August 18, 2025 • 22 mins
In My Own Story, Emmeline Pankhurst, the renowned British political activist and leader of the suffragette movement, shares her compelling journey in the fight for womens rights. Despite facing significant criticism for her militant approach, her relentless efforts played a pivotal role in securing womens suffrage in Britain. Written and published on the brink of the Great War, Pankhursts autobiography offers an intimate glimpse into her experiences and the challenges she faced along the way. (Summary by Petra)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Book three, Chapter one of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
k Hand The Women's Revolution, Chapter one. Parliament had reassembled
on October twenty fifth, nineteen eleven, and the first move
on the part of the government was, to say the
least of it rather unpropitious. The Prime Minister submitted two motions,
(00:23):
the first one empowering them to take all the time
of the House during the remainder of the session, and
the second guillotining discussion on the Insurance Bill so as
to force the measure through before Christmas. One day only
was allotted to the clauses relating to women in that bill.
These clauses were notoriously unfair. They provided for sickness insurance
of about four million women in unemployment insurance of no
(00:46):
women at all. Under the provision of the bill, eleven
million men were insured against sickness and about two and
a half million against unemployment. Women were given lower benefits
for the same premium as men, and premiums paid out
of the family income were credited solely to the men's account.
The bill, as drafted, provided no form of insurance for wives,
mothers and daughters who spent their lives at home working
(01:07):
for the family. It penalized women for staying in the home,
which most men agree as women's only legitimate sphere of action.
The amended bill grudgingly allowed, aside from maternity benefits, a
small insurance on rather difficult terms for working women's wives. Thus,
the re elected government's first utterance to women was one
of contempt, and this was followed on November seventh by
(01:28):
the almost incredible announcement that the government intended at the
next session to introduce a manhood suffrage bill. This announcement
was not made in the House of Commons, but to
a deputation of men from the People's Suffrage Federation, a
small group of people who advocated universal adult suffrage. The deputation,
which was very privately arranged for, was received by mister
(01:49):
Asquith and then the Minister of Elibank, chief Liberal Whip.
The spokesman asked mister Asquith to bring in a government
measure for universal adult suffrage, including adult women. The Prime
Minister replied that the government had pledged facilities for the
Conciliation Bill, which was as far as they were prepared
to go. In the matter of women's suffrage, but he
added the government intended in the next session to introduce
(02:11):
and to pass through all its stages, a genuine reform
bill which would sweep away existing qualifications for the franchise
and substitute a single qualification of residence. The bill would
apply to adult mails only, but it would be so
framed as to be opened to a woman's suffrage amendment
in case the House of Commons desire to make that
extension and amendment. This portentous announcement came like a bolt
(02:32):
from the blue, and there was strong condemnation of the
government's treachery to women, said the Saturday Review. With absolutely
no demand, no ghost of a demand for more votes
for men, and with beyond all Caville a very strong
demand for votes for women, the Government announced their Manhood's
Suffrage Bill and carefully evade the other question for a
(02:53):
naked avowed plan of gerrymandering. No government surely, ever, did
beat this one. The Daily Mail said that the policy
se which mister Asquith proposes is absolutely indefensible, and the
Evening Standard and Globe said, we are no friends of
female suffrage, but anything more contemptible than the attitude assumed
by the government. It is difficult to imagine if the
Government hoped to deceive anyone by their dishonest reference to
(03:16):
the possibility of a woman's suffrage amendment. They were disappointed,
said the Evening News. Mister Asquith's bombshell will blow the
Conciliation Bill to smithereens, For it is impossible to have
a manhood suffrage for men and a property qualification for women. True,
the Premier consents to leave the question of women's suffrage
to the House, but he knows well enough what the
decision of the House will be. The conciliation Bill had
(03:38):
a chance, but the larger measure has none at all.
I have quoted these newspaper leaders to show you that
our opinion of the government's action was shared even by
the press. Universal suffrage in a country where women are
in a majority of one million is not likely to
happen in the lifetime of any reader of this volume,
and the government's generous offer of a possible amendment was
nothing more than a gratuitous insult to the suffrage. The
(04:01):
truce naturally came to an abrupt end. The w S
p U wrote to the Prime Minister saying that consternation
had been aroused by the government's announcement, and that it
had been decided accordingly to send a deputation representing the
Women's Social and Political Union to wait upon himself and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the evening of November
twenty first. The purpose of the deputation was to demand
(04:22):
that the proposed Manhood Suffrage Bill be abandoned and that
in its place should be introduced a government measure giving
equal franchise rights to men and women. A similar letter
was despatched to mister Lloyd George. Six times before, on
occasions of crisis, had the w s p U requested
an interview with mister Asquith, and each time they had
been refused. This time, the Prime Minister replied that he
(04:43):
had decided to receive a deputation of the various suffrage
societies on November seventeenth, including your own society if you
desire it. It was proposed that each society appoint four
representatives as members of the deputation, which would be received
by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Nine suffrage society sent representatives to the meeting, our own
(05:03):
representatives being Christa Belle panhursed Missus Pethick Lawrence, Miss Annie Kenny,
Lady Constance Lytton, and Miss Elizabeth Robbins. Cristel Bell and
Missus Lawrence spoke for the Union, and they did not
hesitate to accuse the two ministers to their faces of
having grossly tricked and falsely misled women. Mister Asquith, in
his reply to the deputation, resented these imputations. He had
(05:26):
kept his pledge. He insisted, in regard to the Conciliation Bill,
he was perfectly willing to give facilities to the bill
if the women preferred that to an amendment to his
reform Bill. Moreover, he denied that he had made any
new announcement. As far back as nineteen o eight he
had distinctly declared that the Government regarded it as a
sacred duty to bring forward a manhood suffrage bill before
that Parliament came to an end. It was true that
(05:49):
the Government did not carry out that binding obligation, and
it was also true that until the present time nothing
more was ever said about a manhood suffrage bill. But
that was not the government's fault. The crisis of the
Lord's Veto had momentarily displaced the bill. Now he merely
proposed to fulfill his promise made in nineteen o eight,
and also his promise about giving facilities to the Conciliation Bill.
