Tuesday saw the Women’s Parliament again in Session and the women waiting eagerly for the news. Mr. Asquith said: “The government will, if they are still in power, give facilities in the next Parliament for effectively proceeding with a Bill which is so framed as to admit of free amendment.” He refused, however, to promise that this should be done during the first year of the New Parliament.
Facilities for the Conciliation Bill had been asked for; the reply that facilities would be given to a Bill so framed as to admit of free amendment was too vague to please the women. But the refusal to grant an opportunity for passing a Suffrage Bill into law during the first year of Parliament was more serious. The Parliament now to be dissolved had lasted less than a year. Who could insure a longer life for its successor? Mr. Asquith had given the women scant reason to trust any vague promises of his.
Therefore Mrs. Pankhurst announced to the women, “I am going to Downing Street. Come along, all of you;” and the women went. The police, however, gradually beat them back, and over a hundred arrests were made. On Wednesday, there were eighteen further arrests, and twenty-nine more on Thursday. Many of the women were discharged, but seventy-five received sentences of imprisonment varying from fourteen days to one month.
Then came the general election, and again the Suffragettes strenuously opposed the Government. In almost every constituency fought by them the Liberal vote was reduced. A notable instance was that of Cardiff, where a Liberal majority of 1555 was converted into a Conservative majority of 299. Here the 800 members of the Women’s Liberal Association abstained from working for their party because its candidate, Sir Clarendon Hyde, was opposed to votes for women. The end of the election saw the Liberal government still in power.
During the year the Women’s Suffrage societies had all grown largely. The Women’s Social and Political Union’s salaried staff now stands at no persons. Its central offices at Clement’s Inn occupy twenty-three rooms, and a shop and thirteen rooms have also been taken for the Woman’s Press at 156 Charing Cross Road. There are also 105 local centres of the Union. The income of the central organisation of the W. S. P. U. during 1910 was 34,500 pounds excluding 9,000 pounds made by the Woman’s press and many thousands collected by the local Unions. The twenty thousand pound campaign fund is now complete.
The Conciliation Bill has been again introduced. Again its scope and title have been modified to please the “democrats.” Its text now is: —
Every woman possessed of a household qualification within the meaning of the representation of the people Act (1884) shall be entitled to be registered as a voter and when registered to vote for the county or borough in which the qualifying premises are situate.
For the purposes of this Act a woman shall not be disqualified by marriage from being registered as a voter provided that a husband and wife shall not both be registered as voters in the same Parliamentary Borough or County Division.
In reply to a deputation of women who waited upon him in October, 1910, Mr. Birrell said: “I am strongly of opinion that in the course of next year facilities must be given for the Bill. You are perfectly right,” he added, “in feeling irritated and annoyed at the delay that has taken place and in insisting on a date for Parliamentary action.”
Mr. Asquith’s promise is that facilities for a Women’s Suffrage measure will be granted during this Parliament. Such statements as these must now be held as binding, and the long standing Government veto of this question must be withdrawn.
So the gallant struggle for a great reform draws to its close. Full of stern fighting and bitter hardship as it has been, it has brought much to the women of our time — a courage, a self-reliance, a comradeship, and above all a spiritual growth, a conscious dwelling in company with the ideal, which has tended to strip the littleness from life and to give to it the character of an heroic mission.
May we prize and cherish the great selfless spirit that has been engendered, and, applying it to the purposes of our Government — the nation’s housekeeping — the management of our collective affairs, may we, men and women together, not in antagonism, but in comradeship, strive on till we have built up a better civilisation than any that the world has known. For surely just as those children are fortunate who have two parents, a mother and a father, to care for them, so is the nation fortunate that has its mothers and its fathers, its brothers and its sisters, working together for the common good.
