August 18, 2025 • 22 mins
In My Own Story, Emmeline Pankhurst, the renowned British political activist and leader of the suffragette movement, shares her compelling journey in the fight for womens rights. Despite facing significant criticism for her militant approach, her relentless efforts played a pivotal role in securing womens suffrage in Britain. Written and published on the brink of the Great War, Pankhursts autobiography offers an intimate glimpse into her experiences and the challenges she faced along the way. (Summary by Petra)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Book three, Chapter five of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
k Hand The Women's Revolution, Chapter five. When I entered
Old Bailey on that memorable Wednesday, April second, nineteen thirteen,
to be tried for inciting to commit a felony, the
court was packed with women. A great crowd of women
(00:22):
who could not obtain the necessary tickets remained in the
streets below for hours waiting news of the trial. A
large number of detectives from Scotland Yard, and a still
larger number of uniformed police were on duty, both inside
and outside the court. I could not imagine why it
was considered necessary to have such a regiment of police
on hand, for I had not at that time realized
the state of terror into which the militant movement, in
(00:43):
its new development, had thrown the authorities. Mister Bodkin and
mister Travers Humphrey appeared to prosecute on behalf of the crown,
and I conducted my own case in consultation with my solicitor,
mister Marshall. The judge, Mister Justice Lush, having taken his seat,
I entered the dock and listened to the reading of
the indictment. I pled not guilty, not because I wished
to evade responsibility for the explosion. I had already assumed
(01:05):
that responsibility, but because the indictment accused me of having
wickedly and maliciously incited women to crime. What I had
done was not wicked of purpose, but quite the opposite
of wicked. I could not therefore truthfully plead guilty. The
trial having opened, the judge courteously asked me if I
would like to sit down. I thanked him and asked
if I might also have a small table on which
to place my papers. By orders of the judge, a
(01:27):
table was brought me. Mister Bodkin opened the case by
explaining the Malicious Damages to Property Act of eighteen sixty
one under which I was charged, and after describing the
explosion which had damaged the Lloyd George House at Walton,
said that I was accused of being in the affair
and accessory before the fact, it was not suggested. He
said that I was present when their crime was committed,
but it was charged that I had moved and insided,
(01:47):
counseled and procured women whose names were unknown to carry
out that crime. It would be for the jury to decide,
after the evidence had been presented, whether the facts did
not point most clearly to the conclusion that women, probably
to a number, who committed the crime were members of
the Women's Social and Political Union, which had its office
in Kingswayne, London, and of which the defendant was the head,
(02:08):
moving spirit and recognized leader. The blowing up of mister
Lloyd George's house was then described in detail. That the
damage was intended as an act against mister Lloyd George
was clear, mister Bodkin said, from the malicious statements made
against him by the prisoner. He produced a private letter
written by me to a friend in which I had
defended militancy and said that not only had it become
a duty, but in the circumstances, it had also become
(02:30):
a political necessity, said mister Bodkin. A letter of that
kind proves very clearly several things. It shows that she
is the leader. It shows her influence over the emotional
members of this organization. It shows that, according to her,
militancy can be withheld for a time and let loose
upon society at another time. And it further shows that
any person or any woman who wants to indulge in militancy,
(02:50):
which is the only picturesque expression for committing crimes against society,
has to communicate with her and with her alone by
word of mouth or by letter. That is the proclamation
which went out to the members of this organization. The
plain language of that letter is, if we don't get
what we want, the government and their members will be responsible,
and the government and the public will be bullied into
giving us what I want. Many extracts from my speeches
(03:10):
made in January and February were read, and the final
speech made just before my arrest at Chelsea. But before
they were read, I said I wished to lodge an
objection now to the police reports of my speeches. They
have been supplied to me, and the only report I
accept is that of the journalist of Cardiff, who was
one of the witnesses. He has furnished a fairly accurate
report of what I said in that town. The police
reports I do not accept. They are grossly inaccurate and
(03:32):
ignorant and ungrammatical, and they convey an absolutely wrong impression
of what I said in many respects. When this is
were then examined the carter who heard and reported the explosion,
the foreman in charge of the damaged house, who told
the cost of the damages and described the explosives, et
cetera found on the premises, several police officers who told
of finding hairpins and a woman's rubber galoshe in the house,
and so on. Absolutely nothing was brought out that tended
(03:55):
to show that the Suvergettes had anything to do with
the affair. The judge noted this, for he said to
mister Bodkin, I am not quite sure how you present
this case. There are two ways of looking at it.
Do you only ask the jury to say what the
defendants specifically counseled the perpetration of this crime, or do
you also say that, looking at her speeches that you read,
assuming you prove that they were uttered, that the language
(04:15):
used being a general incitement to damage property, anyone who
acted on this invitation and perpetrated this outrage would be
incited by her to do it. Mister Bodkin replied that
the latter assumption was correct. I say that the speeches
generally are incitement to all kinds of acts of violence
against property, and that they present evidence of attacks against
property and a particular individual, and that there is evidence
in the speeches which have been read and which will
(04:37):
be proved, of admissions by missus Pankhurst of having been
connected with the particular outrage in a way which makes
her in law and accessory before the fact. But you
do not confine the case to the latter way of
putting it. No, replied mister Bodkin. Even if the jury
are satisfied, said the judge, that Missus Pankhurst was not
directly connected with this outrage by counseling it, you still
asked the jury to say that by counseling as you say,
(04:59):
she had in the speech the destruction of property, especially
that belonging to a particular gentleman, anybody who acted on
that and committed this outrage would have been incited by
her to do it. Yes, my lord, I think, Miss Pankhurst,
do you now understand the way it is put asked
the judge. I understand it quite well, my lord, I replied.