(06:10):
He was ready to keep both promises well, he knew
that those promises were incompatible, that the fulfillment of both
was therefore impossible. And Cristabel told him so bluntly and fearlessly.
WE are not satisfied, she warned him, and the Prime
Minister sat acidly. I did not expect to satisfy you.
The reply of the W S p U was immediate
and forceful, led by Missus p Thick Lorrence, our women
(06:32):
went out with stones and hammers and broke hundreds of
windows in the Home Office, the War and Foreign Offices,
the Board of Education, the Privy Council Office, the Board
of Trade, the Treasury, Somerset House, the National Liberal Club,
several post offices, the Old Banqueting Hall, the London and
South Western Bank, and a dozen other buildings, including the
residents of Lord Haldane and mister John Burns. Two hundred
(06:55):
and twenty women were arrested in about one hundred fifty
of them sent to prison for terms varying from a
week to two months. One individual protest deserves mention because
of its prophetic character. In December, Miss Emily Wilding Davison
was arrested for attempting to set fire to a letter
box at Parliament Street post office. In court, Miss Davison
said she did it as a protest against the government's
(07:16):
treachery and as a demand that women's suffrage be included
in the King's speech. The protest was meant to be serious,
she said, and so I adopted a serious course in
past agitation for reform. The next step after window breaking
was incendiarism, in order to draw the attention of the
private citizens to the fact that this question of reform
was their concern as well as that of women. Miss
(07:37):
Davison received the severe sentence of six months imprisonment for
her deed. To this state of affairs, I returned from
my American tour, I had the comfort of reflecting that
my imprisoned comrades were being accorded better treatment than the
earlier prisoners had known. Since early in nineteen ten, some
concessions had been granted, and some acknowledgment of the political
character of our offenses had been made during the brief
(07:59):
period when the use scant concessions to justice were allowed,
the hunger strike was abandoned, and prison was robbed of
its worst horror forcible feeding. The situation was bad enough, however,
and I could see that it might easily become a
great deal worse. We had reached a stage at which
the mere sympathy of members of Parliament, however sincerely felt,
was no longer of the slightest use. Reminding our members
(08:20):
this in the first speeches made after returning to England,
I asked them to prepare themselves for more action. If
women's suffrage was not included in the next King's Speech,
we should have to make it absolutely impossible for the
government to touch the question of the franchise. The King's
Speech when Parliament met in February nineteen twelve alluded to
the franchise question in very general terms. Proposals, it was stated,
(08:40):
would be brought forward for the amendment of the law
with respect to the franchise and the registration of electors.
This might be construed to mean that the Government were
going to introduce a manhood suffrage bill or a bill
for the abolition of plural voting which had been suggested
in some quarters as a substitute for the manhood Suffrage Bill.
No precise statement of the government's intentions was made, and
the whole franchise question was left in a cloud of uncertainty.
(09:03):
Mister agg Gardner, a Unionist member of the Conciliation Committee,
drew the third place in the vallot, and he announced
that he should reintroduce the Conciliation Bill. This interested us
very slightly, for knowing its prospect of success to have
been destroyed. For we were done with the Conciliation Bill forever.
Nothing less than a government measure would henceforth satisfy the
w SPU, because it had been clearly demonstrated that only
(09:25):
a government measure would be allowed to pass the House
of Commons. Was sublime faith, or rather with a deplorable
lack of political insight. The Women's Liberal Federation and the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies professed full confidence in
the proposed amendment to a manhood suffrage bill. But we
knew how futile was that hope. We saw that the
only course to take was to offer determined opposition to
(09:46):
any measure of suffrage that did not include as an
integral part equal suffrage for men and women. On February sixteenth,
we held a large meeting of welcome to a number
of released prisoners who had served two and three months
for the window breaking demonstration that had taken place in
the previous Novemas. At this meeting, we candidly surveyed the
situation and agreed on a course of action which we
believed would be sufficiently strong to prevent the government from
(10:07):
advancing their threatened franchised bill. I said on this occasion,
we don't want to use any weapons that are unnecessarily strong.
If the argument of the Stone, that time honored official
political argument is sufficient, then we will never use any
stronger argument. And that is the weapon and the argument
that we are going to use next time. And so
I say to every volunteer on our demonstration, be prepared
(10:29):
to use that argument. I am taking charge of the demonstration,
and that is the argument I am going to use.
I am not going to use it for any sentimental reason.