THE END
INDEX
A
Aberdeen Free Press, 180
Abernethy meeting, 451
Act of Charles II, 197
Ainsworth, Miss, 441
Albert Hall demonstration, 445; first great meeting, 209; meeting, 41, 242, 464
Aldwych theatre, 367
Allen, Mary, 395
Amery, L. S., 232
Anderson, Dr. Garrett, 243, 502
Anti-Corn Law League, 4
Anti-Government by-election policy, 96
Anti-Suffrage Society first organised, 147
Appeal of Pankhurst and Haverfield, 467
Archdale, Mrs., 451, 453
Arrest of Alice Milne, 127; Arnold Cutler, 331; Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, 29; Daisy Solomon, 364; deputation at Official Residence, 64; Irene Miller, 64; Isabel Kelley, 423; Lady Constance Lytton, 449; Mrs. Baines, 130, 325; Mrs. Despard, 361; Mrs. Lawrence, 364; Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Haverfield, 386; Victor Duval, 500
Arrests at Birmingham, 428; at Bolton, 463; at Colston Hall, 461; at Crewe, 463; at Fifth Women’s Parliament, 270; at Guild Hall, 459; at Leicester, 422; at Lime House, 409; at Liverpool, 463; at Manchester, 88; at Northampton, 85; at opening of Parliament, 103; at Rochester Row, 107; at Third Women’s Parliament, 196; at Waterloo, 463; in Feb., 1907, 139; on March 20, 1907, 155; on June 30, 1908, 254
Asquith, Right Hon. Henry Herbert, 222, 360, 384, 419, 426, 446, 459, 464, 475, 479, 496; at Northampton, 81; letter to, 83; his “prisoners,” 96; becomes Prime Minister, 222; views on Stanger Bill, 234; his windows stoned, 253; waylaid at Lympne, 420
Ashton, Margaret, 73, 224
Attercliffe by-election, 377
Ayrton, Mrs. Hertha, 438, 502
B
Baines, Mrs. Jennie, 130, 405, 447, 483; arrest of, 325; trial of, 326 et seq.
Bairstow, Mr., 326
Baker, Mrs., 411
Balfour, Lady Betty, 438
Balfour, Sir Arthur, 8, 15, 18, 40, 129, 499
Balcarres, Lord, 371, 502
Balgarnie, Florence, 233
Banbury, Sir F. G., 219
Bateson, Mrs. Mary, 75
Battersea, a typical meeting, 99; campaign, 100; meeting at, 328
Baxter, Sir G., 231
Beales, Edmund, 79
Becker, Lydia, 4, 489
Bedford Corn Exchange, 406
Beerbohm, Max, 285
Bell, Capt. Morrison, 184
Bennett, Curtis, 143, 272, 273, 276, 280, 281, 286, 476
Benson, Mrs. Godfrey, 324
Benson, T. D., letter from, 89
Bermondsey by-election, 456
Berwick Women’s Liberal Ass’n, 438
Bertram, Julius, 127
Bill for the Enfranchisement of Women first prepared, 8
Bill introduced by Dickinson, 147
Billington, Theresa, 41, 65, 80, 97
Binglet Hall Meeting, 426
Birmingham, arrests at, 428; Daily Mail, 33; meeting at, 328; prison, 431; Women’s Liberal Ass’n, 438
Birrell, Mr., 340, 421, 505
Black, W. G., 146
Blake, Lady, 438
Boggart Hole Clough demonstration, 175
Bourchier, Dr. Helen, 192, 194
Bovey Tracey meeting, 182
Bow Street Police Court, trials at, 254; trial of three leaders, 271; imprisonment of three leaders, 266
Brackenbury, Georgina, 196
Brackenbury, Marie, 196, 292, 407
Brackenbury, Mrs., 502
Brackenbury, Sir Henry, 196
Bradford, meeting at, 328; Shipley Glen meeting, 257
Brailsford, H. N., 437, 456, 489
Brailsford, Mrs. J. E. M., 448, 449
Bramley, F., 146
Branch, Mrs., 438
Brand, Bessie, 405
Brand, Sir David, 405
Brawling Bill, 370, 372
Brewster, Bertha, 379, 443
Bright, Jacob, 4
Bright, John, 313
Bristol prison, 461
British Medical Journal, 435
Brown, Amelia, 459
Brown, Kathleen, 448
Bryce, J., 146
Bull, Sir William, 203
Burkitts, Hilda, 441
Burns, John, 78, 99, 203, 277, 314, 367, 428
Burns, Lucy, 409, 411, 417
Bury St. Edmunds by-election, 165
Butler, Josephine, 55, 96
Buxton, Sidney, 177, 184, 407
By-election at Attercliffe, 377; Bermondsey, 456; Bury St. Edmunds, 165; Chelmsford, 349; Cleveland, 423; Croyden, 377; Colne Valley, 163; Dumfriesburgh, 425; East Edinburgh, 377; Forfar, 377; Glasgow, 377; Haggerston, 257; Hawick Burghs, 377; Hexham, 157; Hull, 181; Jarrow, 161; Mid-Devon, 181; Newcastle, 257; Oakham, 159; Peckham, 212; Pembrokeshire, 257; Rutland, 157; Sheffield, 377; South Aberdeen, 146; South Edinburgh, 377; South Hereford, 188; Stratford-on-Avon, 377; Stirling Burghs, 238; Uppingham, 160; Wimbledon, 169
By-election policies, 95 et seq.
