August 18, 2025 • 37 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 two of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
k Hand The Women's Revolution, Chapter two. The panic stricken
government did not rest content with the imprisonment of the
window breakers. They sought, in a blind and blundering fashion,
to perform the impossible feat of wrecking at a blow
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the entire militant movement. Governments have always tried to crush
reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that
cannot die. Without regard to history, which shows that no
government have ever succeeded in doing this. They go on
trying in the old senseless way. For days before the
two demonstrations described in the last chapter, our head quarters
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in Clement's Inn had been under constant observation by the police,
and on the evening of March fifth, an inspector of
police and a large force of detectives suddenly descended on
the place with warrants for the arrest of Cristabel Pankhurst
and mister and Missus p Thick Lawrence, who, with Missus
Tuke and myself were charged with conspiring to incite certain
persons to commit malicious damage to property. When the officers entered,
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they found mister Pethick Lawrence at work in his office
and Missus Pethick Lawrence in her flat upstairs. My daughter
was not in the building. The Lawrences, after making brief preparations,
drove in a taxi cab to the Bow Street station,
where they spent the night. The police remained in possession
of the offices, and detectives were dispatched to find an
arrest Cristabel, but that arrest never took place. Cristabel Pankhurst
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eluded the entire force of detectives and uniformed police trained
hunters of human prey. Cristabel had gone home, and, at first,
on hearing of the arrest of mister and Missus Pethick Lawrence,
had taken her own arrest for granted. A little reflection, however,
showed her the danger in which the Union would stand
if completely deprived of its accustomed leadership, and seeing that
it was her duty to avoid arrest, she quietly left
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the house. She spent that night with friends, who next
morning helped her to make the necessary arrangements and saw
her safely away from London. That same night, she reached Paris,
where she has since remained. My relief when I learned
of her flight was very great, because I knew that
whatever happened to the lawrences and myself, the movement would
be wisely directed. This in spite of the fact that
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the police remained in full possession of headquarters. The offices
in Clement's Inn were thoroughly ransacked by the police in
a determined effort to secure evidence of conspiracy. They went
through every desk, file and cabinet, taking away with them
two cabloads of books and papers, including all my private papers,
photographs of my children in infancy, and letters sent to
me by my husband long ago. Some of these I
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never saw again. The police also terrorized the printer of
our weekly newspaper, and although the paper came out as usual,
about a third of its columns were left blank. The headlines, however,
with the ensuing space mere white paper, produced a most
dramatic effect. History teaches read one headline to a blank space,
plainly indicating that the government were not willing to let
the public know some of the things that history teaches.
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Women's moderation suggested that the destroyed paragraph called for comparison
of the women's window breaking with men's greater violence in
the past. Most eloquent of all was the editorial page,
absolutely blank except for the headline A Challenge, and the
name at the foot of the last column, Cristabel Pankhurst.
What words could have breathed a profounder defiance, a more
implacable resolve. Cristabel was gone out of the clutches of
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the government, yet she remained in complete possession of the field.
For weeks. The search for her went were relentlessly on.
Police searched every railway station, every train, every seaport. The
police of every city in the Kingdom were furnished with
her portrait. Every amateur Sherlock Holmes in England joined with
the police in finding her. She was reported in a
dozen cities, including New York, but all the time she
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was living quietly in Paris, in daily communication with the
workers in London, who within a few days were once
more at their appointed tasks. My daughter has remained in
France ever since. Meanwhile, I found myself in the anomalous
position of a convicted offender serving two months prison sentence,
and of a prisoner on remand waiting to be charged
with a more serious offense. I was in very bad health,
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having been placed in a damp and unwarmed third division cell,
the result being an acute attack of bronchitis. I addressed
a letter to the Home Secretary, telling him of my
condition and urging the necessity of liberty to recover my
health and to prepare my case for trial. I asked
for release on bail the plain right of a remanned prisoner,
and I offered, if bail were granted now, to serve
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the rest of my two months sentence later on. The
sole concessions granted to me, however, were removal to a
better cell and the right to see my secretary and
my solicitor, but only in the presence of a wardress
and a member of the prison clerical staff. On March fourteenth,
mister and Missus Pethick, Lawrence, Missus Tuke, and myself were
brought up for preliminary hearing on the charge of having,
on November first, nineteen eleven, and on various other dates,
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conspired and combined together unlawfully and maliciously to commit damage,
et cetera. The case opened on March fourteenth in a
crowded court room in which I saw many friends. Mister Bodkin,
who appeared for the prosecution, made a very long address
in which she endeavored to prove that the Women's Social
and Political Union was a highly developed organization of most
sinister character. He reduced much documentary evidence, some of it
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of such amusing character that the court rocked with stifled laughter,
and the judge was obliged to conceal his smiles behind
his hand. Mister Bodkin cited our code book, with the
assistance of which we were able to communicate private messages.
His voice sank to a scandalized half whisper as he
stated the fact that we had presumed to include the
sacred persons of the government in our private code. We find,
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said mister Bodkin, portentously, that public men in the service
of His Majesty, as members of the Cabinet, are tabulated
here under code names. We find that the Cabinet collectively
has its code word Trees, and individual members of the
Cabinet are designated by the name sometimes of Trees. But
I am also bound to say the commonest weeds as well.
Here a ripple of laughter interrupted. Mister Bodkin frowned heavily
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and continued There is one, he said, solemnly called Pansy,
another one more complimentary, rose, another violets, and so on.
Each of the defendants was designated by a code letter.
Thus Missus Pankhurst was identified by the letter F Missus Pethick,
Lawrence D. Miss Cristabel Pankhurst E. Every public building, including
the House of Commons, had its code name. The deadly
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possibilities of the code were illustrated by a telegram found
in one of the files. It read silk Thistle, Pansy
duck wool e Q. Translated by the aid of the
code book, the telegram read will you protest Asquith's public
meeting tomorrow evening, but don't get arrested and less success
depends on it wire back to Cristabel Pankhurst Clement's inn.
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More laughter followed these revelations, which, after all proved no
more than the businesslike methods employed by the w SPU.
The laughter proved something a great deal more significant, For
it was a plain indication that the old respect in
which cabinet ministers had been held was no more. We
had torn the veil from their sacrisanct personalities and shown
them for what they were mean and scheming pol politicians.
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More serious from the point of view of prosecution was
the evidence brought in by members of the police department
in regard to the occurrences of March first and fourth.
The policemen who arrested me and my two companions in
Downing Street on March first, after we had broken the
windows in the Premier's house, testified that following the arrest,
we had handed him our reserve stock of stones, and
that they were all alike heavy flints. Our other prisoners
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were found in possession of similar stones, tending to prove
that the stones all came from one source. Other officers
testified to the methodical manner in which the window breaking
of March first and fourth was carried out, how systematically
it had been planned, and how soldierly it had been
the behavior of the women. By twos and threes March fourth,
they had been seen to go to the headquarters at
Clement's Inn carrying handbags which they deposited at headquarters, and
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had then gone on to a meeting and the Pavilion
Music Hall. The police attended the meeting, which was the
usual rally preceding a demonstration or a deputation, at five o'clock.
The meeting adjourned, and the women went out as if
to go home. The police observed that many of them,
them still in groups of twos and threes, went to
the Gardenia Restaurant in Catherine Street Strand, a place where
many Suffragette breakfasts and teas had been held. The police
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thought that about one hundred and fifty women congregated there
on March fourth. They remained until seven o'clock, and then
under the watching eyes of the police, they sauntered out
and dispersed. A few minutes later, when there is no
reason to expect such a thing. The noise was heard
in many streets of wholesale window smashing. The police authorities
made much of the fact that the women who had
left their bags at Headquarters and were afterwards arrested were
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bailed out that night by mister Pethick Lawrence. The similarity
of the stones used, the gathering of so many women
in one building prepared for arrest, the waiting at the
Gardenia Restaurant, the apparent dispersal, the simultaneous destruction and many
localities of plate glass, and the bailing of prisoners by
a person connected with the Headquarters mentioned certainly showed a
carefully worked out plan. Only a public trial of the
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defendants could establish whether or not the plan was a conspiracy.