Proceedings were resumed on the following day and the examination
(05:19):
of witnesses for the prosecution went on. At the close
of the examination, the judge inquired whether I desired to
call any witnesses, I replied, I do not desire to
give evidence or to call any witnesses, but I desired
to address your lordship. I began by objecting to some
of the things mister Bodkins had said in his speech
which concerned me personally. He had referred to me, or
at least his words conveyed the suggestion that I was
a woman riding about in my motor car inciting other
(05:42):
women to do acts which entail imprisonment and great suffering,
while I, perhaps indulging in some curious form of pleasure,
was protected, or thought myself protected from serious consequences. I
said that mister Bodkin knew perfactly well that I shared
all the dangers the other women faced, that I had
been in prison three times, serving two of the sentences
in full, and being treated like an ordinary felon, searched,
(06:02):
put in prison clothes, eating prison fare, given solitary confinement,
and conforming to all the abominable rules opposed upon women
who commit crimes in England. I thought I owed it
to myself, especially as the same suggestions in regard to
the luxury in which I lived, supported by the members
of the WSPU had been made not only by mister
Bodkin in court, but by members of the government in
the House of Comment. I thought I owed it to
(06:24):
myself to say that I owned no motor car and
never had owned one. The car in which I occasionally
rode was owned by the organization and was used for
general propaganda work in that car and in cars owned
by friends. I had gone about my work as a
speaker in the women's suffrage movement. It was equally untrue.
I said that some of us were making incomes of
one thousand to fifteen hundred pounds a year out of
(06:44):
the suffrage movement, as had actually been alleged in the
debates in the House in which Parliament were trying to
decide how to crush militancy. No woman in our organization
was making any such income or anything remotely like it. Myself,
I had sacrificed a considerable portion of my income because
I had to surrender a very important part of it
in order to be free to do what I thought
was my duty in the movement. Addressing myself to my defense,
(07:07):
I told the court that it was a very serious
condition of things when a large number of respectable and
naturally law abiding people, people of upright lives, came to
hold the law and contempt, came seriously to making up
their minds that they were justified in breaking the law.
The whole of good government, I said, rests upon acceptance
of the law, upon a respect of the law. And
I say to you, seriously, my lord and gentlemen of
the jury, that women of intelligence, women of training, women
(07:30):
of upright life, have for many years ceased to respect
the laws of this country. It is an absolute fact.
And when you look at the laws of this country
as they affect women, it is not to be wondered at.
At some length I went over these laws. Laws that
made it possible for the judge to send me, if
found guilty, to prison for fourteen years, while the maximum
penalty for offenses of the most revolting kind against little
girls was only two years imprisonment. The laws of inheritance,
(07:53):
the laws of divorce, the laws of guardianship of children,
all so scandalously unjust to women. I sketched briefly, and
I said that not only these laws and others, but
the administration of the laws fell so far short of
adequacy that women felt that they must be permitted to
share the work of cleaning up the entire situation. I
tried here to tell of certain dreadful things that I
had learned as the wife of a barrister, Things about
(08:13):
some of the men in high places who are entrusted
with the administration of the law, of a judge of assizes,
where many hideous crimes against women were tried, this judge
himself being found dead one morning in a brothel. But
the court would not allow me to go into personalities,
as he called it, with regard to distinguished people, and
told me that the sole question before the jury was
whether or not I was guilty is charged. I must
speak on that subject and no other. After a hard
(08:36):
fight to be allowed to tell the jury the reasons
why women had lost respect for the law and were
making such a struggle in order to become lawmakers themselves,
I closed my speech by saying, over one thousand women
have gone to prison in the course of this agitation,
have suffered their imprisonment, have come out of prison injured
in health, weakened in body, but not in spirit. I
come to stand my trial from the bedside of one
of my daughters, who has come out of Holloway Prison,
(08:58):
sent there for two months hard labor for participipating with
four other people and breaking a small pane of glass.
She has hunger struck. In prison, she submitted herself for
more than five weeks to the horrible ordeal of feeding
by force, and she has come out of prison having
lost nearly two stone in weight. She is so weak
that she cannot get out of her bed. And I
say to you, gentlemen, that is the kind of punishment
(09:18):
you are afflicting upon me or any other woman who
may be brought before you. I ask you, if you
are prepared to send an incalculable number of women to prison.
I speak to you as representing others in the same position,
if you are prepared to go on doing that kind
of thing indefinitely, because that is what is going to happen.
There is absolutely no doubt about it. I think you
have seen enough, even in this present case, to convince
(09:38):
you that we are not women who are notoriety hunters.
We could get that, Heaven knows much more cheaply if
we sought it. We are women, rightly or wrongly, convinced
that this is the only way in which we can
win power to alter what for us are intolerable conditions,
absolutely intolerable conditions. A London clergyman only the other day
said that sixty percent of the married women and his
(10:00):
parents were bread winners, supporting their husbands as well as
their children. When you think of the wages women earn,
when you think of what this means for the future
of the children of this country, I ask you to
take this question very, very seriously. Only this morning I
have had information brought to me which could be supported
by sworn affidavits, that there is in this country, in
this very city of London of ours, a regulated traffic,
(10:22):
not only in women of full age, but in little children,
that they are being purchased, that they are being entrapped,
and that they are being trained to minister to the
vicious pleasures of persons who ought to know better in
their positions of life. Well, these are the things that
have made us women determined to go on, determine to
face everything, determine to see this thing out to the end.