By-elections and policies of Suffragettes, 166; results of, 166
C
Cabinet meetings invaded, 176
Cabinet Ministers called upon, 191
Campbell, Rev. R. J., 341, 438
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 40, 150, 222; at Sun Hall meeting, 50; evades deputation, 63; heckled at Dunfermline, 175; receives deputation, 76
Campaign at Battersea, 99; Cockermouth, 92; East Fife, 97; Edinburgh, 174; Jarrow, 161; Mid-Devon, 182; Peckham, 214; in Wales, 97; of Oct., 1905, 24 et seq.; of 1906, 40 et seq.
Canford Park, 413
Capper, Mabel, 409
Carpenter, W. B., 231
Carson, Sir Edward, 372
Castioni case, the, 396
Caxton Hall, meeting, 57; Parliament, 138; Second Women’s Parliament, 152; Third Women’s Parliament, 192; Fifth Women’s Parliament, 266
Cecil, Lord Robert, 123, 129, 203, 351, 389, 468, 470
Central office opened, 133
Chains and padlocks, 329
Chamberlain, Joseph, 314
Chapin, Mrs., 458
Chaplin, Henry, 169, 172
Chapman, Hugh, 396
Chatterton, Ada, 155
Cheetham Hill meeting, 43
Chelmsford by-election, 349
Chelsea, meeting at, 328
Chesterton, G. K., 13
Chorlton Board of Guardians, 6
Christmas in Holloway gaol, 132
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 313, 362, 413
Churchill, Winston, 27, 133, 219, 224, 253, 405, 422, 450, 452, 460, 461, 493, 495; campaign against, 43 et seq.; at Cheetham meeting, 44; at Dundee, 227
Clarke, Charles G., 219
Clarkson, Florence, 405, 443, 444
Clayton, Joseph, 361
Classification of Holloway gaol prisoners, 125
Cleveland by-election, 423
Clifton, Durdham Downs meeting, 257
Clive, Capt. Percy A., 189
Clothing furnished in Holloway gaol, 111
Clyde, Constance, 155
Cobbett, William, 390
Cobden, Richard, 102
Cockermouth by-election, 92
Colne Valley by-election, 163
Coleridge, Lord, 4
Collecting funds, 208
Colston Hall meeting, 461
Conciliation Bill, 491
Conciliation Committee, 489
Conolly, Dr., 432
Constable, A. H. B., 232
Contrasting policies of Suffragists and Suffragettes, 172
Cook, Mrs. Kennindale, 192
Cooke, Florence, 394
Cooper, Dr. George, 180, 457
Corbett, Mrs. Frank, 451, 453
Craig, Dr. Maurice, 477
Cremer speech against Suffrage Resolution, 68
Crewe, Lord, 416, 417
Croft, Edward, 144
Crombie, W. J., 232
Croydon by-election, 377
Cuckfield resolution, 237
Curran, Peter, 163
Cust, H. J. Cockayne, 457
Cutler, Arnold, 331
D
Daily Chronicle, 198, 239
Daily Mail, 33, 214, 216
Daily Mirror, Northampton, 86
Daily News, 157, 180, 183, 237, 248
Daily Telegraph, 388
Davidson, Dr. W. A., 435
Davies, Emily, 73, 243
Davies, Llewellyn, 52
Davison, Emily Wilding, 454, 478
DeLegh, Miss, 416
Demonstration at Boggart Hole Clough, 175; of protest on June 30, 1908, 250; of the unemployed, 263
Deputations to Mr. Asquith, 81 et seq.
De Rutzen, Sir Albert, 192, 364, 367, 390, 468
Despard, Mrs., 102, 361, 475
Dewsbury, 231
Dickinson Bill, 147
Dickinson, Sarah, 6, 53, 73
Disguises utilised, 41
Disorders at Newton Abbott, 185
Dove-Wilcox, Mrs., 397, 401 et seq.