On the second day of the ministerial hearing, Missus Touke,
who had been in the prison infirmary for twenty days
and had to be attended in court by a trained nurse,
was admitted to bail. Mister Pethick Lawrence made a strong
plea for bail for himself and his wife, pointing out
that they had been in prison on remand for two
weeks and were entitled to bail. I also demanded the
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privileges of a prisoner on remand. Both of these pleas
were denied by the court. But a few days later
the Home Secretary wrote to my solicitor that the remainder
of my sentence of two months would be remitted until
after the conspiracy trial at bow Street. Mister and Missus
Pethick Lawrence had already been admitted to bail. Public opinion
forced the Home Secretary to make these concessions, as it
is well known that it is next to impossible to
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prepare defense while confined in prison. Aside from the terrible
effect of prison on one's body and nerves. There is
the difficulty of consulting documents and securing other necessary data
to be considered. On April fourth, the ministerial hearing ended
in the acquittal of Missus Tuke, whose activities in the
w SPU were shown to be purely secretarial. Mister and
Missus p Thick Lawrence and myself were committed for trial
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at the next session of the Central crim Mainal Court
beginning April twenty third. Because of the weak state of
my health, the judge was, with great difficulty prevailed upon
to postpone the trial two weeks, and it was therefore
not until May fifteenth that the case was open. The
trial at Old Bailey is a thing that I shall
never forget. The scene is clear before me, as I write,
the judge, impressively bewigged and scarlet robed, dominating the corrowded
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court room, the solicitors at their table, the jury, and
looking very far away, the anxious, pale faces of our
friends who crowded the narrow galleries. By the veriest irony
of fate, this judge, Lord Coleridge, was the son of
Sir Charles Coleridge, who, in the year eighteen sixty seven
appeared with my husband, doctor Pankhurst, in the famous case
of Charlton versus Lings, and sought to establish that women
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were persons and as such were entitled to the parliamentary vote.
To make the irony still deeper, the Attorney General Sir
Rufus Isaacs, who appeared as counsel for the prosecution against
women militants, himself had been guilty of remarkable speeches and
corroboration of our point of view, and a speech made
in nineteen ten in relation to the abolition of the
Lord's Veto, Sir Rufus made the statement that although the
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agitation against privilege was being peacefully conducted, the indignation behind
it was very intense, said Sir Rufus. Formerly, when the
great mass of the people were voteless, they had to
do something violent in order to show what they felt.
To day, the elector's bullet is his ballot. Let no
one be deceived. Therefore, because in this present struggle everything
is peaceful and orderly, in contrast to the disorderliness of
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other great struggles of the past, we wondered if the
man who said these words could fail to realize that
voteless women deprived of every constitutional means of writing their
grievances were also obliged to do something violent in order
to show how they felt. His opening address removed all
doubt on that score. Sir Rufus Isaacs has a clear cut,
hawklike face, deep eyes, and a somewhat world worn air.
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The first words he spoke were so astoundingly unfair that
I could hardly believe that I heard them aright. He
began his address to the jury by telling them that
they must not on any account connect the act of
the defended with any political agitation. I am very anxious
to impress upon you, he said, from the moment we
begin to deal with the facts of this case, that
all questions of whether a woman is entitled to the
parliamentary franchise, whether she should have the same right of
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franchise as a man, are questions which are in no
sense involved in the trial of this issue. Therefore, I
ask you to discard altogether from the consideration of the
matters which will be placed before you, any viewpoint you
may have on this no doubt very important political issue. Nevertheless,
Sir rufe Is added in the course of his remarks
that he feared that it would not be possible to
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keep out of the conduct of the case, various references
to political events, and of course the entire trial from
beginning to end, showed clearly that the case was what
mister Tim Healy missus P. Thick Lawrence's Council called a
great state trial. Proceeding the Attorney General described the w SPU,
which he said he thought had been in existence since
nineteen o seven and had used what were known as
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militant methods. In nineteen eleven, the association had become annoyed
by the Prime Minister because he would not make women
suffrage what was called a government question. In November nineteen eleven,
the Prime Minister announced the introduction of a manhood Suffrage Bill.
From that time on, the defendants set to work to
carry out a campaign which would have meant nothing less
than anarchy. Women were to be induced to act together
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at a given time, in different given places, in such
numbers that the police should be paralyzed by the number
of persons breaking the law, in order to use the
defendant's own words to bring the government to its knees.
After designating the respective positions held by the foe defendants
in the WSPU. Sir Rufus went on to relate the
events which resulted in the smashing of plate glass windows
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valued at some two thousand pounds, and the imprisonment of
over two hundred women who were incited to their deeds
by the conspirators in the dock. He entirely ignored the
motive of the acts in question, and he treated the
whole affair as if the women had been burglars. This
inverted statement of the matter, though accurate enough as to facts,
was such as might have been given by King John
of the signing of Magna Carta. A very great number
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of witnesses were examined, a large number of them being policemen,
and their testimony in our cross examination disclosed the startling
fact that there exists in England a special brand of
secret police entirely engaged in political work. These men, seventy
five in number, form what is known as the Political
branch of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police. They
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go about in disguise and their sole duty is to
shadow suffragettes and other political workers. They follow certain political
workers from their homes, to their places of business, to
their social pleasures, into tea rooms and restaurants, even to
the theater. They pursue unsuspecting people in taxicabs, sit beside
the men omnibuses. Above all, they take down speeches. In fact,
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the system is exactly like the secret police system of Russia.
Mister Pethick Lawrence and I spoke in our own defense,
and mister Healey m P defended Missus Pethick Lawrence. I
cannot give our speeches in full, but I should like
to include as much of them as will serve to
make the entire situation clear to the reader. Mister Lawrence
spoke first at the opening of the case. He began
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by giving an account of the suffrage movement and why
he felt the enfranchisement of women appeared to him and
questioned so grave that it warranted strong measures in its pursuit.
He sketched briefly the history of the Women's Social Political
Union from the time when Cristabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenny
were thrown out of Sir Edward Gray's meeting and imprisoned
for asking a political question to the torpedoing of the
Conciliation Bill. The case that I have to put before you,
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he said, is that neither the conspiracy nor the incitement
is ours, but that the conspiracy is a conspiracy of
the Cabinet, who are responsible for the government of this country,
and that the incitement is the incitement of the ministers
of the Crown. And he did this most effectually, not
only by telling of the disgraceful trickery and deceit with
which the government had misled the suffragets in the matter
of suffrage bills, but by giving the plain words in
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which the members of cabinet had advised the women that
they would never get the vote until they learned how
to fight for it as men had fought in the past.
When it came my turn to speak, realizing that the
average man is profoundly ignorant of the history of the
women's movement because the press has never adequately or truthfully
chronicled the mood, I told the jury as briefly as
I could the story of forty years peaceful agitation before
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my daughters and I resolved that we would give our
lives to the work of getting the vote for women,
and that we should use whatever means of getting the
vote that were necessary to success. We founded the Women's
Social and Political Union, I said in nineteen o three.
Our first intention was to try and influence the particular
political party which was then coming into power, to make
this question of the enfranchisement of women their own question
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and to push it. It took some little time to
convince us, and I need not weary you with the
history of all that has happened, but it took some
little time to convince us that that was no use,
that we could not secure things in that way. Then
in nineteen o five we faced the hard facts. We
realized that there was a press boycought against women's suffrage.
Our speeches at public meetings were not reported, Our letters
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to the editors were not published. Even if we implored
the editors. Even the things relating to women's suffrage in
parliament were not recorded. They said the subject was not
of sufficient public interest to be reported in the press
and they were not prepared to report it. Then, with
regard to the men politicians, in nineteen o five, we
realized how shadowy were the fine phrases about democracy, about
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human equality used by the gentlemen who were then coming
into power. They meant to ignore the women. There was
no doubt whatever about that. From the official documents coming
from the Liberal Party on the eve of the nineteen
oh five election, there were sentences like this, what the
country wants is a simple measure of manhood suffrage. There
was no room for the inclusion of women. We knew
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perfectly well that if there was to be franchise reform
at all, the Liberal Party, which was then coming into power,
did not mean votes for women. In spite of all
the pledges of members, in spite of the fact that
a majority of the House of Commons, especially on the
Liberal side, were pledged to it, it did not mean
that they were going to put it into practice. And
so we found some way of forcing their attention to
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this question. Now I come to the facts with regard
to militancy. We realized that the plans we had in
our minds would involve great sacrifice on our part. That
it might cost is all we had. We were at
that time a little organization composed in the main of
working women, the wives and daughters of working men, and
my daughters and I took a leading part, naturally because
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we thought the thing out, and to a certain extent,
because we were of better social position than most of
our members, and we felt a sense of responsibility. I
described the events that marked the first days of our work.
The scene in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, when my daughter
and her companion were arrested for the crime of asking
a question of a politician, and I continued, what did
they do next? I want you to realize that no
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step we have taken forward has been taken until after
some act of repression on the part of our enemy,
the government, because it is the government that is our enemy.