Let it cost us what it may. And if you
(10:43):
convict me, gentlemen, if you find me guilty, I tell you,
quite honestly and quite frankly, but whether the sentence is
a long sentence, Whether the sentence is a short sentence,
I shall not submit to it. I shall the moment
I leave this court if I am sent to prison,
whether to penal servitude or to the lighter form of imprisonment,
because I am not sufficiently versed in the law to
(11:03):
know what his lordship may decide. But whatever my sentence is,
from the moment I leave this court, I shall quite
deliberately refuse to eat food. I shall join the women
who are already in Holloway on the hunger strike. I
shall come out of prison dead or alive, at the
earliest possible moment, and once out again, as soon as
I am physically fit, I shall enter into this fight again.
Life is very dear to all of us. I am
(11:25):
not seeking, as was said by the Home Secretary, to
commit suicide. I do not want to commit suicide. I
want to see the women of this country enfranchised, and
I want to live until that is done. Those are
the feelings by which we are animated. We offer ourselves
as sacrifices, just as your forefathers did in the past
in this cause. And I would ask you all to
put this question to yourselves. Have you the right as
(11:47):
human beings to condemn another human being to death, because
that is what it amounts to. Can you throw the
first stone? Have you the right to judge women? You
have not the right in the human justice, not the
right by the constitution of this country, if rightly interpreted,
to judge me. Because you are not my peers. You know,
every one of you, that I should not be standing here,
That I should not break one single law. If I
(12:08):
had the rights that you possess, if I had a
share in electing those who make the laws I have
to obey, if I had a voice in controlling the
taxes I am called upon to pay, I should not
be standing here. And I say to you, it is
a very serious state of things. I say to you,
my lord, it is a very serious situation that women
of upright life, women who have devoted the best of
their years to the public, weal that women who are
(12:30):
engaged in trying to undo some of the terrible mistakes
that men in their government of the country have made,
because after all, in the last resort, men are responsible
for the present state of affairs. I put it to
you that it is a very serious situation. You are
not accustomed to deal with people like me in the
ordinary discharge of your duties. But you are called upon
to deal with people who break the law from selfish motives.
(12:51):
I break the law from no selfish motive. I have
no personal end to serve. Neither have any of the
other women who have gone through this court during the
past few weeks. Like sheep to the slaughter, not one
of these women would, if women were free, be law breakers.
They are women who seriously believe that this hard path
that they are treading is the only path to their enfranchisement.
They seriously believe that the welfare of humanity demands this sacrifice.
(13:14):
They believe that the horrible evils which are ravaging our
civilization will never be removed until women get the vote.
They know that the very foundas of life is being poisoned.
They know that homes are being destroyed, that because of
bad education, because of the unequal standard of morals, even
the mothers and children are destroyed by one of the
vilest and most horrible diseases that ravage humanity. There is
(13:34):
only one way to put a stop to this agitation.
There is only one way to break down this agitation.
It is not by deporting us. It is not by
locking us up in jail. It is by doing us justice.
And so I appeal to you, gentlemen, in this case
of mind, to give a verdict not only on my case,
but upon the whole of this agitation. I ask you
to find me not guilty of malicious incitement to a
(13:54):
breach of the law. These are my last words. My
incitement is not malicious. If I have power to deal
with these things, I would be in absolute obedience to
the law. I would say to women, you have a
constitutional means of getting redressed for your grievances. Use your votes.
Convince your fellow voters of the righteousness of your demands.
That is the way to obtain justice. I am not
guilty of malicious incitement, and I appeal to you, for
(14:15):
the welfare of the country, for the welfare of the race,
to return a verdict of not guilty. In this case
you are called upon to try after recapitulating the charge.
The judge, in summing up said, it is scarcely necessary
for me to tell you that the topics urged by
the defendant in her address to you with regard to
provocation by the laws of the country and the injustice
unto women because they are not given the vote as
men are, have no bearing upon this question. You have
(14:37):
to decide the motive at the back of her mind
or at the back of the minds of those who
actually did put the gunpowder, there would afford no defense
to this indictment. I am quite sure you will deal
with this case upon the evidence and the evidence alone,
without regard to any question as whether you think the
law is just or unjust. It has nothing to do
with the case. I should think you will probably have
no doubt that this defendant, if she did these things
(14:58):
charged against her, is not actuated by the ordinary selfish
motive that leads most of the criminals who are in
the stock to commit the crimes that they do to commit.
She is none the less guilty if she did these
things which are charged against her, although she believes that
by means of this kind the condition of society will
be altered. The jury retired, and soon after the afternoon
session of the court opened. They filed in and, in
reply to the usual question asked by the Clerk of arraigns,
(15:20):
said that they had greed upon a verdict. Said the clerk,
do you find missus Pankhurst, guilty or not guilty. Guilty,
said the foreman, with a strong recommendation to mercy. I
spoke once more to the judge. The jury have found
me guilty with a strong recommendation to mercy. And I
do not see, since motive is not taken into account
in human laws, that they could do otherwise after your
summing up. But since motive is not taken into count
(15:42):
in human laws, and since I, whose motives are not
ordinary motives, am about to be sentenced by you to
the punishment which is accorded to people whose motives are
selfish motives. I have only this to say, if it
was impossible for a different verdict to be found, if
it is your duty to sentence me as it will
be presently that I want to say to you, as
a private citizen and to the jury, as private citizens,
that I standing here found guilty by the laws of
(16:04):
my country. I say to you it is your duty,
as private citizens to do what you can to put
an end to this intolerable state of affairs. I put
that duty upon you, and I want to say, whatever
the sentence you pass upon me, I shall do what
is humanly possible to terminate that sentence at the earliest
possible moment. I have no sense of guilt. I feel
I have done my duty. I look upon myself as
(16:24):
a prisoner of war. I am under no moral obligation
to conform too or in any way except the sentence
imposed upon me. I shall take the desperate remedy that
other women have taken. It is obvious to you that
the struggle will be an unequal one, but I shall
make it. I shall make it. As long as I
have an ounce of strength left in me, or any
life left in me. I shall fight. I shall fight.