Drage, Jeffrey, 425
Drummond, Flora, 48
Drummond, Mrs., 220, 446; arrest of, 64; opening London campaign, 56; at Eye by-election, 67; at third attack upon the House, 131; at Peckham, 218; at the great Hyde Park meeting, 241; in own defence at Bow Street, 320; in Holloway gaol, 333
Dumfries, Mr., 457
Dumfriesburgh by-election, 425
Dundee election, 227
Dunfermline, heckling at, 175
Duval, Victor, 500
E
East Anglican Daily Times, 388
East Edinburgh by-election, 377
East Fife campaign, 97
Eckford, Miss, 405
Edinburgh campaign, 174; political pageant, 445
Edwards, Miss, 441
Egbaston Woman’s Liberal Ass’n, 438
Ejected from House of Commons, 70
Election address of Hon. Bertrand Russell, 171; at Dundee, 228; at North West Manchester, 224; pledges, 179
Elmy, Mrs. Wolstenholme, 16, 72
Ervine, St. John G., 221
Esler, Dr. Robert, 220
Esperance Working-Girl’s Club, 59
Esslemont, G. B., 146
Evans, Samuel, 69, 98, 326
Eve, H. T., 184
Evening News, 199
Evening Standard, 33
Exeter Hall meeting, 133
Exhibition at Prince’s Skating Rink, 375
Eye by-election, 66
F
Farrell, Mr. (M. P.), 332
Fawcett, Mrs. Henry, 146
Fenton, Dr. Hugh, 456
Fenton, William Hugh, 434, 477
Fenwick, Irene, 61
Fifth Women’s Parliament, 266
Figner, Vera, 436
Finch, H. G., 161
First Albert Hall meeting, 209
First Anti-Suffrage Society organised, 147
First arrest of Mrs. Pankhurst, 202
First arrests, 29·
First imprisonments, 31; comments on, 33 et seq.
First Women’s Suffrage open-air meeting in London, 79
Folliero, Cemino, 155
Food in Holloway gaol, 125
Forcible feeding, 433, 440, 454, 461, 481
Fordham, Mr., 401
Foreign Office, Deputation at, 73
Forfar by-election, 377
Formation of Women’s Freedom League, 173
Fowler, Sir H., 232
Fraser, Foster, 128
Free Press, Aberdeen, 180
Free Trade Hall, Manchester, meet
ing, 133
G
Gannell, S. G., 231
Gannell, S. J., 232
Gardner, Alan C., 189
Garnett, Theresa, 379 et seq., 460
Gasson, Mrs., 74
Gautrey, T., 219
Gawthorpe, Mary, in Wales, 98; early life, 99; at Uppingham, 160; ejected from House of Commons, 102; 222, 446
General election of 1906, 40; of 1910, 488
Gibson, Flora, 50
Gladstone, Herbert, 69, 124, 141, 178, 205, 240, 253, 278, 293, 314, 331, 371, 383, 395, 397, 404, 419, 435, 455
Glasgow by-election, 377; Evening Times, 198; St. Andrew’s Hall meeting, 51
Gooch, C. A., 219, 221
Gordon, Dr. Mary, 256
Gore-Booth, Eva, 6, 53, 73
Goulden, Emmeline, 3 et seq.
Gretton, J., 161
Grey, Sir Edward, 25, 26, 193, 464
Guest, Hon. F., 93
Guild Hall arrests, 459
Guinness, Hon. W., 165
H
Haggerston by-election, 257
Haig, Dr. Alexander, 43
Haig, Florence, 195, 196
Haidane, Mr., 177, 418, 499
Hall, Leslie, 480, 482
Hambro, C. E., 172
Hammersmith, meeting at, 328
Harberton, Lady, 152
Harcourt, Lewis, 178, 405, 463
Harcourt, R. V., 232
Hardie, Keir, 8, 12, 17, 18, 55, 67, 127, 129, 135, 371, 383, 433, 435, 502
Hardy, Dr. Mabel, 155
Harraden, Beatrice, 243
Harvey, Capt. F. W., 165
Haverfield, Mrs., 389, 467
Hawick Burghs by-election, 377
Hay, Claud, 141
Hazleton, Mr. (M.P.), 371
Heallis, Georgina, 419, 443
Heally, Timothy, 476
Heckling Campbell-Bannerman, 175
Henle, Mr., 389
Hexham by-election, 155
Hollo way Gaol, 86, 109 et seq., 332, 410; prisoners released from, 97; life in, 115 et seq.; classes of prisoners in, 124 et seq.; food in, 125; sickness in, 255; three leaders released from, 356; Miss Wallace-Dunlop fasts in, 392
Holloway, Mr. Justice, 470
Holme, Vera, 383
Horsley, Sir Victor, 434, 477
House of Commons first closed to women, 58
Housman, Clemence, 208
Housman, Lawrence, 387
Howard, Geoffrey, 365, 489
The Suffragette Page 43