It is not the members of parliament, It is not
the men in the country. It is the government in
power alone that can give us the vote. It is
the government alone that we regard as our enemy, and
the whole of our agitation is directed to bringing just
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as much pressure as necessary upon those people who can
deal with our grievance. The next step the women took
was to ask questions during the course of meetings, because,
as I told you, these gentlemen gave them no opportunity
of asking them afterwards, and then began the interjections of
which we have heard, the interference with the right to
old public meetings, the interference with the right of free
speech of which we have heard, for which these women,
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these hooligan women, as they have been called, have been denounced.
I ask you, gentlemen, to imagine the amount of courage
which it needs for a woman to undertake that kind
of work. When men come to interrupt women's meetings, they
come in gangs with noisy instruments and sing and shout
together and stamp their feet. But women women have gone
to cabinet ministers meetings only to interrupt cabinet ministers and
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nobody else. They have gone singly, and it has become
increasingly difficult for them to get in because as a
result of the women's methods, there has developed the system
of admission by ticket, a thing in which my liberal
days would have been thought a very disgraceful thing at
liberal meetings. But this ticket system developed, and so the
women could only get in with very great difficulty. Women
have concealed themselves for thirty six hours in dangerous positions
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under the platform, in the organs, wherever they could get advantage.
Point they waited, starving in the cold, sometimes on the roof,
exposed to a winter's night, just to get a chance
of saying in the course of a cabinet minister's speech.
When is the Liberal government going to put its promises
into practice that has been the form militancy took in
its further development. I went over the whole matter of
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our peaceful deputations and of the violence with which they
were invariably met, of our arrests in the farcical police
court trials, where the mere evidence of a policeman's unsupported
statement sent us to prison for long terms, of the
falsehoods told of us in the House of Commons by
responsible members of the government, tales of women scratching and
biting policemen and using hatpins. And I accused the government
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of making these attacks against women who were powerless to
defend themselves, because they feared the women and desire to
crush the agitation represented by our organization. Now it has
been stated in this court, I said that it is
not the women's social and political union that is in
the court, but that it is certain defendants. The action
of the government, gentlemen, is certainly against the defendants who
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are before you here to day, but it is also
against the women's social and political union. The intention is
to crush that organization. And this intention apparently was arrived
at after I had been set to prison for two
months for breaking a pane of glass. Worth I am
told two shilling three penny, the punishment, which I accepted
because I was a leader of this movement, though was
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an extraordinary punishment to inflict for so small an act
of damages as I had committed. I accepted it as
the punishment for a leader of an agitation disagreeable to
the government. And while I was there this prosecution started.
They thought they would make a clean sweep of the
people who they considered were the political brains of the movement.
We've got many false friends in the cabinet, people who
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by their words, appear to be well meaning toward the
cause of women's suffrage. And they thought that if they
could get the leaders of the union out of the way,
it would result in the indefinite postponement and settlement of
the question in this country. Well, they have not succeeded
in their design. And even if they had got all
the so called leaders of this movement out of their way,
they would not have succeeded even then. Now, why have
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they not put the union on the dock? We have
a democratic government. So called this women's social and Political
Union is not a collection of hysterical and unimportant wild women,
as has been suggested to you, but it is an
important organization which numbers amongst its membership very important people.
It is composed of women of all classes of the community,
women who have influenced in their particular organizations, as working women,
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women who have influenced in professional organizations, as professional women,
women of social importance, women even of royal rank, are
amongst the members of this organization. And so it would
not pay a democratic government to deal with this organization
as a whole. They hoped that by taking away the
people that they thought guided the political fortunes of the organization,
they would break the organization down. They thought that if
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they put out of the way the influential members of
the organization, they, as one member of the Cabinet I believe, said,
would crush the movement and get it on the run. Well,
governments have many times been mistaken, gentlemen, and I venture
to suggest to you that governments are mistaken again. I
think the answer to the government was given at the
Albert Hall meeting held immediately after our arrest, within a
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few minutes, without the eloquence of Missus p. Thick Lawrence,
without the appeals of the people who have been called
leaders of this movement, In a very few minutes, ten
thousand pounds was subscribed for the carrying on of this movement. Now,
a movement like that, supported like that is not a wild,
hysterical movement. It is not a movement of misguided people.
It is a very serious movement. Women, I submit, like
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our members, and women, I venture to say, like the
two women, and like the man who are in the
dock to day, are not people to undertake a thing
like this lightly. May I just try to make you
feel what it is that has made this movement the
gigantic size it is from the very small beginnings it had.
It is one of the biggest movements of modern times,
a movement which is not only an influence, perhaps not
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yet recognized in this country, but is influencing the women's
movement all over the world. Is there anything more marvelous
in modern times than the kind of spontaneous outburst in
every country of this women's movement, even in China, And
I think it somewhat of a disgrace to Englishmen, even
in China, and I think it somewhat of a disgrace
to englishmen. Even in China, women have won the vote
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as an outcome of a successful revolution with which I
dare say members of His Majesty's government sympathize a bloody revolution.
One more word on that point. When I was in
prison the second time for three months as a common
criminal for no greater offense than the issue of a
hand bill, less inflammatory in its terms than some of
the speeches of members of the government who prosecute us here.
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During that time, through the efforts of a member of Parliament,
there was secured for me permission to have the daily
paper in prison, and the first thing I read in
the daily press was this that the government was, at
that moment fading the members of the Young Turkish Revolutionary Party,
gentlemen who had invaded the privacy of the Sultan's home.
We used to hear a great deal about invading the
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privacy of mister Ascoot's residence when we ventured to ring
its door bell, gentlemen who had killed and slain and
had been successful in their revolution, while we women had
never thrown a stone. For none of us was imprisoned
for stone throwing, but merely for taking the part we
had then taken in this organization. There we were imprisoned
while these political murderers were being feted by the very
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government who imprisoned us and were being congratulated on the
success of the revolution. Now I ask you, was it
to be wondered at that? Women said to themselves. Perhaps
it is we have not done enough. Perhaps it is
that these gentlemen do not understand women folk, Perhaps they
do not realize women's ways. And because we have not
done the things that men have done, they may think
we are not in earnest. And then we come down
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to this last business of all, when we have responsible
statesmen like mister Hobhouse saying there had never been any
sentimental uprising, no expression of feeling like that which led
to the burning down of Nottingham Castle. Can you wonder
then that we decided we should have to nerve ourselves
to do more? And can you understand why we cast
about to find a way, as women will, that would
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not involve loss of human life and the maiming of
human beings, because women care more about human life than men,
and I think it is quite natural that we should,
for we know what life costs. We risk our lives
when men are born. Now, I want to say this
deliberately as a leader of this movement, we have tried
to hold it back. We have tried to keep it
from going beyond bounds. And I have never felt a
prouder woman than I did one night when a police
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constable said to me after one of these demonstrations, had
this been a man's demonstration, there would have been bloodshed
long ago. Well, my lord, there has not been any bloodshed,
except on the part of the women themselves, these so
called militant women. Violence has been done to us. And I,
who stand before you in this dock, have lost a
dear sister in the course of this agitation. She died
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within three days of coming out of prison, a little
more than a year ago. These are things which wherever
we are, we do not say very much about. We
cannot keep cheery, we cannot keep cheerfull, we cannot keep
the right kind of spirit which means success if we
dwell too much upon the hard part of our agitation.
But I when you say this, gentleman, that whatever in
future you may think of us, you will say this
(27:03):
about us, that whatever our enemies may say, we have
always put up an honorable fight and taken no unfair
means of defeating our opponents. Although they have not always
been people who have acted so honorably towards us. We
have assaulted no one, We have done no hurt to anyone.
And it was not until Black Friday. And what happened
on Black Friday is that we had a new Home
Secretary and there appeared to be new orders given to
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the police, because the police on that occasion showed a
kind of ferocity in dealing with the women that they
had never done before, and the women came up to
us and said, we cannot bear this. It was not
until then we felt this new form of repression should
compel us to take another step. That is the question
of Black Friday. And I want to say here and
now that every effort was made after Black Friday to
get an open public judicial inquiry into the doings of
(27:48):
Black Friday as to the instructions given to the police.
That inquiry was refused, But an informal inquiry was held
by a man whose name will carry conviction as to
his status and moral integrity on the one side of
the great political parties, and a man of equals standing
on the liberal side. These two men were Lord Robert
Cecil and mister Ellis Griffith. They held a private inquiry
(28:09):
had women before them, took their evidence, examined that evidence,
and after hearing it, said they believed that the women
had told them was substantially true, and that they thought
there was a good cause for that inquiry to be held.