I am going to use it because it is the
easiest and most readily understood. Why should women go to
Parliament Square and be battered about and insulted, And most
important of all, produce less effect than when we throw stones.
We tried it long enough. We submitted four years patiently
(10:52):
to insult and assault. Women, had their health injured, women
lost their lives. We should not have minded if that
had succeeded. But that did not succeed, And we have
made more progress with less hurt to ourselves by breaking
glass than ever we made when we allowed them to
break our bodies. After all, is not a woman's life,
is not her health? Are not her limbs more valuable
than pains of glass? There is no doubt of that.
(11:14):
But most important of all, does not the breaking of
glass produce more effect upon the government. If you are
fighting a battle that should dictate your choice of weapons, well,
then we are going to try this time if mere
stones will do it. I do not think it will
ever be necessary for us to arm ourselves as Chinese
women have done, but there are women who are prepared
to do that if it should be necessary. In this union,
(11:35):
we don't lose our heads. We only go as far
as we are obliged to go in order to win.
And we are going forward with this next protest demonstration
in full faith that this plan of campaign initiated by
our friends whom we honor tonight, will on this next occasion,
prove effective. Ever since militancy took on the form of
destruction of property, the public, generally, both at home and abroad,
(11:56):
has expressed curiosity as to the logical connection between acts
such as breaking windows, firing pillar boxes, et cetera, and
the vote. Only a complete lack of historical knowledge excuses
that curiosity. For every advance of men's political freedom has
been marked with violence and the destruction of property. Usually
the advance has been marked by war, which is called glorious.
(12:16):
Sometimes it has been marked by rioting, which are deemed
less glorious, but are at least effective. That speech of
mine just quoted will probably strike the reader as one
inciting to violence and illegal action things as a rule
and ordinary circumstance is quite inexcusable. Well, I will call
the reader's attention to what was in this connection a
rather singular coincidence. At the very hour when I was
(12:39):
making that speech, advising my audience of the political necessity
of physical revolt, a responsible member of the government in
another hall in another city was telling his audience precisely
the same thing. This cabinet member the right Honorable C. E. H. Hobhouse,
addressing a large anti suffrage meeting in his constituency of Bristol,
said that the suffrage move was not a political issue
(13:01):
because its adherents had failed to prove that behind this
movement existed a large public demand. He declared that in
the case of the suffrage demand, there has not been
the kind of popular sentimental uprising which accounted for Nottingham
Castle in eighteen thirty two or the Hyde Park railings
in eighteen sixty seven. There has not been a great
abolition of popular feeling. The popular sentimental uprising to which
(13:23):
mister Hobhouse alluded was the burning to the ground of
the castle of the anti suffrage Duke of Newcastle and
of Colwick Castle, the county seat of another of the
leaders of the opposition against the franchise bill. The militant
men of that time did not select uninhabited buildings to
be fired. They burned both these historic residences over their
owner's heads. Indeed, the wife of the owner of Colwick
(13:44):
Castle died as a result of shock and exposure. On
that occasion. No arrests were made, no men imprisoned. On
the contrary, the King sent for the Premier and begged
the Whig ministers favorable to the franchise bill not to resign,
and intimated that this was also the wish of the
Lord who had thrown out the bill. Molesworth's History of
England says these declarations were imperatively called for. The danger
(14:07):
was eminent, and the ministers knew it and did all
that lay in their power to tranquilize the people and
to assure them that the bill was only delayed and
not finally defeated. For a time the people believed this,
but soon they lost patience, and, seeing signs of a
renewed activity on the part of the anti suffragists, they
became aggressive again. Bristol, the very city in which mister
Hobhouse made his speech, was set on fire. The militant
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reformers burned to the new Jail, the toll houses, the
Bishop's Palace, both sides of Queen Square, including the Mansion House,
the custom House, the Excise Office, many warehouses and other
private property, the whole valued at over one hundred thousand
pounds five hundred thousand dollars. It was as a result
of such violence, and in fear of more violence, that
(14:50):
the reform bill was hurried through Parliament and became law
in June eighteen thirty two. Our demonstration so mild by
comparison with english Men's political ADGUTI was announced for March fourth,
and the announcement created much public alarm. Sir William Biles
gave notice that he would ask the Secretary of State
for the Home Department whether his attention had been drawn
(15:11):
to a speech by Missus Pankhurst last Friday night, openly
and emphatically inciting her hearers to violent outrage and the
destruction of property, and threatening the use of firearms if
stones did not prove sufficiently effective, And what steps he
proposes to take to protect society from this outbreak of lawlessness.
The question was duly asked, and the Home Secretary replied
that his attention had been called to the speech, but
(15:33):
that it would not be desirable in the public interest
to say more than this at present. Whatever preparations the
Police Department were making to prevent the demonstration, they failed
because while as usual, we were able to calculate exactly
what the Police Department were going to do, they were
utterly unable to calculate what we were going to do.
We had planned a demonstration from March fourth, and this
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one we announced. We planned another demonstration for March first,
but this one we did not announce lately after On
noon of Friday, March first, I drove in a taxi cab,
accompanied by the Honorable Secretary of the Union, Missus Tuke,
and another one of our members, to Number ten, Downing Street,
the official residence of the Prime Minister. It was exactly
half past five when we alighted from the cabin through
(16:14):
our stones, four of them through the window panes. As
we expected. We were promptly arrested and then taken to
cannon Row police station. The hour that followed will long
be remembered in London. At intervals of fifteen minutes, relays
of women who had volunteered for the demonstration did their work.