(16:45):
I shall fight from the moment I enter prison, to
struggle against overwhelming odds. I shall resist the doctors if
they attempt to feed me. I was sentence last May
in this court to nine months imprisonment. I remained in
prison six weeks. There are people who have laughed at
the ordeal of hunger, strance and forcible feeding. All I
can say is, and the doctors can bear me out,
that I was released because had I remained there much longer,
(17:07):
I should have been a dead woman. I know what
it is because I have gone through it. My own
daughter has only just left it. There are women there
still facing that ordeal, facing it twice a day. Think
of it, my lord, twice a day. This fight has
gone through twice a week. Women resisting overwhelming force, fights
and fights as long as she has strength left, fights
against women, and even against men, resisting with her tongue,
(17:29):
with her teeth, this ordeal. Last night in the House
of Common, some alternative was discussed, or rather some additional punishment.
Is it not a strange thing, my lord, that laws
which have sufficed to restrain men throughout the history of
this country do not suffice now to restrain women, decent,
honorable women. Well, my lord, I do want you to
realize it. I am not whining about my punishment. I
invited it. I deliberately broke the law, not hysterically or emotionally,
(17:53):
but of set serious purpose, because I honestly feel it
is the only way. Now. I put the responsibility of
what is to follow up, on you, my lord, as
a private citizen, and upon the gentleman of the jury,
as private citizen, and upon all the men in this court.
What argue with your political powers going to do to
end this intolerable situation? To the women I have represented,
to the women who, in response to my incitement, have
(18:15):
faced these terrible consequences, have broken laws to them. I
want to say, I am not going to fail them,
but to face it as they face it, to go
through with it. And I know that they will go
on with the fight, whether I live or whether I die.
This movement will go on and on until we have
the rights of citizens in this country as women have
in our colonies, as they will have throughout the civilized world,
(18:36):
before this woman's war is ended. That is all I
have to say. Mister Justice Lush, in passing sentence, said,
it is my duty, missus Emmeline pancursed, and a very
painful duty. It is to pass what, in my opinion,
is a suitable and adequate sentence for the crime of
which you have been most properly convicted, Having regard to
the strong recommendation to mercy by the jury, I quite recognize,
(18:57):
as I have already said, that the motives that have
actually you in committing this crime are not the selfish
motives that actuate most of the persons who stand in
your position. But although you blind your eyes to it,
I cannot help pointing out to you that the crime
of which you have been convicted is not only a
very serious one, but in spite of your motives, it
is in fact a wicked one. It is wicked because
it not only leads to the destruction of property of
(19:19):
persons who have done you no wrong, but in spite
of your calculations, it may expose other people to the
danger of being maimed or even killed. It is wicked
because you are and have been luring other people, young
women it may be to engage in such crimes, possibly
to their own ruin. And it is wicked because you
cannot help being alive to it. If you would only
think you are setting an example to other persons who
(19:41):
may have other grievances that they legitimately want to have
put right by embarking on similar schemes to yours and
trying to affect their object by attacking the property, if
not the lives of other people. I know. Unfortunately, at
least I feel sure you will pay no heed to
what I say. I only beg of you to think
of these things. I have thought of them. I am injected.
(20:01):
Think if only for one short hour dispassionately continued the
majesty of the law. I can only say that although
the sentence I am going to pass. Must be a
severe one, must be adequate to the crime of which
you have been found guilty. If you would only realize
the wrong you are doing and the mistake you are making,
and would see the error you have committed, and undertake
to amend manners by using your influence in a right direction,
I would be the first use all my best endeavors
(20:23):
to bring about a mitigation of the sentence I am
about to pass. I cannot and I will not regard
your crime as merely trivial one. It is not. It
is a most serious one, and whatever you may think,
it is a wicked one. I have paid regard to
the recommendation of the jury, you yourself have stated the
maximum sentence which this particular offense is by the legislature
thought to deserve. The least sentence I can pass upon
(20:44):
you is a sentence of three years penal servitude. As
soon as the sentence was pronounced, the intense silence which
had reigned throughout the trial was broken, and an absolute
pandemodium broke out among the spectators. At first, it was
merely a confused and angry murmur of shame. Shame. The
murmurs quickly swelled into loud and indignant cries, and then
from the gallery and court there arose a great chorus,
(21:07):
uttered with the utmost intensity and passion, shame, shame. The
women sprang to their feet, in many instances stood on
their seats, shouting shame, shame. As I was conducted out
of the dock in charge of two wardresses, keep the
flag flying, shouted a woman's voice, and the response came
in chorus, we will bravo, three cheers for missus Pankhurst.
(21:28):
That was the last I heard of the courtroom protest. Afterwards,
I heard that the noise and confusion was kept up
for several minutes longer, and the judge and police being
quite powerless to obtain order. Then the women filed out,
singing the woman's marsier, march on, march on, faced to
the dawn, the dawn of liberty. The judge flung after
the retreating forms the dire threat of prison for any
(21:48):
woman who dared repeat such a scene, threat of prison
to suffragettes. The women's song only swelled the louder, and
the quarters of Old Bailey reverberated with their shouts. Certainly
that venerable building had never in its checkered history witnessed
such a scene. The great crowd of detectives and police
who were on duty seemed actually paralyzed by the audacity
of the protest, for they made no attempt to intervene.
(22:10):
At three o'clock, when I left the court by a
side entrance in Newgate Street, I found a crowd of
women waiting to cheer me. With two wardresses, I entered
a four wheeler and was driven to Holloway to begin
my hunger strike. Scores of women followed in taxicabs, and
when I arrived at the prison gates, there was another protest,
of cheers for the cause and booze for the law.