That was embodied in a report to show you our difficulties.
Lord Robert cecil Any speech at the Criterion restaurant, spoke
on this question. He called upon the government to hold
(28:30):
this inquiry, and not one word of that speech was
reported in any morning paper. That is the sort of
thing we have had to face. And I welcome standing here,
if only for the purpose of getting these facts out.
And I challenged the Attorney General to institute an inquiry
into these proceedings. Not that kind of inquiry of sending
their inspectors to Holloway and accepting what they are told
by the officials, but to open a public inquiry with
(28:52):
a jury if he likes to deal with our aggrievances
against the government and the methods of this agitation. I say,
it is not the defendants who have comeired, but the
government who have conspired against us to crush this agitation.
But however the matter may be decided, we are content
to abide by the verdict of posterity. We are not
the kind of people who like to brag a lot.
We are not the kind of people who would bring
(29:12):
ourselves into this position unless we were convinced that it
was the only way. I have tried all my life.
I have worked for this question. I've tried arguments, I've
tried persuasion. I have addressed a greater number of public meetings,
perhaps than any person in this court. And I have
never addressed one meeting more substantially the opinion of the
meeting not a ticket meeting, but an open meeting. For
(29:32):
I have never addressed any other kind of meeting has
not been that where women bear burdens and share responsibilities
like men, they should be given the privileges that men enjoy.
I am convinced that public opinion is with us, that
it has been stifled, willfully stifled, so that in a
public court of justice, one is glad of being allowed
to speak on this question. The Attorney general summing up
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for the prosecution was very largely a defense of the
Liberal Party and its course in regard to women suffrage legislation. Therefore,
mister tim Healy and his defense of missus Petheck. Lawrence
did well to lay stress on the political character of
the conspiracy charge and trial. He said, it is no
doubt a very useful thing when you have political opponents,
to be able to set the law in motion against them.
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I have not the smallest doubt it would be a
very convenient thing, if they had the courage to do it,
to shut up the whole of His Majesty's opposition while
the present government is in office, to lock up all
the men of luster and distinction in our public forum
and on our public platforms, all the Carsons f. E.
Smith's bonar laws, and so on, it would be a
most convenient thing to end the whole thing, as it
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would be to end women's agitation in the form of
the indictment. Gentlemen of the jury, whatever words have been
spoken by mutual opponents, whatever instructions have been addressed, not
to feeble females, but to men who boast of drilling
and of arms, they have not had the courage to
prosecute anybody except women by means of an indictment. Yet
the government of my learned friend have selected two dates
(30:57):
as cardinal dates, and they ask you to pass judgment
upon the prisoners at the bar, and to say that,
without rhyme or reason, taking the course suggested, without provocation,
these responsible, well bred, educated university people have suddenly, in
the words of the indictment, wickedly and with malice of forethought,
engaged in these criminal designs. Gentlemen of the jury. The
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first thing I would ask in that connection is this,
What is there in the course of this demand put
forward by women, which should have excited the treatment at
the hands of His Majesty's ministers, which this movement, according
to the documents which are in evidence before me, has received.
I should suppose that the essence of all government is
the smooth conduct of affairs, so that those who enjoy
(31:40):
high station great emoluments should not be parties against whom
the accusation of provoking civic strife and breeding public turmoil
should be brought. What do we find? We find that
in regard to the treatment of the demand which had
always been put forward humbly, respectfully, respectably, and in its
origin by those who have received trade unionists, anti vaccinators,
(32:02):
deceased wife's sisters, and all other forms of political demand,
and who have received them humbly and yielded to them.
We find that when these people advocating this particular form
of civic reform request and audience request admission, request even
to have their petitions respectfully received, they have met judicially
at all events with a flat and solemn negative. That
(32:24):
is the beginning of this unhappy spirit bred in the
minds of persons like the defendants, persons like those against
whom evidence has been tendered, which has led to your
being impaneled in that box today. And I put it
to you, when you are considering whether it is the
incitement of my clients or the conduct of ministers that
have led to these events, whether I cannot ask you
to say that even a fair appointment of blame should
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not rest upon more responsible shoulders, and whether you should
go out of your way to say that these persons
in the dock alone are guilty. In closing, mister Healy
reverted to the political character of the trial. The government
have undertaken this prosecution. He declared, to seclude for a
considerable period their chief opponents. They hope there will be
at public meetings which they attend no more inconvenient cries
(33:08):
of votes for women. I cannot conceive any other object
which they could have in bringing the prosecution. I have
expressed my regret at the loss which shopkeepers, tradesmens and
others have suffered. I regret it deeply. I regret that
any person should bring loss or suffering upon innocent people.
But I ask you to say that the law has
already been sufficiently vindicated by the punishment of the immediate
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authors of the deed. What can be gained does justice gain?
I almost hesitate to treat this as a legal inquiry.
I regard it as a vindictive political act. Of all
the astonishing acts that have ever been brought into a
public court against a prisoner, I cannot help feeling the
charge against mister Pethick Lawrence is the most astonishing. He
ventured to attend at some police courts and give bail
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for women who had been arrested in endeavoring as I understand,
to present petitions to Parliament or to have resort to violence.
I do not compla the way in which my learned
friend has conducted the prosecution. But I do complain of
the police methods inquiring into the homes and the domestic
circumstances of the prisoners obtaining their papers. Taking their newspaper,
(34:11):
going into their bank account, bringing up their bankers here
to say what is their balance? And I do say
that in none of the prosecutions of the past have
smaller methods belittled a great state trial, because look at
it as you will, you cannot get away from it
that it is a great state trial. It is not
the women who are on trial, It is the men.
It is the system of government which is upon trial.
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It is this method of rolling the dice by fifty
four counts in an indictment without showing to what any
bit of evidence is fairly attributable. The system is on
its trial, a system whereby every innocent act in public
life is sought to be enmeshed in a conspiracy. The
jury was absent for more than an hour, showing that
they had some difficulty in agreeing upon a verdict. When
(34:53):
they returned it was plain from their strained countenances that
they were laboring under deep feeling. The foreman's voice showed
as he pronounced to the verdict guilty as charged, and
he had hard work to control his emotions as he added,
your lordship, we unanimously desire to express the hope that
taking into consideration the undoubtedly pure motives that underlie the
agitation that has led to this trouble, you will be
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pleased to exercise the utmost clemency and leniency in dealing
with the case. A burst of applause followed this plea.
Then mister Pethick Lawrence arose and asked to say a
few words before sentence was pronounced. He said that it
must be evident, aside from the jury's recommendation, that we
had been actuated by political motives, and that we were
in fact political offenders. It had been decided in English
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courts that political offenders were different from ordinary offenders, and
mister Lawrence cited the case of a Swiss subject whose
extradition was refused because of the political character of his offense.
The court on that occasion had declared that even if
the crime were murder committed with a political motive, it
was a political crime. Mister Lawrence also reminded the judge
of the case of the late mister W. T Stead,
(35:57):
convicted of a crime, yet because of the unusual motive
behind the crime, was allowed first division treatment and full
freedom to receive his family and friends. Last of all,
the case of doctor Jameson was cited. Although his raid
resulted in the death of twenty one persons and the
wounding of forty six more, the political character of his
offense was taken into account and he was made a
first division prisoner. They were men fighting in a man's war.
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We of the w s p U were women fighting
in a women's war. Lord Coleridge therefore saw in us
only reckless and criminal defires of law. Lord Coleridge said,
you have been convicted of a crime for which the
law would sanction, if I chose to impose it a
sentence of two years imprisonment with hard labor. There are
circumstances connected with your case which the jury have very
properly brought to my attention, and I have been asked
(36:44):
by you all three to treat you as first class misdemeanors.
If in the course of this case I had observed
any contrition or disavowal of the action you have committed,
or any hope that you would avoid repetition of them
in the future, I should have been very much prevailed
upon by the arguments that have been advanced to me.
No contrition having been expressed by us, the sentence of
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the court was that we were to suffer imprisonment in
the second division for the term of nine months, and
that we were to pay the costs of the prosecution.