The first smashing of glass occurred in the Haymarket and
Piccadilly and greatly startled and alarmed both pedestrians and police.
(16:38):
A large number of the women were arrested and everybody
thought that this ended the affair, But before the excited
populace and the frustrated shop owner's first exclamation had died down.
Before the police had reached the station with their prisoners.
The ominous crashing and splintering of plate glass began again,
this time along both sides of Regent Street and the Strand.
A furious rush of police and people toward the second
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scene of action ensued. While their attention was being taken
up with occurrences in this quarter, the third relay of
women began breaking windows in the Oxford Circus and Bond Street.
This demonstration ended for the day at half past six
with a breaking of many windows in the Strand. The
Daily Mail gave this graphic account of the demonstration from
every part of the crowded and brilliantly lighted streets came
(17:21):
the crash of splintered glass. People started as a window
shattered at their side. Suddenly there was another crash in
front of them on the other side of the street.
Behind everywhere, Scared shop assistants came running out to the pavements.
Traffic stopped, Policemen sprang this way and that. Five minutes
later the streets were a procession of excited groups, each
surrounding a woman wrecker being led in custody to the
(17:43):
nearest police station. Meanwhile, the shopping quarter of London had
plunged itself into a sudden twilight. Shutters were hurriedly fitted.
The rattle of iron curtains being drawn came from every side.
Guards of commissionaires and shopmen were quickly mounted, and any
unaccompanied lady in sight, especially if she carried a hand bag,
became an object of menacing suspicion. At the hour when
(18:04):
this demonstration was being made, a conference was being held
at Scotland Yard to determine what should be done to
prevent the smashing of windows on the coming Monday night.
But we had not announced the hour of our March
fourth protest. I had in my speech simply invited women
to assemble in Parliament Square on the evening of March fourth,
and they accepted the invitation. Set the Daily Telegraph. By
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six o'clock the neighborhood houses of Parliament were in a
stage of siege. Shop Keepers in almost every instance barricaded
their premises, removed goods from the windows, and prepared for
the worst. A few minutes before six o'clock, a huge
force of police amounting to nearly three thousand constables was
posted in Parliament Square, Whitehall and streets adjoining, and large
reserves were gathered in Westminster Hall and Scotland Yard. By
(18:48):
half past eight, Whitehall was packed from end to end
with police and public mounted constables rode up and down
Whitehall keeping the people on the move. At no time
was there any sign of danger. The demonstration had taken
place in the morning, when a hundred more women walked
quietly into Knightsbridge, and walking singly along the streets, demolished
nearly every pane of glass they passed. Taken by surprise,
(19:10):
the police arrested as many as they could reach, but
most of the women escaped. For that two days work,
something like two hundred suffragettes were taken to the various
police station and for days the long procession of women
streamed through the courts. The dismayed magistrates found themselves facing
not only former rebels, but many new ones, in some
cases women whose names, like that of doctor Ethel Smith
(19:31):
the composer, were famous throughout Europe. These women, when arraigned,
made clear and lucid statements of their positions and their motives.
But magistrates are not schooled to examine motives. They are
trained to think all of laws, and mostly of laws
protecting property. Their ears were not tuned to listen to
words like those spoken by one of the prisoners, who said,
we have tried every means, processions and meetings which were
(19:53):
of no avail. We have tried demonstrations, and now at
last we have to break windows. I wish I had
broken more. I am not in the least repentant. Our
women are working in far worse condition than the striking miners.
I have seen widows struggling to bring up their children.
Only two out of every five are fit to be soldiers.
What is the good of a country like ours? England
(20:14):
is absolutely on the wane. You have only one point
of view, and that is the men's. And while men
have done the best they could, they cannot go far
without the women. And the women's views, we believe the
whole is in a muddle, too horrible to think of.
The coal miners were at that time engaging in a
terrible strike in the government. Instead of arresting, the leaders
were trying to come to terms of peace with them.
I reminded the magistrate of this fact, and I told
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him that what the women had done was but a
flea bite by comparison with the miner's violence. I said further,
I hope our demonstration will be enough to show the
government that the women's agitation is going on. If not,
if you send me to prison, I will go further
to show that women who have to help pay the
salaries of cabinet ministers and your salary too, sir, are
going to have some voice in the making of the
(20:56):
laws they have to obey. I was sentenced to two
months in prison. Others received sentences ranging from one week
to two months, while those who were accuse a breaking
glass above five pounds of value were committed for trial
in higher courts. They were sent to prison on remand
when and when the last of us were behind grim Gates,
not only Holloway but three other women's prisons were taxed
(21:16):
to provide for so many extra inmates. It was a
stormy imprisonment for most of us. A great many of
the women had received, in addition to their sentences, hard labor,
and this meant that the privileges at that time accorded
to suffragettes as political offenders were withheld. The women adopted
the hunger strike as a protest, but as the hint
was conveyed to me that the privileges would be restored,
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I advised a cessation of the strike. The remand prisoners
demanded that I be allowed to exercise with them, and
when this was not answered, they broke the windows of
their cells. The other suvage prisoners, hearing the sound of
shattered glass and the singing of the Marseillais, immediately broke
their windows. The time had long gone by when the
suffragettes submitted meekly to prison discipline, and so passed the
(21:59):
first days of my imprisonment. End of Book three, Chapter one,
Book three, Chapter one of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
k Hand The Women's Revolution, Chapter one. Parliament had reassembled
on October twenty fifth, nineteen eleven, and the first move
on the part of the government was, to say the
least of it rather unpropitious. The Prime Minister submitted two motions,
(00:23):
the first one empowering them to take all the time
of the House during the remainder of the session, and
the second guillotining discussion on the Insurance Bill so as
to force the measure through before Christmas. One day only
was allotted to the clauses relating to women in that bill.