In the midst of all this excitement, I passed through
the grim gates into the twilight of prison now become
(22:31):
a battleground. End of Book three, Chapter five,
Book three, Chapter five of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
k Hand The Women's Revolution, Chapter five. When I entered
Old Bailey on that memorable Wednesday, April second, nineteen thirteen,
to be tried for inciting to commit a felony, the
court was packed with women. A great crowd of women
(00:22):
who could not obtain the necessary tickets remained in the
streets below for hours waiting news of the trial. A
large number of detectives from Scotland Yard, and a still
larger number of uniformed police were on duty, both inside
and outside the court. I could not imagine why it
was considered necessary to have such a regiment of police
on hand, for I had not at that time realized
the state of terror into which the militant movement, in
(00:43):
its new development, had thrown the authorities. Mister Bodkin and
mister Travers Humphrey appeared to prosecute on behalf of the crown,
and I conducted my own case in consultation with my solicitor,
mister Marshall. The judge, Mister Justice Lush, having taken his seat,
I entered the dock and listened to the reading of
the indictment. I pled not guilty, not because I wished
to evade responsibility for the explosion. I had already assumed
(01:05):
that responsibility, but because the indictment accused me of having
wickedly and maliciously incited women to crime. What I had
done was not wicked of purpose, but quite the opposite
of wicked. I could not therefore truthfully plead guilty. The
trial having opened, the judge courteously asked me if I
would like to sit down. I thanked him and asked
if I might also have a small table on which
to place my papers. By orders of the judge, a
(01:27):
table was brought me. Mister Bodkin opened the case by
explaining the Malicious Damages to Property Act of eighteen sixty
one under which I was charged, and after describing the
explosion which had damaged the Lloyd George House at Walton,
said that I was accused of being in the affair
and accessory before the fact, it was not suggested. He
said that I was present when their crime was committed,
but it was charged that I had moved and insided,
(01:47):
counseled and procured women whose names were unknown to carry
out that crime. It would be for the jury to decide,
after the evidence had been presented, whether the facts did
not point most clearly to the conclusion that women, probably
to a number, who committed the crime were members of
the Women's Social and Political Union, which had its office
in Kingswayne, London, and of which the defendant was the head,
(02:08):
moving spirit and recognized leader. The blowing up of mister
Lloyd George's house was then described in detail. That the
damage was intended as an act against mister Lloyd George
was clear, mister Bodkin said, from the malicious statements made
against him by the prisoner. He produced a private letter
written by me to a friend in which I had
defended militancy and said that not only had it become
a duty, but in the circumstances, it had also become
(02:30):
a political necessity, said mister Bodkin. A letter of that
kind proves very clearly several things. It shows that she
is the leader. It shows her influence over the emotional
members of this organization. It shows that, according to her,
militancy can be withheld for a time and let loose
upon society at another time. And it further shows that
any person or any woman who wants to indulge in militancy,
(02:50):
which is the only picturesque expression for committing crimes against society,
has to communicate with her and with her alone by
word of mouth or by letter. That is the proclamation
which went out to the members of this organization. The
plain language of that letter is, if we don't get
what we want, the government and their members will be responsible,
and the government and the public will be bullied into
giving us what I want. Many extracts from my speeches
(03:10):
made in January and February were read, and the final
speech made just before my arrest at Chelsea. But before
they were read, I said I wished to lodge an
objection now to the police reports of my speeches. They
have been supplied to me, and the only report I
accept is that of the journalist of Cardiff, who was
one of the witnesses. He has furnished a fairly accurate
report of what I said in that town. The police
reports I do not accept. They are grossly inaccurate and
(03:32):
ignorant and ungrammatical, and they convey an absolutely wrong impression
of what I said in many respects. When this is
were then examined the carter who heard and reported the explosion,
the foreman in charge of the damaged house, who told
the cost of the damages and described the explosives, et
cetera found on the premises, several police officers who told
of finding hairpins and a woman's rubber galoshe in the house,
and so on. Absolutely nothing was brought out that tended
(03:55):
to show that the Suvergettes had anything to do with
the affair. The judge noted this, for he said to
mister Bodkin, I am not quite sure how you present
this case. There are two ways of looking at it.
Do you only ask the jury to say what the
defendants specifically counseled the perpetration of this crime, or do
you also say that, looking at her speeches that you read,
assuming you prove that they were uttered, that the language
(04:15):
used being a general incitement to damage property, anyone who
acted on this invitation and perpetrated this outrage would be
incited by her to do it. Mister Bodkin replied that
the latter assumption was correct. I say that the speeches
generally are incitement to all kinds of acts of violence
against property, and that they present evidence of attacks against
property and a particular individual, and that there is evidence
in the speeches which have been read and which will
(04:37):
be proved, of admissions by missus Pankhurst of having been
connected with the particular outrage in a way which makes
her in law and accessory before the fact. But you
do not confine the case to the latter way of
putting it. No, replied mister Bodkin. Even if the jury
are satisfied, said the judge, that Missus Pankhurst was not
directly connected with this outrage by counseling it, you still
asked the jury to say that by counseling as you say,
(04:59):
she had in the speech the destruction of property, especially
that belonging to a particular gentleman, anybody who acted on
that and committed this outrage would have been incited by
her to do it. Yes, my lord, I think, Miss Pankhurst,
do you now understand the way it is put asked
the judge. I understand it quite well, my lord, I replied.
