner, but she was told that the officials were quite justified in all that they might do. The same evening several wardresses entered her cell and ordered her to go to the doctor’s room to be forcibly fed.

  “I refused,” she says, “and was dragged to the foot of the stairs with my hands handcuffed behind. Then I was frog-marched, that is to say, carried face downwards by the arms and legs to the Doctor’s room. After a violent struggle I was forced into a chair, the handcuffs removed, my arms being held by the wardresses, whilst the doctor forcibly fed me by that obnoxious instrument, the stomach tube. Most unnecessary force was used by the assistant medical officer when applying the gag. The operation finished, I walked handcuffed to the top of the stairs but refused to return to the punishment cell. Then two wardresses caught me by the shoulders and dragged me down the steps, another kicking me from behind. As I reached the bottom step they relaxed their hold and I fell on my head. I was picked up and carried to the cell.”

  Next day she was forcibly fed and afterwards again refused to return to the dark cell, but she says, “I was seized by a number of wardresses and carried down the steps, my head being allowed to bump several times.”

  Meanwhile, Miss Leslie Hall had also broken her windows and had been placed in a punishment cell and kept in handcuffs continuously for three days. After two and a half days’ fasting she was fed by the stomach tube. The doctor had taunted her meanwhile, and jokingly told the wardress that she was “mentally sick,” and that it was” like stuffing a turkey for Christmas.”

  On Monday, December 27th, the women were again brought into court, when Miss Leslie Hall was ordered one month’s imprisonment with hard labour, and Miss Selina Martin two months. On returning to prison both the women refused to wear prison dress and recommenced the hunger strike. Each one was then clothed in a straight jacket and placed in a punishment cell. Forcible feeding was continued and they both grew rapidly weaker until February 3rd, when they were released.

  Meanwhile the facts as to their treatment whilst imprisoned on remand had been widely circulated, for they had dictated statements for their friends’ use whilst their trial was being conducted. Mr. Gladstone wrote to the Times denying the truth of the statements, declaring that the reason for refusing bail to the women was that they had refused to promise to be of good behaviour until their trial came on, that no unnecessary violence had been used and that the women themselves had made no complaint. But indeed, the inaccuracy of Mr. Gladstone’s statements had become proverbial, for he was constantly denying the truth of charges which were clearly substantiated by the most reliable evidence.