These clauses were notoriously unfair. They provided for sickness insurance
of about four million women in unemployment insurance of no
(00:46):
women at all. Under the provision of the bill, eleven
million men were insured against sickness and about two and
a half million against unemployment. Women were given lower benefits
for the same premium as men, and premiums paid out
of the family income were credited solely to the men's account.
The bill, as drafted, provided no form of insurance for wives,
mothers and daughters who spent their lives at home working
(01:07):
for the family. It penalized women for staying in the home,
which most men agree as women's only legitimate sphere of action.
The amended bill grudgingly allowed, aside from maternity benefits, a
small insurance on rather difficult terms for working women's wives. Thus,
the re elected government's first utterance to women was one
of contempt, and this was followed on November seventh by
(01:28):
the almost incredible announcement that the government intended at the
next session to introduce a manhood suffrage bill. This announcement
was not made in the House of Commons, but to
a deputation of men from the People's Suffrage Federation, a
small group of people who advocated universal adult suffrage. The deputation,
which was very privately arranged for, was received by mister
(01:49):
Asquith and then the Minister of Elibank, chief Liberal Whip.
The spokesman asked mister Asquith to bring in a government
measure for universal adult suffrage, including adult women. The Prime
Minister replied that the government had pledged facilities for the
Conciliation Bill, which was as far as they were prepared
to go. In the matter of women's suffrage, but he
added the government intended in the next session to introduce
(02:11):
and to pass through all its stages, a genuine reform
bill which would sweep away existing qualifications for the franchise
and substitute a single qualification of residence. The bill would
apply to adult mails only, but it would be so
framed as to be opened to a woman's suffrage amendment
in case the House of Commons desire to make that
extension and amendment. This portentous announcement came like a bolt
(02:32):
from the blue, and there was strong condemnation of the
government's treachery to women, said the Saturday Review. With absolutely
no demand, no ghost of a demand for more votes
for men, and with beyond all Caville a very strong
demand for votes for women, the Government announced their Manhood's
Suffrage Bill and carefully evade the other question for a
(02:53):
naked avowed plan of gerrymandering. No government surely, ever, did
beat this one. The Daily Mail said that the policy
se which mister Asquith proposes is absolutely indefensible, and the
Evening Standard and Globe said, we are no friends of
female suffrage, but anything more contemptible than the attitude assumed
by the government. It is difficult to imagine if the
Government hoped to deceive anyone by their dishonest reference to
(03:16):
the possibility of a woman's suffrage amendment. They were disappointed,
said the Evening News. Mister Asquith's bombshell will blow the
Conciliation Bill to smithereens, For it is impossible to have
a manhood suffrage for men and a property qualification for women. True,
the Premier consents to leave the question of women's suffrage
to the House, but he knows well enough what the
decision of the House will be. The conciliation Bill had
(03:38):
a chance, but the larger measure has none at all.
I have quoted these newspaper leaders to show you that
our opinion of the government's action was shared even by
the press. Universal suffrage in a country where women are
in a majority of one million is not likely to
happen in the lifetime of any reader of this volume,
and the government's generous offer of a possible amendment was
nothing more than a gratuitous insult to the suffrage. The
(04:01):
truce naturally came to an abrupt end. The w S
p U wrote to the Prime Minister saying that consternation
had been aroused by the government's announcement, and that it
had been decided accordingly to send a deputation representing the
Women's Social and Political Union to wait upon himself and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the evening of November
twenty first. The purpose of the deputation was to demand
(04:22):
that the proposed Manhood Suffrage Bill be abandoned and that
in its place should be introduced a government measure giving
equal franchise rights to men and women. A similar letter
was despatched to mister Lloyd George. Six times before, on
occasions of crisis, had the w s p U requested
an interview with mister Asquith, and each time they had
been refused. This time, the Prime Minister replied that he
(04:43):
had decided to receive a deputation of the various suffrage
societies on November seventeenth, including your own society if you
desire it. It was proposed that each society appoint four
representatives as members of the deputation, which would be received
by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Nine suffrage society sent representatives to the meeting, our own
(05:03):
representatives being Christa Belle panhursed Missus Pethick Lawrence, Miss Annie Kenny,
Lady Constance Lytton, and Miss Elizabeth Robbins. Cristel Bell and
Missus Lawrence spoke for the Union, and they did not
hesitate to accuse the two ministers to their faces of
having grossly tricked and falsely misled women. Mister Asquith, in
his reply to the deputation, resented these imputations. He had
(05:26):
kept his pledge. He insisted, in regard to the Conciliation Bill,
he was perfectly willing to give facilities to the bill
if the women preferred that to an amendment to his
reform Bill. Moreover, he denied that he had made any
new announcement. As far back as nineteen o eight he
had distinctly declared that the Government regarded it as a
sacred duty to bring forward a manhood suffrage bill before
that Parliament came to an end. It was true that
(05:49):
the Government did not carry out that binding obligation, and
it was also true that until the present time nothing
more was ever said about a manhood suffrage bill. But
that was not the government's fault. The crisis of the
Lord's Veto had momentarily displaced the bill. Now he merely
proposed to fulfill his promise made in nineteen o eight,
and also his promise about giving facilities to the Conciliation Bill.