Proceedings were resumed on the following day and the examination
(05:19):
of witnesses for the prosecution went on. At the close
of the examination, the judge inquired whether I desired to
call any witnesses, I replied, I do not desire to
give evidence or to call any witnesses, but I desired
to address your lordship. I began by objecting to some
of the things mister Bodkins had said in his speech
which concerned me personally. He had referred to me, or
at least his words conveyed the suggestion that I was
a woman riding about in my motor car inciting other
(05:42):
women to do acts which entail imprisonment and great suffering,
while I, perhaps indulging in some curious form of pleasure,
was protected, or thought myself protected from serious consequences. I
said that mister Bodkin knew perfactly well that I shared
all the dangers the other women faced, that I had
been in prison three times, serving two of the sentences
in full, and being treated like an ordinary felon, searched,
(06:02):
put in prison clothes, eating prison fare, given solitary confinement,
and conforming to all the abominable rules opposed upon women
who commit crimes in England. I thought I owed it
to myself, especially as the same suggestions in regard to
the luxury in which I lived, supported by the members
of the WSPU had been made not only by mister
Bodkin in court, but by members of the government in
the House of Comment. I thought I owed it to
(06:24):
myself to say that I owned no motor car and
never had owned one. The car in which I occasionally
rode was owned by the organization and was used for
general propaganda work in that car and in cars owned
by friends. I had gone about my work as a
speaker in the women's suffrage movement. It was equally untrue.
I said that some of us were making incomes of
one thousand to fifteen hundred pounds a year out of
(06:44):
the suffrage movement, as had actually been alleged in the
debates in the House in which Parliament were trying to
decide how to crush militancy. No woman in our organization
was making any such income or anything remotely like it. Myself,
I had sacrificed a considerable portion of my income because
I had to surrender a very important part of it
in order to be free to do what I thought
was my duty in the movement. Addressing myself to my defense,
(07:07):
I told the court that it was a very serious
condition of things when a large number of respectable and
naturally law abiding people, people of upright lives, came to
hold the law and contempt, came seriously to making up
their minds that they were justified in breaking the law.
The whole of good government, I said, rests upon acceptance
of the law, upon a respect of the law. And
I say to you, seriously, my lord and gentlemen of
the jury, that women of intelligence, women of training, women
(07:30):
of upright life, have for many years ceased to respect
the laws of this country. It is an absolute fact.
And when you look at the laws of this country
as they affect women, it is not to be wondered at.
At some length I went over these laws. Laws that
made it possible for the judge to send me, if
found guilty, to prison for fourteen years, while the maximum
penalty for offenses of the most revolting kind against little
girls was only two years imprisonment. The laws of inheritance,
(07:53):
the laws of divorce, the laws of guardianship of children,
all so scandalously unjust to women. I sketched briefly, and
I said that not only these laws and others, but
the administration of the laws fell so far short of
adequacy that women felt that they must be permitted to
share the work of cleaning up the entire situation. I
tried here to tell of certain dreadful things that I
had learned as the wife of a barrister, Things about
(08:13):
some of the men in high places who are entrusted
with the administration of the law, of a judge of assizes,
where many hideous crimes against women were tried, this judge
himself being found dead one morning in a brothel. But
the court would not allow me to go into personalities,
as he called it, with regard to distinguished people, and
told me that the sole question before the jury was
whether or not I was guilty is charged. I must
speak on that subject and no other. After a hard
(08:36):
fight to be allowed to tell the jury the reasons
why women had lost respect for the law and were
making such a struggle in order to become lawmakers themselves,
I closed my speech by saying, over one thousand women
have gone to prison in the course of this agitation,
have suffered their imprisonment, have come out of prison injured
in health, weakened in body, but not in spirit. I
come to stand my trial from the bedside of one
of my daughters, who has come out of Holloway Prison,
(08:58):
sent there for two months hard labor for participipating with
four other people and breaking a small pane of glass.
She has hunger struck. In prison, she submitted herself for
more than five weeks to the horrible ordeal of feeding
by force, and she has come out of prison having
lost nearly two stone in weight. She is so weak
that she cannot get out of her bed. And I
say to you, gentlemen, that is the kind of punishment
(09:18):
you are afflicting upon me or any other woman who
may be brought before you. I ask you, if you
are prepared to send an incalculable number of women to prison.
I speak to you as representing others in the same position,
if you are prepared to go on doing that kind
of thing indefinitely, because that is what is going to happen.
There is absolutely no doubt about it. I think you
have seen enough, even in this present case, to convince
(09:38):
you that we are not women who are notoriety hunters.
We could get that, Heaven knows much more cheaply if
we sought it. We are women, rightly or wrongly, convinced
that this is the only way in which we can
win power to alter what for us are intolerable conditions,
absolutely intolerable conditions. A London clergyman only the other day
said that sixty percent of the married women and his
(10:00):
parents were bread winners, supporting their husbands as well as
their children. When you think of the wages women earn,
when you think of what this means for the future
of the children of this country, I ask you to
take this question very, very seriously. Only this morning I
have had information brought to me which could be supported
by sworn affidavits, that there is in this country, in
this very city of London of ours, a regulated traffic,
(10:22):
not only in women of full age, but in little children,
that they are being purchased, that they are being entrapped,
and that they are being trained to minister to the
vicious pleasures of persons who ought to know better in
their positions of life. Well, these are the things that
have made us women determined to go on, determine to
face everything, determine to see this thing out to the end.
Let it cost us what it may. And if you
(10:43):
convict me, gentlemen, if you find me guilty, I tell you,
quite honestly and quite frankly, but whether the sentence is
a long sentence, Whether the sentence is a short sentence,
I shall not submit to it. I shall the moment
I leave this court if I am sent to prison,
whether to penal servitude or to the lighter form of imprisonment,
because I am not sufficiently versed in the law to
(11:03):
know what his lordship may decide. But whatever my sentence is,
from the moment I leave this court, I shall quite
deliberately refuse to eat food. I shall join the women
who are already in Holloway on the hunger strike. I
shall come out of prison dead or alive, at the
earliest possible moment, and once out again, as soon as
I am physically fit, I shall enter into this fight again.