End of Book three, Chapter two
Book three, Chapter two of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
k Hand The Women's Revolution, Chapter two. The panic stricken
government did not rest content with the imprisonment of the
window breakers. They sought, in a blind and blundering fashion,
to perform the impossible feat of wrecking at a blow
(00:22):
the entire militant movement. Governments have always tried to crush
reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that
cannot die. Without regard to history, which shows that no
government have ever succeeded in doing this. They go on
trying in the old senseless way. For days before the
two demonstrations described in the last chapter, our head quarters
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in Clement's Inn had been under constant observation by the police,
and on the evening of March fifth, an inspector of
police and a large force of detectives suddenly descended on
the place with warrants for the arrest of Cristabel Pankhurst
and mister and Missus p Thick Lawrence, who, with Missus
Tuke and myself were charged with conspiring to incite certain
persons to commit malicious damage to property. When the officers entered,
(01:06):
they found mister Pethick Lawrence at work in his office
and Missus Pethick Lawrence in her flat upstairs. My daughter
was not in the building. The Lawrences, after making brief preparations,
drove in a taxi cab to the Bow Street station,
where they spent the night. The police remained in possession
of the offices, and detectives were dispatched to find an
arrest Cristabel, but that arrest never took place. Cristabel Pankhurst
(01:29):
eluded the entire force of detectives and uniformed police trained
hunters of human prey. Cristabel had gone home, and, at first,
on hearing of the arrest of mister and Missus Pethick Lawrence,
had taken her own arrest for granted. A little reflection, however,
showed her the danger in which the Union would stand
if completely deprived of its accustomed leadership, and seeing that
it was her duty to avoid arrest, she quietly left
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the house. She spent that night with friends, who next
morning helped her to make the necessary arrangements and saw
her safely away from London. That same night, she reached Paris,
where she has since remained. My relief when I learned
of her flight was very great, because I knew that
whatever happened to the lawrences and myself, the movement would
be wisely directed. This in spite of the fact that
(02:12):
the police remained in full possession of headquarters. The offices
in Clement's Inn were thoroughly ransacked by the police in
a determined effort to secure evidence of conspiracy. They went
through every desk, file and cabinet, taking away with them
two cabloads of books and papers, including all my private papers,
photographs of my children in infancy, and letters sent to
me by my husband long ago. Some of these I
(02:34):
never saw again. The police also terrorized the printer of
our weekly newspaper, and although the paper came out as usual,
about a third of its columns were left blank. The headlines, however,
with the ensuing space mere white paper, produced a most
dramatic effect. History teaches read one headline to a blank space,
plainly indicating that the government were not willing to let
the public know some of the things that history teaches.
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Women's moderation suggested that the destroyed paragraph called for comparison
of the women's window breaking with men's greater violence in
the past. Most eloquent of all was the editorial page,
absolutely blank except for the headline A Challenge, and the
name at the foot of the last column, Cristabel Pankhurst.
What words could have breathed a profounder defiance, a more
implacable resolve. Cristabel was gone out of the clutches of
(03:20):
the government, yet she remained in complete possession of the field.
For weeks. The search for her went were relentlessly on.
Police searched every railway station, every train, every seaport. The
police of every city in the Kingdom were furnished with
her portrait. Every amateur Sherlock Holmes in England joined with
the police in finding her. She was reported in a
dozen cities, including New York, but all the time she
(03:42):
was living quietly in Paris, in daily communication with the
workers in London, who within a few days were once
more at their appointed tasks. My daughter has remained in
France ever since. Meanwhile, I found myself in the anomalous
position of a convicted offender serving two months prison sentence,
and of a prisoner on remand waiting to be charged
with a more serious offense. I was in very bad health,
(04:03):
having been placed in a damp and unwarmed third division cell,
the result being an acute attack of bronchitis. I addressed
a letter to the Home Secretary, telling him of my
condition and urging the necessity of liberty to recover my
health and to prepare my case for trial. I asked
for release on bail the plain right of a remanned prisoner,
and I offered, if bail were granted now, to serve
(04:23):
the rest of my two months sentence later on. The
sole concessions granted to me, however, were removal to a
better cell and the right to see my secretary and
my solicitor, but only in the presence of a wardress
and a member of the prison clerical staff. On March fourteenth,
mister and Missus Pethick, Lawrence, Missus Tuke, and myself were
brought up for preliminary hearing on the charge of having,
on November first, nineteen eleven, and on various other dates,
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conspired and combined together unlawfully and maliciously to commit damage,
et cetera. The case opened on March fourteenth in a
crowded court room in which I saw many friends. Mister Bodkin,
who appeared for the prosecution, made a very long address
in which she endeavored to prove that the Women's Social
and Political Union was a highly developed organization of most
sinister character. He reduced much documentary evidence, some of it
(05:09):
of such amusing character that the court rocked with stifled laughter,
and the judge was obliged to conceal his smiles behind
his hand. Mister Bodkin cited our code book, with the
assistance of which we were able to communicate private messages.
His voice sank to a scandalized half whisper as he
stated the fact that we had presumed to include the
sacred persons of the government in our private code. We find,
(05:32):
said mister Bodkin, portentously, that public men in the service
of His Majesty, as members of the Cabinet, are tabulated
here under code names. We find that the Cabinet collectively
has its code word Trees, and individual members of the
Cabinet are designated by the name sometimes of Trees. But
I am also bound to say the commonest weeds as well.
Here a ripple of laughter interrupted. Mister Bodkin frowned heavily
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and continued There is one, he said, solemnly called Pansy,
another one more complimentary, rose, another violets, and so on.
Each of the defendants was designated by a code letter.
Thus Missus Pankhurst was identified by the letter F Missus Pethick,
Lawrence D. Miss Cristabel Pankhurst E. Every public building, including
the House of Commons, had its code name. The deadly
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possibilities of the code were illustrated by a telegram found
in one of the files. It read silk Thistle, Pansy
duck wool e Q. Translated by the aid of the
code book, the telegram read will you protest Asquith's public
meeting tomorrow evening, but don't get arrested and less success
depends on it wire back to Cristabel Pankhurst Clement's inn.
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More laughter followed these revelations, which, after all proved no
more than the businesslike methods employed by the w SPU.
The laughter proved something a great deal more significant, For
it was a plain indication that the old respect in
which cabinet ministers had been held was no more. We
had torn the veil from their sacrisanct personalities and shown
them for what they were mean and scheming pol politicians.
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More serious from the point of view of prosecution was
the evidence brought in by members of the police department
in regard to the occurrences of March first and fourth.
The policemen who arrested me and my two companions in
Downing Street on March first, after we had broken the
windows in the Premier's house, testified that following the arrest,
we had handed him our reserve stock of stones, and
that they were all alike heavy flints. Our other prisoners
(07:24):
were found in possession of similar stones, tending to prove
that the stones all came from one source. Other officers
testified to the methodical manner in which the window breaking
of March first and fourth was carried out, how systematically
it had been planned, and how soldierly it had been
the behavior of the women. By twos and threes March fourth,
they had been seen to go to the headquarters at
Clement's Inn carrying handbags which they deposited at headquarters, and
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had then gone on to a meeting and the Pavilion
Music Hall. The police attended the meeting, which was the
usual rally preceding a demonstration or a deputation, at five o'clock.
The meeting adjourned, and the women went out as if
to go home. The police observed that many of them,
them still in groups of twos and threes, went to
the Gardenia Restaurant in Catherine Street Strand, a place where
many Suffragette breakfasts and teas had been held. The police
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thought that about one hundred and fifty women congregated there
on March fourth. They remained until seven o'clock, and then
under the watching eyes of the police, they sauntered out
and dispersed. A few minutes later, when there is no
reason to expect such a thing. The noise was heard
in many streets of wholesale window smashing. The police authorities
made much of the fact that the women who had
left their bags at Headquarters and were afterwards arrested were
(08:31):
bailed out that night by mister Pethick Lawrence. The similarity
of the stones used, the gathering of so many women
in one building prepared for arrest, the waiting at the
Gardenia Restaurant, the apparent dispersal, the simultaneous destruction and many
localities of plate glass, and the bailing of prisoners by
a person connected with the Headquarters mentioned certainly showed a
carefully worked out plan. Only a public trial of the
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defendants could establish whether or not the plan was a conspiracy.