  Now Lady Constance Lytton, in spite of her fragile constitution and the disease from which she suffered, again determined to place herself beside the women in the fighting ranks who were enduring the greatest hardship. Believing that she had been released from Newcastle prison on account of her rank, and family influence, she determined that this time she would go disguised. She knew that, not only her family, but the leaders of the militant movement would try to dissuade her on account of her health. She, therefore, decided to speak of her intention to no one except Mrs. Baines and a few local workers whom she pledged to secrecy. On January 14th, she and Mrs. Baines organised a procession to Walton Gaol. A halt was called opposite the prison, and, having told the story of what was happening inside Lady Constance called the people to follow her to its gates, and demand the release of the tortured women. Then she moved forward and, as she had foreseen, she was immediately placed under arrest. At the same time Elsie Howey dashed into the prison yard and broke one of the windows of the Governor’s house by striking it with a purple-white-and-green flag. She, too, was taken into custody and, bail being refused, the two comrades passed the night in the cells. Lady Constance had disguised herself by cutting her hair, wearing spectacles, and dressing herself in poor and plain garments, and now she gave Jane Warton, seamstress, as her name and occupation. Next morning she was sentenced to fourteen days’ hard labour without the option of a fine, whilst Elsie Howey was sent to prison for six weeks’ hard labour. Then they were dragged ruthlessly away to the torture which they well knew was to come. On arriving at the prison, on Saturday, January 15th, they made the usual claim to be treated as political prisoners, and, on this being refused, signified their intention of refusing to conform to any of the prison rules. Thereupon they were forcibly stripped by the wardresses and dressed in the prison clothes. At five o’clock, on Tuesday, the doctor entered Lady Constance Lytton’s cell with four wardresses and the forcible feeding apparatus. Then, without testing her heart or feeling her pulse, though she had not been medically examined since entering the prison, he ordered that she should be placed in position. She did not re
sist, but lay down on the bed board voluntarily, well knowing that she would need all her strength for the ordeal that was to come. Her poor heart was palpitating wildly, but she set her teeth and tried to calm herself. The doctor then produced a wooden and a steel gag and told her that he would not use the latter, which would hurt, unless she resisted him; but, as she would not unlock her teeth, he threw the milder wooden instrument aside and pried her mouth open with the steel one. Then the stomach tube was forced down and the whole hateful feeding business was gone through. “The reality surpassed all that I had anticipated,” she said. “It was a living nightmare of pain, horror and revolting degradation. The sense is of being strangled, suffocated by the thrust down of the large rubber tube, which arouses great irritation in the throat and nausea in the stomach. The anguish and effort of retching whilst the tube is forcibly pressed back into the stomach and the natural writhing of the body restrained, defy description. I forgot what I was in there for, I forgot women, I forgot everything, except my own sufferings, and I was completely overcome by them.” The doctor, annoyed by her one effort to resist, affected to consider her distress assumed, and struck her contemptuously on the cheek as he rose to leave, but the wardresses showed pity for her weakness, and they helped her to wipe her clothes, over which she had been sick. They promised to bring her others in the morning, but she was obliged to pass the night as she was, for, owing both to the low temperature of the cell and her own lack of vitality, she was always so cold that she wore her nightdress and all her clothes both night and day; even then her limbs remained stiff with cold, and though, at last, as a special favour, she was allowed first one, and then another extra blanket and the cape which the prisoners wear at exercise, she remained cold, for she says, “It was like clothing a stone to warm it.” When she was fed the second time the vomiting was more excessive and the doctor’s clothes suffered. He was angry and left her cell hastily, saying, “You did that on purpose. If you do it again to-morrow I shall feed you twice.”

  How very much easier would it have been to have given in or never to have started this resistance? How very much more natural to this gentle creature whose whole life had been one of affectionate deference to the wishes of others, who, because of her kindly sweetness had been named by her family “Angel Con,” would it have been to save others trouble and quietly to submit to the discomforts of prison life. But where principles were in question, none could be stronger or firmer than Constance Lytton, and she was determined to go on with the bitter thing until the end. Yet, through it all, her gentle nature was apparent. She could not bear that any of the ordinary prisoners should be brought in to clean up the mess on her cell floor and, except upon one or two occasions she always managed to do it for herself in spite of her weakness and distress. Notwithstanding his brutal rudeness to her, she even tried to wipe the doctor’s clothes, if anything was spilt upon them. For the sake of the other prisoners she tried, too, to help him with his hateful task by making suggestions to him as to how it might be rendered more efficacious and some of its horrors mitigated, but her suggestions were contemptuously disregarded. The third time she was fed she vomited continuously, but the doctor kept pouring in more food until she was seized with a violent fit of shivering. Then he became alarmed. He hastily told the wardresses to lay her on the floor and called in his assistant to test her heart, but, after a brief and superficial investigation, it was pronounced “quite sound” and the pulse “steady.” Next time he appeared he pleaded with her, saying, “I do beg of you, I appeal to you, not as a prison doctor, but as a man, to give over. You are a delicate woman, you are not fit for this sort of thing.” “Is anybody fit for it?” she answered. “I beg of you, I appeal to you, not as a prisoner, but as a woman, to refuse to continue this inhuman treatment.”

  From Wednesday, January 19th, and onwards, she began to find that not only did she receive greater consideration from the doctor, but that there was a marked change in her treatment generally. This led her to conclude that her identity had been discovered or at least suspected, and she therefore tried to take advantage of whatever privileges might be made to her in order to secure concessions for her comrades and to induce the officials to act with more humanity. But, though she considered that she had been treated with more kindness than was usual, we learn that obvious simple necessities were denied her. The processes of digestion were entirely stagnant and she was losing weight daily, and though she made several suggestions as to remedies and at last an aperient drug was promised to her, it was never supplied. She was right, however, in thinking that her identity had been discovered. On Friday the authorities made up their minds that she was not Jane Warton, and on Sunday morning both the governor and doctor appeared and told her that she was to be released and that her sister had come to fetch her.