(06:10):
He was ready to keep both promises well, he knew
that those promises were incompatible, that the fulfillment of both
was therefore impossible. And Cristabel told him so bluntly and fearlessly.
WE are not satisfied, she warned him, and the Prime
Minister sat acidly. I did not expect to satisfy you.
The reply of the W S p U was immediate
and forceful, led by Missus p Thick Lorrence, our women
(06:32):
went out with stones and hammers and broke hundreds of
windows in the Home Office, the War and Foreign Offices,
the Board of Education, the Privy Council Office, the Board
of Trade, the Treasury, Somerset House, the National Liberal Club,
several post offices, the Old Banqueting Hall, the London and
South Western Bank, and a dozen other buildings, including the
residents of Lord Haldane and mister John Burns. Two hundred
(06:55):
and twenty women were arrested in about one hundred fifty
of them sent to prison for terms varying from a
week to two months. One individual protest deserves mention because
of its prophetic character. In December, Miss Emily Wilding Davison
was arrested for attempting to set fire to a letter
box at Parliament Street post office. In court, Miss Davison
said she did it as a protest against the government's
(07:16):
treachery and as a demand that women's suffrage be included
in the King's speech. The protest was meant to be serious,
she said, and so I adopted a serious course in
past agitation for reform. The next step after window breaking
was incendiarism, in order to draw the attention of the
private citizens to the fact that this question of reform
was their concern as well as that of women. Miss
(07:37):
Davison received the severe sentence of six months imprisonment for
her deed. To this state of affairs, I returned from
my American tour, I had the comfort of reflecting that
my imprisoned comrades were being accorded better treatment than the
earlier prisoners had known. Since early in nineteen ten, some
concessions had been granted, and some acknowledgment of the political
character of our offenses had been made during the brief
(07:59):
period when the use scant concessions to justice were allowed,
the hunger strike was abandoned, and prison was robbed of
its worst horror forcible feeding. The situation was bad enough, however,
and I could see that it might easily become a
great deal worse. We had reached a stage at which
the mere sympathy of members of Parliament, however sincerely felt,
was no longer of the slightest use. Reminding our members
(08:20):
this in the first speeches made after returning to England,
I asked them to prepare themselves for more action. If
women's suffrage was not included in the next King's Speech,
we should have to make it absolutely impossible for the
government to touch the question of the franchise. The King's
Speech when Parliament met in February nineteen twelve alluded to
the franchise question in very general terms. Proposals, it was stated,
(08:40):
would be brought forward for the amendment of the law
with respect to the franchise and the registration of electors.
This might be construed to mean that the Government were
going to introduce a manhood suffrage bill or a bill
for the abolition of plural voting which had been suggested
in some quarters as a substitute for the manhood Suffrage Bill.
No precise statement of the government's intentions was made, and
the whole franchise question was left in a cloud of uncertainty.
(09:03):
Mister agg Gardner, a Unionist member of the Conciliation Committee,
drew the third place in the vallot, and he announced
that he should reintroduce the Conciliation Bill. This interested us
very slightly, for knowing its prospect of success to have
been destroyed. For we were done with the Conciliation Bill forever.
Nothing less than a government measure would henceforth satisfy the
w SPU, because it had been clearly demonstrated that only
(09:25):
a government measure would be allowed to pass the House
of Commons. Was sublime faith, or rather with a deplorable
lack of political insight. The Women's Liberal Federation and the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies professed full confidence in
the proposed amendment to a manhood suffrage bill. But we
knew how futile was that hope. We saw that the
only course to take was to offer determined opposition to
(09:46):
any measure of suffrage that did not include as an
integral part equal suffrage for men and women. On February sixteenth,
we held a large meeting of welcome to a number
of released prisoners who had served two and three months
for the window breaking demonstration that had taken place in
the previous Novemas. At this meeting, we candidly surveyed the
situation and agreed on a course of action which we
believed would be sufficiently strong to prevent the government from
(10:07):
advancing their threatened franchised bill. I said on this occasion,
we don't want to use any weapons that are unnecessarily strong.
If the argument of the Stone, that time honored official
political argument is sufficient, then we will never use any
stronger argument. And that is the weapon and the argument
that we are going to use next time. And so
I say to every volunteer on our demonstration, be prepared
(10:29):
to use that argument. I am taking charge of the demonstration,
and that is the argument I am going to use.
I am not going to use it for any sentimental reason.
I am going to use it because it is the
easiest and most readily understood. Why should women go to
Parliament Square and be battered about and insulted, And most
important of all, produce less effect than when we throw stones.