On the second day of the ministerial hearing, Missus Touke,
who had been in the prison infirmary for twenty days
and had to be attended in court by a trained nurse,
was admitted to bail. Mister Pethick Lawrence made a strong
plea for bail for himself and his wife, pointing out
that they had been in prison on remand for two
weeks and were entitled to bail. I also demanded the
(09:15):
privileges of a prisoner on remand. Both of these pleas
were denied by the court. But a few days later
the Home Secretary wrote to my solicitor that the remainder
of my sentence of two months would be remitted until
after the conspiracy trial at bow Street. Mister and Missus
Pethick Lawrence had already been admitted to bail. Public opinion
forced the Home Secretary to make these concessions, as it
is well known that it is next to impossible to
(09:36):
prepare defense while confined in prison. Aside from the terrible
effect of prison on one's body and nerves. There is
the difficulty of consulting documents and securing other necessary data
to be considered. On April fourth, the ministerial hearing ended
in the acquittal of Missus Tuke, whose activities in the
w SPU were shown to be purely secretarial. Mister and
Missus p Thick Lawrence and myself were committed for trial
(09:58):
at the next session of the Central crim Mainal Court
beginning April twenty third. Because of the weak state of
my health, the judge was, with great difficulty prevailed upon
to postpone the trial two weeks, and it was therefore
not until May fifteenth that the case was open. The
trial at Old Bailey is a thing that I shall
never forget. The scene is clear before me, as I write,
the judge, impressively bewigged and scarlet robed, dominating the corrowded
(10:21):
court room, the solicitors at their table, the jury, and
looking very far away, the anxious, pale faces of our
friends who crowded the narrow galleries. By the veriest irony
of fate, this judge, Lord Coleridge, was the son of
Sir Charles Coleridge, who, in the year eighteen sixty seven
appeared with my husband, doctor Pankhurst, in the famous case
of Charlton versus Lings, and sought to establish that women
(10:44):
were persons and as such were entitled to the parliamentary vote.
To make the irony still deeper, the Attorney General Sir
Rufus Isaacs, who appeared as counsel for the prosecution against
women militants, himself had been guilty of remarkable speeches and
corroboration of our point of view, and a speech made
in nineteen ten in relation to the abolition of the
Lord's Veto, Sir Rufus made the statement that although the
(11:06):
agitation against privilege was being peacefully conducted, the indignation behind
it was very intense, said Sir Rufus. Formerly, when the
great mass of the people were voteless, they had to
do something violent in order to show what they felt.
To day, the elector's bullet is his ballot. Let no
one be deceived. Therefore, because in this present struggle everything
is peaceful and orderly, in contrast to the disorderliness of
(11:28):
other great struggles of the past, we wondered if the
man who said these words could fail to realize that
voteless women deprived of every constitutional means of writing their
grievances were also obliged to do something violent in order
to show how they felt. His opening address removed all
doubt on that score. Sir Rufus Isaacs has a clear cut,
hawklike face, deep eyes, and a somewhat world worn air.
(11:50):
The first words he spoke were so astoundingly unfair that
I could hardly believe that I heard them aright. He
began his address to the jury by telling them that
they must not on any account connect the act of
the defended with any political agitation. I am very anxious
to impress upon you, he said, from the moment we
begin to deal with the facts of this case, that
all questions of whether a woman is entitled to the
parliamentary franchise, whether she should have the same right of
(12:13):
franchise as a man, are questions which are in no
sense involved in the trial of this issue. Therefore, I
ask you to discard altogether from the consideration of the
matters which will be placed before you, any viewpoint you
may have on this no doubt very important political issue. Nevertheless,
Sir rufe Is added in the course of his remarks
that he feared that it would not be possible to
(12:33):
keep out of the conduct of the case, various references
to political events, and of course the entire trial from
beginning to end, showed clearly that the case was what
mister Tim Healy missus P. Thick Lawrence's Council called a
great state trial. Proceeding the Attorney General described the w SPU,
which he said he thought had been in existence since
nineteen o seven and had used what were known as
(12:54):
militant methods. In nineteen eleven, the association had become annoyed
by the Prime Minister because he would not make women
suffrage what was called a government question. In November nineteen eleven,
the Prime Minister announced the introduction of a manhood Suffrage Bill.
From that time on, the defendants set to work to
carry out a campaign which would have meant nothing less
than anarchy. Women were to be induced to act together
(13:17):
at a given time, in different given places, in such
numbers that the police should be paralyzed by the number
of persons breaking the law, in order to use the
defendant's own words to bring the government to its knees.
After designating the respective positions held by the foe defendants
in the WSPU. Sir Rufus went on to relate the
events which resulted in the smashing of plate glass windows
(13:37):
valued at some two thousand pounds, and the imprisonment of
over two hundred women who were incited to their deeds
by the conspirators in the dock. He entirely ignored the
motive of the acts in question, and he treated the
whole affair as if the women had been burglars. This
inverted statement of the matter, though accurate enough as to facts,
was such as might have been given by King John
of the signing of Magna Carta. A very great number
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of witnesses were examined, a large number of them being policemen,
and their testimony in our cross examination disclosed the startling
fact that there exists in England a special brand of
secret police entirely engaged in political work. These men, seventy
five in number, form what is known as the Political
branch of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police. They
(14:19):
go about in disguise and their sole duty is to
shadow suffragettes and other political workers. They follow certain political
workers from their homes, to their places of business, to
their social pleasures, into tea rooms and restaurants, even to
the theater. They pursue unsuspecting people in taxicabs, sit beside
the men omnibuses. Above all, they take down speeches. In fact,
(14:39):
the system is exactly like the secret police system of Russia.
Mister Pethick Lawrence and I spoke in our own defense,
and mister Healey m P defended Missus Pethick Lawrence. I
cannot give our speeches in full, but I should like
to include as much of them as will serve to
make the entire situation clear to the reader. Mister Lawrence
spoke first at the opening of the case. He began
(15:00):
by giving an account of the suffrage movement and why
he felt the enfranchisement of women appeared to him and
questioned so grave that it warranted strong measures in its pursuit.
He sketched briefly the history of the Women's Social Political
Union from the time when Cristabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenny
were thrown out of Sir Edward Gray's meeting and imprisoned
for asking a political question to the torpedoing of the
Conciliation Bill. The case that I have to put before you,
(15:22):
he said, is that neither the conspiracy nor the incitement
is ours, but that the conspiracy is a conspiracy of
the Cabinet, who are responsible for the government of this country,
and that the incitement is the incitement of the ministers
of the Crown. And he did this most effectually, not
only by telling of the disgraceful trickery and deceit with
which the government had misled the suffragets in the matter
of suffrage bills, but by giving the plain words in
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which the members of cabinet had advised the women that
they would never get the vote until they learned how
to fight for it as men had fought in the past.
When it came my turn to speak, realizing that the
average man is profoundly ignorant of the history of the
women's movement because the press has never adequately or truthfully
chronicled the mood, I told the jury as briefly as
I could the story of forty years peaceful agitation before
(16:05):
my daughters and I resolved that we would give our
lives to the work of getting the vote for women,
and that we should use whatever means of getting the
vote that were necessary to success. We founded the Women's
Social and Political Union, I said in nineteen o three.
Our first intention was to try and influence the particular
political party which was then coming into power, to make
this question of the enfranchisement of women their own question
(16:26):
and to push it. It took some little time to
convince us, and I need not weary you with the
history of all that has happened, but it took some
little time to convince us that that was no use,
that we could not secure things in that way. Then
in nineteen o five we faced the hard facts. We
realized that there was a press boycought against women's suffrage.
Our speeches at public meetings were not reported, Our letters
(16:48):
to the editors were not published. Even if we implored
the editors. Even the things relating to women's suffrage in
parliament were not recorded. They said the subject was not
of sufficient public interest to be reported in the press
and they were not prepared to report it. Then, with
regard to the men politicians, in nineteen o five, we
realized how shadowy were the fine phrases about democracy, about
(17:08):
human equality used by the gentlemen who were then coming
into power. They meant to ignore the women. There was
no doubt whatever about that. From the official documents coming
from the Liberal Party on the eve of the nineteen
oh five election, there were sentences like this, what the
country wants is a simple measure of manhood suffrage. There
was no room for the inclusion of women. We knew
(17:29):
perfectly well that if there was to be franchise reform
at all, the Liberal Party, which was then coming into power,
did not mean votes for women. In spite of all
the pledges of members, in spite of the fact that
a majority of the House of Commons, especially on the
Liberal side, were pledged to it, it did not mean
that they were going to put it into practice. And
so we found some way of forcing their attention to
(17:49):
this question. Now I come to the facts with regard
to militancy. We realized that the plans we had in
our minds would involve great sacrifice on our part. That
it might cost is all we had. We were at
that time a little organization composed in the main of
working women, the wives and daughters of working men, and
my daughters and I took a leading part, naturally because
(18:10):
we thought the thing out, and to a certain extent,
because we were of better social position than most of
our members, and we felt a sense of responsibility. I
described the events that marked the first days of our work.
The scene in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, when my daughter
and her companion were arrested for the crime of asking
a question of a politician, and I continued, what did
they do next? I want you to realize that no
(18:32):
step we have taken forward has been taken until after
some act of repression on the part of our enemy,
the government, because it is the government that is our enemy.