  Lady Constance Lytton now sent a careful statement to Mr. Gladstone asserting that the forcible feeding was performed with unnecessary cruelty and without proper care. He declared that all her charges were unfounded, and the visiting magistrates, having held a one-sided enquiry into the matter, announced that the regulations had been carried out with the greatest care and consideration.

  * * *

  1A few days later the same thing happened in the case of Mrs. Haverfield, and later still in regard to the members of the Women’s Freedom League.

  2Miss Martin’s promise was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post and other papers.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  1910

  THE GENERAL ELECTION, THE TRUCE, THE CONCILIATION COMMITTEE, A SERIES OF GREAT DEMONSTRATIONS. WAR IS AGAIN DECLARED. ANOTHER GENERAL ELECTION. CONCLUSION.

  WITH the opening of the new year, 1910, whilst many of the women were still in prison, the General Election began. The Women’s Social and Political Union fought the Government in forty constituencies. In almost every one of these contests the Liberal vote was reduced, and eighteen of the seats, which had been held by Government representatives at the dissolution, were wrested from them. During the election the Liberal Government’s absolute majority over all sections of the House had been swept away, and they were now dependent for their existence upon the votes of the Labour and Irish parties.

  The Suffragettes were now advised in many quarters that the militant tactics had forced the Government to the point of wishing to gain peace by granting votes to women, but that Cabinet Ministers were now afraid to do so lest they should seem to have given way to coercion. The contest for supreme power in the new Parliament being over, the women therefore decided to give the re-elected Government and the Parliamentary supporters of Women’s Suffrage a quiet opportunity to settle the matter between them. On February 14th, the W. S. P. U. proclaimed a truce, and the Women’s Freedom League followed suit.

  During the past year more than twenty thousand meetings had been held by the W. S. P. U. alone, in addition to the many thousands organised by the other suffrage societies. Now that militancy was to be laid aside a period of even greater effort in the direction of building up the organisation and extending the purely educational work was to be entered upon.

  Important developments were also to take place within Parliament itself. For many years a committee of Parliamentary supporters of Women’s Suffrage, had existed. This was originally inaugurated on June 10th, 1887, under the influence of Miss Lydia Becker. It was strictly non-party, Members from all sections of the House having belonged to it. During the Parliament elected in 1906, however, the old committee had been allowed to lapse. The Liberal supporters of the question formed a Women’s Suffrage Committee of their own, and, abandoning the attempt to secure votes for women, and seeking instead to extend the franchise all around, they had put forward Mr. Geoffrey Howard’s Reform Bill, which had had no chance of being carried.

  Now, largely owing to the efforts of Mr. H. N. Braitsford, a “Conciliation Committee” was formed with the object of uniting all sections of opinion favourable to women’s enfranchisement and of coming to a common agreement upon some particular measure.
The Earl of Lytton acted as Chairman of this Committee and Mr. Braitsford, himself, as Secretary. Its members consisted of twenty-fivë Liberals, seventeen Conservatives, six Irish Nationalists, and six members of the Labour Party. In discussing the terms of the Bill to be adopted, the Unionist members urged that it should be moderate, whilst the Liberals insisted that it must give no loophole for increasing the possibilities of plural voting or of adding to the power of the propertied classes. Though the majority of the women who attend the English Universities do so as a preparation for earning their livelihood, the Liberals did not wish to see the Franchise for University graduates, which is exercised by men, extended to women because, as they said, the poorest women do not graduate. For similar reasons they opposed the granting of votes to women under the Joint Household qualification, which applies only to houses rented at twenty pounds a year and upwards; under the Lodger franchise, which applies only to those who pay at least four shillings a week for an unfurnished room; and under the Ownership franchise. To overcome the objections of the self-styled democrats, the old Women’s Enfranchisement Bill which would have given bare justice to women by extending the Parliamentary vote to them on equal terms with men was therefore abandoned, and a measure was drafted on the lines of the existing Municipal Franchise of which the basis is occupation and under which there is no qualification for Owners, Lodgers or Graduates.