Life is very dear to all of us. I am
(11:25):
not seeking, as was said by the Home Secretary, to
commit suicide. I do not want to commit suicide. I
want to see the women of this country enfranchised, and
I want to live until that is done. Those are
the feelings by which we are animated. We offer ourselves
as sacrifices, just as your forefathers did in the past
in this cause. And I would ask you all to
put this question to yourselves. Have you the right as
(11:47):
human beings to condemn another human being to death, because
that is what it amounts to. Can you throw the
first stone? Have you the right to judge women? You
have not the right in the human justice, not the
right by the constitution of this country, if rightly interpreted,
to judge me. Because you are not my peers. You know,
every one of you, that I should not be standing here,
That I should not break one single law. If I
(12:08):
had the rights that you possess, if I had a
share in electing those who make the laws I have
to obey, if I had a voice in controlling the
taxes I am called upon to pay, I should not
be standing here. And I say to you, it is
a very serious state of things. I say to you,
my lord, it is a very serious situation that women
of upright life, women who have devoted the best of
their years to the public, weal that women who are
(12:30):
engaged in trying to undo some of the terrible mistakes
that men in their government of the country have made,
because after all, in the last resort, men are responsible
for the present state of affairs. I put it to
you that it is a very serious situation. You are
not accustomed to deal with people like me in the
ordinary discharge of your duties. But you are called upon
to deal with people who break the law from selfish motives.
(12:51):
I break the law from no selfish motive. I have
no personal end to serve. Neither have any of the
other women who have gone through this court during the
past few weeks. Like sheep to the slaughter, not one
of these women would, if women were free, be law breakers.
They are women who seriously believe that this hard path
that they are treading is the only path to their enfranchisement.
They seriously believe that the welfare of humanity demands this sacrifice.
(13:14):
They believe that the horrible evils which are ravaging our
civilization will never be removed until women get the vote.
They know that the very foundas of life is being poisoned.
They know that homes are being destroyed, that because of
bad education, because of the unequal standard of morals, even
the mothers and children are destroyed by one of the
vilest and most horrible diseases that ravage humanity. There is
(13:34):
only one way to put a stop to this agitation.
There is only one way to break down this agitation.
It is not by deporting us. It is not by
locking us up in jail. It is by doing us justice.
And so I appeal to you, gentlemen, in this case
of mind, to give a verdict not only on my case,
but upon the whole of this agitation. I ask you
to find me not guilty of malicious incitement to a
(13:54):
breach of the law. These are my last words. My
incitement is not malicious. If I have power to deal
with these things, I would be in absolute obedience to
the law. I would say to women, you have a
constitutional means of getting redressed for your grievances. Use your votes.
Convince your fellow voters of the righteousness of your demands.
That is the way to obtain justice. I am not
guilty of malicious incitement, and I appeal to you, for
(14:15):
the welfare of the country, for the welfare of the race,
to return a verdict of not guilty. In this case
you are called upon to try after recapitulating the charge.
The judge, in summing up said, it is scarcely necessary
for me to tell you that the topics urged by
the defendant in her address to you with regard to
provocation by the laws of the country and the injustice
unto women because they are not given the vote as
men are, have no bearing upon this question. You have
(14:37):
to decide the motive at the back of her mind
or at the back of the minds of those who
actually did put the gunpowder, there would afford no defense
to this indictment. I am quite sure you will deal
with this case upon the evidence and the evidence alone,
without regard to any question as whether you think the
law is just or unjust. It has nothing to do
with the case. I should think you will probably have
no doubt that this defendant, if she did these things
(14:58):
charged against her, is not actuated by the ordinary selfish
motive that leads most of the criminals who are in
the stock to commit the crimes that they do to commit.
She is none the less guilty if she did these
things which are charged against her, although she believes that
by means of this kind the condition of society will
be altered. The jury retired, and soon after the afternoon
session of the court opened. They filed in and, in
reply to the usual question asked by the Clerk of arraigns,
(15:20):
said that they had greed upon a verdict. Said the clerk,
do you find missus Pankhurst, guilty or not guilty. Guilty,
said the foreman, with a strong recommendation to mercy. I
spoke once more to the judge. The jury have found
me guilty with a strong recommendation to mercy. And I
do not see, since motive is not taken into account
in human laws, that they could do otherwise after your
summing up. But since motive is not taken into count
(15:42):
in human laws, and since I, whose motives are not
ordinary motives, am about to be sentenced by you to
the punishment which is accorded to people whose motives are
selfish motives. I have only this to say, if it
was impossible for a different verdict to be found, if
it is your duty to sentence me as it will
be presently that I want to say to you, as
a private citizen and to the jury, as private citizens,
that I standing here found guilty by the laws of
(16:04):
my country. I say to you it is your duty,
as private citizens to do what you can to put
an end to this intolerable state of affairs. I put
that duty upon you, and I want to say, whatever
the sentence you pass upon me, I shall do what
is humanly possible to terminate that sentence at the earliest
possible moment. I have no sense of guilt. I feel
I have done my duty. I look upon myself as
(16:24):
a prisoner of war. I am under no moral obligation
to conform too or in any way except the sentence
imposed upon me. I shall take the desperate remedy that
other women have taken. It is obvious to you that
the struggle will be an unequal one, but I shall
make it. I shall make it. As long as I
have an ounce of strength left in me, or any
life left in me. I shall fight. I shall fight.