It is not the members of parliament, It is not
the men in the country. It is the government in
power alone that can give us the vote. It is
the government alone that we regard as our enemy, and
the whole of our agitation is directed to bringing just
(18:52):
as much pressure as necessary upon those people who can
deal with our grievance. The next step the women took
was to ask questions during the course of meetings, because,
as I told you, these gentlemen gave them no opportunity
of asking them afterwards, and then began the interjections of
which we have heard, the interference with the right to
old public meetings, the interference with the right of free
speech of which we have heard, for which these women,
(19:15):
these hooligan women, as they have been called, have been denounced.
I ask you, gentlemen, to imagine the amount of courage
which it needs for a woman to undertake that kind
of work. When men come to interrupt women's meetings, they
come in gangs with noisy instruments and sing and shout
together and stamp their feet. But women women have gone
to cabinet ministers meetings only to interrupt cabinet ministers and
(19:36):
nobody else. They have gone singly, and it has become
increasingly difficult for them to get in because as a
result of the women's methods, there has developed the system
of admission by ticket, a thing in which my liberal
days would have been thought a very disgraceful thing at
liberal meetings. But this ticket system developed, and so the
women could only get in with very great difficulty. Women
have concealed themselves for thirty six hours in dangerous positions
(19:59):
under the platform, in the organs, wherever they could get advantage.
Point they waited, starving in the cold, sometimes on the roof,
exposed to a winter's night, just to get a chance
of saying in the course of a cabinet minister's speech.
When is the Liberal government going to put its promises
into practice that has been the form militancy took in
its further development. I went over the whole matter of
(20:21):
our peaceful deputations and of the violence with which they
were invariably met, of our arrests in the farcical police
court trials, where the mere evidence of a policeman's unsupported
statement sent us to prison for long terms, of the
falsehoods told of us in the House of Commons by
responsible members of the government, tales of women scratching and
biting policemen and using hatpins. And I accused the government
(20:42):
of making these attacks against women who were powerless to
defend themselves, because they feared the women and desire to
crush the agitation represented by our organization. Now it has
been stated in this court, I said that it is
not the women's social and political union that is in
the court, but that it is certain defendants. The action
of the government, gentlemen, is certainly against the defendants who
(21:03):
are before you here to day, but it is also
against the women's social and political union. The intention is
to crush that organization. And this intention apparently was arrived
at after I had been set to prison for two
months for breaking a pane of glass. Worth I am
told two shilling three penny, the punishment, which I accepted
because I was a leader of this movement, though was
(21:23):
an extraordinary punishment to inflict for so small an act
of damages as I had committed. I accepted it as
the punishment for a leader of an agitation disagreeable to
the government. And while I was there this prosecution started.
They thought they would make a clean sweep of the
people who they considered were the political brains of the movement.
We've got many false friends in the cabinet, people who
(21:44):
by their words, appear to be well meaning toward the
cause of women's suffrage. And they thought that if they
could get the leaders of the union out of the way,
it would result in the indefinite postponement and settlement of
the question in this country. Well, they have not succeeded
in their design. And even if they had got all
the so called leaders of this movement out of their way,
they would not have succeeded even then. Now, why have
(22:05):
they not put the union on the dock? We have
a democratic government. So called this women's social and Political
Union is not a collection of hysterical and unimportant wild women,
as has been suggested to you, but it is an
important organization which numbers amongst its membership very important people.
It is composed of women of all classes of the community,
women who have influenced in their particular organizations, as working women,
(22:28):
women who have influenced in professional organizations, as professional women,
women of social importance, women even of royal rank, are
amongst the members of this organization. And so it would
not pay a democratic government to deal with this organization
as a whole. They hoped that by taking away the
people that they thought guided the political fortunes of the organization,
they would break the organization down. They thought that if
(22:50):
they put out of the way the influential members of
the organization, they, as one member of the Cabinet I believe, said,
would crush the movement and get it on the run. Well,
governments have many times been mistaken, gentlemen, and I venture
to suggest to you that governments are mistaken again. I
think the answer to the government was given at the
Albert Hall meeting held immediately after our arrest, within a
(23:12):
few minutes, without the eloquence of Missus p. Thick Lawrence,
without the appeals of the people who have been called
leaders of this movement, In a very few minutes, ten
thousand pounds was subscribed for the carrying on of this movement. Now,
a movement like that, supported like that is not a wild,
hysterical movement. It is not a movement of misguided people.
It is a very serious movement. Women, I submit, like
(23:33):
our members, and women, I venture to say, like the
two women, and like the man who are in the
dock to day, are not people to undertake a thing
like this lightly. May I just try to make you
feel what it is that has made this movement the
gigantic size it is from the very small beginnings it had.
It is one of the biggest movements of modern times,
a movement which is not only an influence, perhaps not
(23:55):
yet recognized in this country, but is influencing the women's
movement all over the world. Is there anything more marvelous
in modern times than the kind of spontaneous outburst in
every country of this women's movement, even in China, And
I think it somewhat of a disgrace to Englishmen, even
in China, and I think it somewhat of a disgrace
to englishmen. Even in China, women have won the vote
(24:15):
as an outcome of a successful revolution with which I
dare say members of His Majesty's government sympathize a bloody revolution.
One more word on that point. When I was in
prison the second time for three months as a common
criminal for no greater offense than the issue of a
hand bill, less inflammatory in its terms than some of
the speeches of members of the government who prosecute us here.
(24:37):
During that time, through the efforts of a member of Parliament,
there was secured for me permission to have the daily
paper in prison, and the first thing I read in
the daily press was this that the government was, at
that moment fading the members of the Young Turkish Revolutionary Party,
gentlemen who had invaded the privacy of the Sultan's home.
We used to hear a great deal about invading the
(24:57):
privacy of mister Ascoot's residence when we ventured to ring
its door bell, gentlemen who had killed and slain and
had been successful in their revolution, while we women had
never thrown a stone. For none of us was imprisoned
for stone throwing, but merely for taking the part we
had then taken in this organization. There we were imprisoned
while these political murderers were being feted by the very
(25:17):
government who imprisoned us and were being congratulated on the
success of the revolution. Now I ask you, was it
to be wondered at that? Women said to themselves. Perhaps
it is we have not done enough. Perhaps it is
that these gentlemen do not understand women folk, Perhaps they
do not realize women's ways. And because we have not
done the things that men have done, they may think
we are not in earnest. And then we come down
(25:39):
to this last business of all, when we have responsible
statesmen like mister Hobhouse saying there had never been any
sentimental uprising, no expression of feeling like that which led
to the burning down of Nottingham Castle. Can you wonder
then that we decided we should have to nerve ourselves
to do more? And can you understand why we cast
about to find a way, as women will, that would
(26:00):
not involve loss of human life and the maiming of
human beings, because women care more about human life than men,
and I think it is quite natural that we should,
for we know what life costs. We risk our lives
when men are born. Now, I want to say this
deliberately as a leader of this movement, we have tried
to hold it back. We have tried to keep it
from going beyond bounds. And I have never felt a
prouder woman than I did one night when a police
(26:22):
constable said to me after one of these demonstrations, had
this been a man's demonstration, there would have been bloodshed
long ago. Well, my lord, there has not been any bloodshed,
except on the part of the women themselves, these so
called militant women. Violence has been done to us. And I,
who stand before you in this dock, have lost a
dear sister in the course of this agitation. She died
(26:42):
within three days of coming out of prison, a little
more than a year ago. These are things which wherever
we are, we do not say very much about. We
cannot keep cheery, we cannot keep cheerfull, we cannot keep
the right kind of spirit which means success if we
dwell too much upon the hard part of our agitation.
But I when you say this, gentleman, that whatever in
future you may think of us, you will say this
(27:03):
about us, that whatever our enemies may say, we have
always put up an honorable fight and taken no unfair
means of defeating our opponents. Although they have not always
been people who have acted so honorably towards us. We
have assaulted no one, We have done no hurt to anyone.
And it was not until Black Friday. And what happened
on Black Friday is that we had a new Home
Secretary and there appeared to be new orders given to
(27:26):
the police, because the police on that occasion showed a
kind of ferocity in dealing with the women that they
had never done before, and the women came up to
us and said, we cannot bear this. It was not
until then we felt this new form of repression should
compel us to take another step. That is the question
of Black Friday. And I want to say here and
now that every effort was made after Black Friday to
get an open public judicial inquiry into the doings of
(27:48):
Black Friday as to the instructions given to the police.