We tried it long enough. We submitted four years patiently
(10:52):
to insult and assault. Women, had their health injured, women
lost their lives. We should not have minded if that
had succeeded. But that did not succeed, And we have
made more progress with less hurt to ourselves by breaking
glass than ever we made when we allowed them to
break our bodies. After all, is not a woman's life,
is not her health? Are not her limbs more valuable
than pains of glass? There is no doubt of that.
(11:14):
But most important of all, does not the breaking of
glass produce more effect upon the government. If you are
fighting a battle that should dictate your choice of weapons, well,
then we are going to try this time if mere
stones will do it. I do not think it will
ever be necessary for us to arm ourselves as Chinese
women have done, but there are women who are prepared
to do that if it should be necessary. In this union,
(11:35):
we don't lose our heads. We only go as far
as we are obliged to go in order to win.
And we are going forward with this next protest demonstration
in full faith that this plan of campaign initiated by
our friends whom we honor tonight, will on this next occasion,
prove effective. Ever since militancy took on the form of
destruction of property, the public, generally, both at home and abroad,
(11:56):
has expressed curiosity as to the logical connection between acts
such as breaking windows, firing pillar boxes, et cetera, and
the vote. Only a complete lack of historical knowledge excuses
that curiosity. For every advance of men's political freedom has
been marked with violence and the destruction of property. Usually
the advance has been marked by war, which is called glorious.
(12:16):
Sometimes it has been marked by rioting, which are deemed
less glorious, but are at least effective. That speech of
mine just quoted will probably strike the reader as one
inciting to violence and illegal action things as a rule
and ordinary circumstance is quite inexcusable. Well, I will call
the reader's attention to what was in this connection a
rather singular coincidence. At the very hour when I was
(12:39):
making that speech, advising my audience of the political necessity
of physical revolt, a responsible member of the government in
another hall in another city was telling his audience precisely
the same thing. This cabinet member the right Honorable C. E. H. Hobhouse,
addressing a large anti suffrage meeting in his constituency of Bristol,
said that the suffrage move was not a political issue
(13:01):
because its adherents had failed to prove that behind this
movement existed a large public demand. He declared that in
the case of the suffrage demand, there has not been
the kind of popular sentimental uprising which accounted for Nottingham
Castle in eighteen thirty two or the Hyde Park railings
in eighteen sixty seven. There has not been a great
abolition of popular feeling. The popular sentimental uprising to which
(13:23):
mister Hobhouse alluded was the burning to the ground of
the castle of the anti suffrage Duke of Newcastle and
of Colwick Castle, the county seat of another of the
leaders of the opposition against the franchise bill. The militant
men of that time did not select uninhabited buildings to
be fired. They burned both these historic residences over their
owner's heads. Indeed, the wife of the owner of Colwick
(13:44):
Castle died as a result of shock and exposure. On
that occasion. No arrests were made, no men imprisoned. On
the contrary, the King sent for the Premier and begged
the Whig ministers favorable to the franchise bill not to resign,
and intimated that this was also the wish of the
Lord who had thrown out the bill. Molesworth's History of
England says these declarations were imperatively called for. The danger
(14:07):
was eminent, and the ministers knew it and did all
that lay in their power to tranquilize the people and
to assure them that the bill was only delayed and
not finally defeated. For a time the people believed this,
but soon they lost patience, and, seeing signs of a
renewed activity on the part of the anti suffragists, they
became aggressive again. Bristol, the very city in which mister
Hobhouse made his speech, was set on fire. The militant
(14:29):
reformers burned to the new Jail, the toll houses, the
Bishop's Palace, both sides of Queen Square, including the Mansion House,
the custom House, the Excise Office, many warehouses and other
private property, the whole valued at over one hundred thousand
pounds five hundred thousand dollars. It was as a result
of such violence, and in fear of more violence, that
(14:50):
the reform bill was hurried through Parliament and became law
in June eighteen thirty two. Our demonstration so mild by
comparison with english Men's political ADGUTI was announced for March fourth,
and the announcement created much public alarm. Sir William Biles
gave notice that he would ask the Secretary of State
for the Home Department whether his attention had been drawn
(15:11):
to a speech by Missus Pankhurst last Friday night, openly
and emphatically inciting her hearers to violent outrage and the
destruction of property, and threatening the use of firearms if
stones did not prove sufficiently effective, And what steps he
proposes to take to protect society from this outbreak of lawlessness.
The question was duly asked, and the Home Secretary replied
that his attention had been called to the speech, but
(15:33):
that it would not be desirable in the public interest
to say more than this at present. Whatever preparations the
Police Department were making to prevent the demonstration, they failed
because while as usual, we were able to calculate exactly
what the Police Department were going to do, they were
utterly unable to calculate what we were going to do.
We had planned a demonstration from March fourth, and this
(15:53):
one we announced. We planned another demonstration for March first,
but this one we did not announce lately after On
noon of Friday, March first, I drove in a taxi cab,
accompanied by the Honorable Secretary of the Union, Missus Tuke,
and another one of our members, to Number ten, Downing Street,
the official residence of the Prime Minister. It was exactly
half past five when we alighted from the cabin through
(16:14):
our stones, four of them through the window panes. As
we expected. We were promptly arrested and then taken to
cannon Row police station. The hour that followed will long
be remembered in London. At intervals of fifteen minutes, relays
of women who had volunteered for the demonstration did their work.
The first smashing of glass occurred in the Haymarket and
Piccadilly and greatly startled and alarmed both pedestrians and police.