(16:45):
I shall fight from the moment I enter prison, to
struggle against overwhelming odds. I shall resist the doctors if
they attempt to feed me. I was sentence last May
in this court to nine months imprisonment. I remained in
prison six weeks. There are people who have laughed at
the ordeal of hunger, strance and forcible feeding. All I
can say is, and the doctors can bear me out,
that I was released because had I remained there much longer,
(17:07):
I should have been a dead woman. I know what
it is because I have gone through it. My own
daughter has only just left it. There are women there
still facing that ordeal, facing it twice a day. Think
of it, my lord, twice a day. This fight has
gone through twice a week. Women resisting overwhelming force, fights
and fights as long as she has strength left, fights
against women, and even against men, resisting with her tongue,
(17:29):
with her teeth, this ordeal. Last night in the House
of Common, some alternative was discussed, or rather some additional punishment.
Is it not a strange thing, my lord, that laws
which have sufficed to restrain men throughout the history of
this country do not suffice now to restrain women, decent,
honorable women. Well, my lord, I do want you to
realize it. I am not whining about my punishment. I
invited it. I deliberately broke the law, not hysterically or emotionally,
(17:53):
but of set serious purpose, because I honestly feel it
is the only way. Now. I put the responsibility of
what is to follow up, on you, my lord, as
a private citizen, and upon the gentleman of the jury,
as private citizen, and upon all the men in this court.
What argue with your political powers going to do to
end this intolerable situation? To the women I have represented,
to the women who, in response to my incitement, have
(18:15):
faced these terrible consequences, have broken laws to them. I
want to say, I am not going to fail them,
but to face it as they face it, to go
through with it. And I know that they will go
on with the fight, whether I live or whether I die.
This movement will go on and on until we have
the rights of citizens in this country as women have
in our colonies, as they will have throughout the civilized world,
(18:36):
before this woman's war is ended. That is all I
have to say. Mister Justice Lush, in passing sentence, said,
it is my duty, missus Emmeline pancursed, and a very
painful duty. It is to pass what, in my opinion,
is a suitable and adequate sentence for the crime of
which you have been most properly convicted, Having regard to
the strong recommendation to mercy by the jury, I quite recognize,
(18:57):
as I have already said, that the motives that have
actually you in committing this crime are not the selfish
motives that actuate most of the persons who stand in
your position. But although you blind your eyes to it,
I cannot help pointing out to you that the crime
of which you have been convicted is not only a
very serious one, but in spite of your motives, it
is in fact a wicked one. It is wicked because
it not only leads to the destruction of property of
(19:19):
persons who have done you no wrong, but in spite
of your calculations, it may expose other people to the
danger of being maimed or even killed. It is wicked
because you are and have been luring other people, young
women it may be to engage in such crimes, possibly
to their own ruin. And it is wicked because you
cannot help being alive to it. If you would only
think you are setting an example to other persons who
(19:41):
may have other grievances that they legitimately want to have
put right by embarking on similar schemes to yours and
trying to affect their object by attacking the property, if
not the lives of other people. I know. Unfortunately, at
least I feel sure you will pay no heed to
what I say. I only beg of you to think
of these things. I have thought of them. I am injected.
(20:01):
Think if only for one short hour dispassionately continued the
majesty of the law. I can only say that although
the sentence I am going to pass. Must be a
severe one, must be adequate to the crime of which
you have been found guilty. If you would only realize
the wrong you are doing and the mistake you are making,
and would see the error you have committed, and undertake
to amend manners by using your influence in a right direction,
I would be the first use all my best endeavors
(20:23):
to bring about a mitigation of the sentence I am
about to pass. I cannot and I will not regard
your crime as merely trivial one. It is not. It
is a most serious one, and whatever you may think,
it is a wicked one. I have paid regard to
the recommendation of the jury, you yourself have stated the
maximum sentence which this particular offense is by the legislature
thought to deserve. The least sentence I can pass upon
(20:44):
you is a sentence of three years penal servitude. As
soon as the sentence was pronounced, the intense silence which
had reigned throughout the trial was broken, and an absolute
pandemodium broke out among the spectators. At first, it was
merely a confused and angry murmur of shame. Shame. The
murmurs quickly swelled into loud and indignant cries, and then
from the gallery and court there arose a great chorus,
(21:07):
uttered with the utmost intensity and passion, shame, shame. The
women sprang to their feet, in many instances stood on
their seats, shouting shame, shame. As I was conducted out
of the dock in charge of two wardresses, keep the
flag flying, shouted a woman's voice, and the response came
in chorus, we will bravo, three cheers for missus Pankhurst.
(21:28):
That was the last I heard of the courtroom protest. Afterwards,
I heard that the noise and confusion was kept up
for several minutes longer, and the judge and police being
quite powerless to obtain order. Then the women filed out,
singing the woman's marsier, march on, march on, faced to
the dawn, the dawn of liberty. The judge flung after
the retreating forms the dire threat of prison for any
(21:48):
woman who dared repeat such a scene, threat of prison
to suffragettes. The women's song only swelled the louder, and
the quarters of Old Bailey reverberated with their shouts. Certainly
that venerable building had never in its checkered history witnessed
such a scene. The great crowd of detectives and police
who were on duty seemed actually paralyzed by the audacity
of the protest, for they made no attempt to intervene.
(22:10):
At three o'clock, when I left the court by a
side entrance in Newgate Street, I found a crowd of
women waiting to cheer me. With two wardresses, I entered
a four wheeler and was driven to Holloway to begin
my hunger strike. Scores of women followed in taxicabs, and
when I arrived at the prison gates, there was another protest,
of cheers for the cause and booze for the law.
In the midst of all this excitement, I passed through
the grim gates into the twilight of prison now become
(22:31):
a battleground. End of Book three, Chapter five,
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com