That inquiry was refused, But an informal inquiry was held
by a man whose name will carry conviction as to
his status and moral integrity on the one side of
the great political parties, and a man of equals standing
on the liberal side. These two men were Lord Robert
Cecil and mister Ellis Griffith. They held a private inquiry
(28:09):
had women before them, took their evidence, examined that evidence,
and after hearing it, said they believed that the women
had told them was substantially true, and that they thought
there was a good cause for that inquiry to be held.
That was embodied in a report to show you our difficulties.
Lord Robert cecil Any speech at the Criterion restaurant, spoke
on this question. He called upon the government to hold
(28:30):
this inquiry, and not one word of that speech was
reported in any morning paper. That is the sort of
thing we have had to face. And I welcome standing here,
if only for the purpose of getting these facts out.
And I challenged the Attorney General to institute an inquiry
into these proceedings. Not that kind of inquiry of sending
their inspectors to Holloway and accepting what they are told
by the officials, but to open a public inquiry with
(28:52):
a jury if he likes to deal with our aggrievances
against the government and the methods of this agitation. I say,
it is not the defendants who have comeired, but the
government who have conspired against us to crush this agitation.
But however the matter may be decided, we are content
to abide by the verdict of posterity. We are not
the kind of people who like to brag a lot.
We are not the kind of people who would bring
(29:12):
ourselves into this position unless we were convinced that it
was the only way. I have tried all my life.
I have worked for this question. I've tried arguments, I've
tried persuasion. I have addressed a greater number of public meetings,
perhaps than any person in this court. And I have
never addressed one meeting more substantially the opinion of the
meeting not a ticket meeting, but an open meeting. For
(29:32):
I have never addressed any other kind of meeting has
not been that where women bear burdens and share responsibilities
like men, they should be given the privileges that men enjoy.
I am convinced that public opinion is with us, that
it has been stifled, willfully stifled, so that in a
public court of justice, one is glad of being allowed
to speak on this question. The Attorney general summing up
(29:54):
for the prosecution was very largely a defense of the
Liberal Party and its course in regard to women suffrage legislation. Therefore,
mister tim Healy and his defense of missus Petheck. Lawrence
did well to lay stress on the political character of
the conspiracy charge and trial. He said, it is no
doubt a very useful thing when you have political opponents,
to be able to set the law in motion against them.
(30:15):
I have not the smallest doubt it would be a
very convenient thing, if they had the courage to do it,
to shut up the whole of His Majesty's opposition while
the present government is in office, to lock up all
the men of luster and distinction in our public forum
and on our public platforms, all the Carsons f. E.
Smith's bonar laws, and so on, it would be a
most convenient thing to end the whole thing, as it
(30:37):
would be to end women's agitation in the form of
the indictment. Gentlemen of the jury, whatever words have been
spoken by mutual opponents, whatever instructions have been addressed, not
to feeble females, but to men who boast of drilling
and of arms, they have not had the courage to
prosecute anybody except women by means of an indictment. Yet
the government of my learned friend have selected two dates
(30:57):
as cardinal dates, and they ask you to pass judgment
upon the prisoners at the bar, and to say that,
without rhyme or reason, taking the course suggested, without provocation,
these responsible, well bred, educated university people have suddenly, in
the words of the indictment, wickedly and with malice of forethought,
engaged in these criminal designs. Gentlemen of the jury. The
(31:18):
first thing I would ask in that connection is this,
What is there in the course of this demand put
forward by women, which should have excited the treatment at
the hands of His Majesty's ministers, which this movement, according
to the documents which are in evidence before me, has received.
I should suppose that the essence of all government is
the smooth conduct of affairs, so that those who enjoy
(31:40):
high station great emoluments should not be parties against whom
the accusation of provoking civic strife and breeding public turmoil
should be brought. What do we find? We find that
in regard to the treatment of the demand which had
always been put forward humbly, respectfully, respectably, and in its
origin by those who have received trade unionists, anti vaccinators,
(32:02):
deceased wife's sisters, and all other forms of political demand,
and who have received them humbly and yielded to them.
We find that when these people advocating this particular form
of civic reform request and audience request admission, request even
to have their petitions respectfully received, they have met judicially
at all events with a flat and solemn negative. That
(32:24):
is the beginning of this unhappy spirit bred in the
minds of persons like the defendants, persons like those against
whom evidence has been tendered, which has led to your
being impaneled in that box today. And I put it
to you, when you are considering whether it is the
incitement of my clients or the conduct of ministers that
have led to these events, whether I cannot ask you
to say that even a fair appointment of blame should
(32:45):
not rest upon more responsible shoulders, and whether you should
go out of your way to say that these persons
in the dock alone are guilty. In closing, mister Healy
reverted to the political character of the trial. The government
have undertaken this prosecution. He declared, to seclude for a
considerable period their chief opponents. They hope there will be
at public meetings which they attend no more inconvenient cries
(33:08):
of votes for women. I cannot conceive any other object
which they could have in bringing the prosecution. I have
expressed my regret at the loss which shopkeepers, tradesmens and
others have suffered. I regret it deeply. I regret that
any person should bring loss or suffering upon innocent people.
But I ask you to say that the law has
already been sufficiently vindicated by the punishment of the immediate
(33:29):
authors of the deed. What can be gained does justice gain?
I almost hesitate to treat this as a legal inquiry.
I regard it as a vindictive political act. Of all
the astonishing acts that have ever been brought into a
public court against a prisoner, I cannot help feeling the
charge against mister Pethick Lawrence is the most astonishing. He
ventured to attend at some police courts and give bail
(33:51):
for women who had been arrested in endeavoring as I understand,
to present petitions to Parliament or to have resort to violence.
I do not compla the way in which my learned
friend has conducted the prosecution. But I do complain of
the police methods inquiring into the homes and the domestic
circumstances of the prisoners obtaining their papers. Taking their newspaper,
(34:11):
going into their bank account, bringing up their bankers here
to say what is their balance? And I do say
that in none of the prosecutions of the past have
smaller methods belittled a great state trial, because look at
it as you will, you cannot get away from it
that it is a great state trial. It is not
the women who are on trial, It is the men.
It is the system of government which is upon trial.
(34:33):
It is this method of rolling the dice by fifty
four counts in an indictment without showing to what any
bit of evidence is fairly attributable. The system is on
its trial, a system whereby every innocent act in public
life is sought to be enmeshed in a conspiracy. The
jury was absent for more than an hour, showing that
they had some difficulty in agreeing upon a verdict. When
(34:53):
they returned it was plain from their strained countenances that
they were laboring under deep feeling. The foreman's voice showed
as he pronounced to the verdict guilty as charged, and
he had hard work to control his emotions as he added,
your lordship, we unanimously desire to express the hope that
taking into consideration the undoubtedly pure motives that underlie the
agitation that has led to this trouble, you will be
(35:15):
pleased to exercise the utmost clemency and leniency in dealing
with the case. A burst of applause followed this plea.
Then mister Pethick Lawrence arose and asked to say a
few words before sentence was pronounced. He said that it
must be evident, aside from the jury's recommendation, that we
had been actuated by political motives, and that we were
in fact political offenders. It had been decided in English
(35:36):
courts that political offenders were different from ordinary offenders, and
mister Lawrence cited the case of a Swiss subject whose
extradition was refused because of the political character of his offense.
The court on that occasion had declared that even if
the crime were murder committed with a political motive, it
was a political crime. Mister Lawrence also reminded the judge
of the case of the late mister W. T Stead,
(35:57):
convicted of a crime, yet because of the unusual motive
behind the crime, was allowed first division treatment and full
freedom to receive his family and friends. Last of all,
the case of doctor Jameson was cited. Although his raid
resulted in the death of twenty one persons and the
wounding of forty six more, the political character of his
offense was taken into account and he was made a
first division prisoner. They were men fighting in a man's war.
(36:21):
We of the w s p U were women fighting
in a women's war. Lord Coleridge therefore saw in us
only reckless and criminal defires of law. Lord Coleridge said,
you have been convicted of a crime for which the
law would sanction, if I chose to impose it a
sentence of two years imprisonment with hard labor. There are
circumstances connected with your case which the jury have very
properly brought to my attention, and I have been asked
(36:44):
by you all three to treat you as first class misdemeanors.
If in the course of this case I had observed
any contrition or disavowal of the action you have committed,
or any hope that you would avoid repetition of them
in the future, I should have been very much prevailed
upon by the arguments that have been advanced to me.
No contrition having been expressed by us, the sentence of
(37:04):
the court was that we were to suffer imprisonment in
the second division for the term of nine months, and
that we were to pay the costs of the prosecution.
End of Book three, Chapter two
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