(16:38):
A large number of the women were arrested and everybody
thought that this ended the affair, But before the excited
populace and the frustrated shop owner's first exclamation had died down.
Before the police had reached the station with their prisoners.
The ominous crashing and splintering of plate glass began again,
this time along both sides of Regent Street and the Strand.
A furious rush of police and people toward the second
(17:00):
scene of action ensued. While their attention was being taken
up with occurrences in this quarter, the third relay of
women began breaking windows in the Oxford Circus and Bond Street.
This demonstration ended for the day at half past six
with a breaking of many windows in the Strand. The
Daily Mail gave this graphic account of the demonstration from
every part of the crowded and brilliantly lighted streets came
(17:21):
the crash of splintered glass. People started as a window
shattered at their side. Suddenly there was another crash in
front of them on the other side of the street.
Behind everywhere, Scared shop assistants came running out to the pavements.
Traffic stopped, Policemen sprang this way and that. Five minutes
later the streets were a procession of excited groups, each
surrounding a woman wrecker being led in custody to the
(17:43):
nearest police station. Meanwhile, the shopping quarter of London had
plunged itself into a sudden twilight. Shutters were hurriedly fitted.
The rattle of iron curtains being drawn came from every side.
Guards of commissionaires and shopmen were quickly mounted, and any
unaccompanied lady in sight, especially if she carried a hand bag,
became an object of menacing suspicion. At the hour when
(18:04):
this demonstration was being made, a conference was being held
at Scotland Yard to determine what should be done to
prevent the smashing of windows on the coming Monday night.
But we had not announced the hour of our March
fourth protest. I had in my speech simply invited women
to assemble in Parliament Square on the evening of March fourth,
and they accepted the invitation. Set the Daily Telegraph. By
(18:26):
six o'clock the neighborhood houses of Parliament were in a
stage of siege. Shop Keepers in almost every instance barricaded
their premises, removed goods from the windows, and prepared for
the worst. A few minutes before six o'clock, a huge
force of police amounting to nearly three thousand constables was
posted in Parliament Square, Whitehall and streets adjoining, and large
reserves were gathered in Westminster Hall and Scotland Yard. By
(18:48):
half past eight, Whitehall was packed from end to end
with police and public mounted constables rode up and down
Whitehall keeping the people on the move. At no time
was there any sign of danger. The demonstration had taken
place in the morning, when a hundred more women walked
quietly into Knightsbridge, and walking singly along the streets, demolished
nearly every pane of glass they passed. Taken by surprise,
(19:10):
the police arrested as many as they could reach, but
most of the women escaped. For that two days work,
something like two hundred suffragettes were taken to the various
police station and for days the long procession of women
streamed through the courts. The dismayed magistrates found themselves facing
not only former rebels, but many new ones, in some
cases women whose names, like that of doctor Ethel Smith
(19:31):
the composer, were famous throughout Europe. These women, when arraigned,
made clear and lucid statements of their positions and their motives.
But magistrates are not schooled to examine motives. They are
trained to think all of laws, and mostly of laws
protecting property. Their ears were not tuned to listen to
words like those spoken by one of the prisoners, who said,
we have tried every means, processions and meetings which were
(19:53):
of no avail. We have tried demonstrations, and now at
last we have to break windows. I wish I had
broken more. I am not in the least repentant. Our
women are working in far worse condition than the striking miners.
I have seen widows struggling to bring up their children.
Only two out of every five are fit to be soldiers.
What is the good of a country like ours? England
(20:14):
is absolutely on the wane. You have only one point
of view, and that is the men's. And while men
have done the best they could, they cannot go far
without the women. And the women's views, we believe the
whole is in a muddle, too horrible to think of.
The coal miners were at that time engaging in a
terrible strike in the government. Instead of arresting, the leaders
were trying to come to terms of peace with them.
I reminded the magistrate of this fact, and I told
(20:36):
him that what the women had done was but a
flea bite by comparison with the miner's violence. I said further,
I hope our demonstration will be enough to show the
government that the women's agitation is going on. If not,
if you send me to prison, I will go further
to show that women who have to help pay the
salaries of cabinet ministers and your salary too, sir, are
going to have some voice in the making of the
(20:56):
laws they have to obey. I was sentenced to two
months in prison. Others received sentences ranging from one week
to two months, while those who were accuse a breaking
glass above five pounds of value were committed for trial
in higher courts. They were sent to prison on remand
when and when the last of us were behind grim Gates,
not only Holloway but three other women's prisons were taxed
(21:16):
to provide for so many extra inmates. It was a
stormy imprisonment for most of us. A great many of
the women had received, in addition to their sentences, hard labor,
and this meant that the privileges at that time accorded
to suffragettes as political offenders were withheld. The women adopted
the hunger strike as a protest, but as the hint
was conveyed to me that the privileges would be restored,
(21:37):
I advised a cessation of the strike. The remand prisoners
demanded that I be allowed to exercise with them, and
when this was not answered, they broke the windows of
their cells. The other suvage prisoners, hearing the sound of
shattered glass and the singing of the Marseillais, immediately broke
their windows. The time had long gone by when the
suffragettes submitted meekly to prison discipline, and so passed the
(21:59):
first days of my imprisonment. End of Book three, Chapter one,
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