WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE AND GOVERNMENT CONTROL, 1902-1922

Papers from the Cabinet, Home Office and Metropolitan Police Files in the Public Record Office (CAB 41, HO 45, HO 144, MEPO 2 and MEPO 3)

Publisher's Note

This unique microfilm project brings together material from nine PRO classes and shows the British Government’s response to the increasing militancy of the suffrage movement. The wealth of files covered by this project not only represent both sides of the struggle, but also allows scholars to study an alternative perspective in order to gain a comprehensive and balanced view of enfranchisement for women. The importance of suffrage issues on the government’s agenda is a key question in this microfilm collection. Did militancy bring suffrage into the world of practical politics? What priority did it have in cabinet affairs?

Home Office (HO) files, Cabinet Papers (CAB), Prison Commission files (PCOM) and Metropolitan Police reports (MEPO) offer differing perspectives on the establishment’s effort to control the rising militancy of the suffrage movement between 1906 and 1922. CAB 41 files relate to the Women’s Suffrage Bill and Amendments to the Franchise Bill whilst HO 45 gives a general overview of the manner in which the Home Office tackled the suffragette movement. The material contained within MEPO 2 and 3 offers an interesting parallel to the papers within the CAB and HO files, detailing events from the police perspective, enforcers of the guidelines sent from Whitehall. HO 144 files contain interesting case histories and medical reports of individual suffragettes.

Before discussing some of the material in this collection, it is important to gain some understanding of the women’s suffrage movement and strength of feeling that the government were up against.

The National Women’s Suffrage Societies (NWSS) had been campaigning for the vote since the organisation was established in 1861. Many MP’s were sympathetic to their cause and a growing support within the House of Commons slowly introduced the issue onto the political circuit. Although the government had passed the Women’s Suffrage Bill in 1897, Emmeline Pankhurst (together with daughters Christabel and Sylvia) had formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, frustrated at what they believed to be limited progress towards votes for women. It was to be the first suffrage organisation to use militant actions to capture the attention of the government. By 1906 (the earliest dated material in this project), the WSPU was financially backed by philanthropists Frederick and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and known as one of the best-run organisations in the country. Although somewhat frowned upon by both sexes and all classes in society, their radical campaign antics guaranteed continued national press coverage leading The Daily Mail to christen them ‘Suffragettes’. The individual prosecution and imprisonment of suffragettes are covered by HO 144 files and offer considerable detail on the trials of Mrs Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Lady Constance Lytton to name but a few.

1906 also saw the Liberals regaining power from the Conservatives in the General Election. The WSPU and NWSS were both hopeful that a new Parliament would embrace the suffrage cause, but to most Members of Parliament the votes for women issue was of little significance compared to the enormous problems that the country faced; solutions to the high rate of unemployment, increasing poverty, industrial unrest, and impending civil war in Ireland dominated the Liberals’ electoral promises and, thus, their political agenda. By 1908, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Henry Herbert Asquith, took over as Prime Minister on the resignation of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Asquith had already proved to be a stubborn and formidable opponent to women’s suffrage and, in his new role, the suffragettes realised that not only were they competing with more prominent issues, but they were also up against an unsympathetic government with a large majority.

Suffragist attacks were stepped up and became more violent. Tactics designed to gain the attention of Cabinet Ministers became complex with a policy of window breaking adopted by the WSPU in 1909. Suffragettes previously arrested and found guilty of their actions had already chosen imprisonment instead of paying fines and, in the beginning, the government had bowed to public pressure and treated them as political offenders rather than criminals. But with suffrage disturbances on the rise, the government’s attitude had turned from tolerance to annoyance and this privilege was withdrawn. In protest, Emmeline Pankhurst encouraged suffragette prisoners to go on hunger strike to increase their chance of release.

The government was conscious that the suffrage movement had pushed them into a difficult corner. Asquith was preparing to go to the country in order to gain support in his reform of the House of Lords. If the WSPU policy of hunger striking continued, the death of a suffragette would lead to martyrdom as well as a decline in support for the administration. But if imprisoned suffragettes were to be released this would only allow them to reaffirm their militant antics and cause further irritation. In order to keep the suffragettes alive and still in prison the Home Secretary ordered authorities to introduce the practice of forcible feeding. Intended to ‘save the women from themselves’, the possible harm from such an unnatural process caused an outcry from many sections of the medical profession, some MPs and, most importantly, the public. Arrest, imprisonment, prison conditions, hunger striking and the ensuing policy of forcible feeding are dealt with in great detail in HO 45 and HO 144 files.

In January 1910 the Liberals returned to power but with a reduced majority. Asquith had proclaimed that in the event of a Liberal victory women with property would get the franchise and, as a compromise, a Conciliation Bill was drafted. With Asquith still up against the House of Lords, another General Election was set for November of the same year. Leading up to this, and optimistic that victory for women was in sight, the suffrage movement concentrated on promoting the bill. Having passed through the preliminary stages, Asquith promised voting time for the Conciliation Bill in the autumn Parliamentary session. When the time came the issue was talked out by MPs. In retaliation the suffragettes marched to the House of Commons. The Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, instructed the police to avoid making any arrests. Unable to cope with the ensuing demonstration violence broke out and the police apprehended over one hundred women. The afternoon’s proceedings were to become known as ‘Black Friday’.

HO 45 files cover this entire period and contain important information in relation to several incidents that reflect the extent of suffragette militancy; the famous ‘rush’ on the House of Commons in 1908 (HO 45/10389/170808); the protection of ballot boxes and polling stations between 1910 and 1912 (HO 45/10597/187632) and a wealth of material relating to the imprisonment of suffragettes such as file HO 45/11057/234294 which details the complaints made by suffragettes of the conditions under which they were conveyed to prison in police vans.

The bitterness felt towards the government after ‘Black Friday’ increased suffragette action. The Police retaliated by raiding WSPU headquarters, causing Christabel Pankhurst to flee to Paris, where she still wrote articles for the suffragette publication ‘Votes for Women’. The destruction of property continued including attempted arson on various churches and vacant private property. This new policy of violent activity caused the Pethick-Lawrences, who were made financially responsible for the costs of the damage, to split from the Pankhursts, thus withdrawing their important financial contribution to the WSPU.

However, with Christabel in France editing a new weekly paper ‘The Suffragette’, Emmeline found a new ally in the Labour MP George Lansbury. Lansbury spoke out for the suffragette cause, labelling Asquith as ‘a torturer of innocent women’. Resigning his seat as Member for Bow and Bromley, Lansbury stood for re-election on the votes for women issue but failed to regain his seat. His stand served as a peaceful protest in comparison to the simultaneous destructive attacks carried out by suffragettes. There are details of Lansbury’s trial in file HO 144/1264/237169.

The years leading up to the First World War saw the suffrage movement becoming ever more violent in their attempt to be heard by the government. By 1912 the media attention given to the suffragettes and their antics, helped to divide public opinion. With destruction of private property still part of WSPU policy, some sections of society held little sympathy for the movement. But the forcible feeding of imprisoned suffragettes still continued and public pressure to cease such treatment caused the Home Secretary, Reginald MacKenna, to introduce the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Bill in 1913 (see CAB 41/34/9). Famously nicknamed the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act by Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, hunger striking prisoners, sometimes on the point of death, were released under licence in order for them to regain their health until their eventual re-arrest. Several suffragettes (‘mice’) managed to escape police surveillance and were once again free to commit further outrages. Such outbreaks caused a field day for the press and humiliation for the police and government. Defiance of the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act became the priority of the suffragettes.

Other changes were also occurring both within the movement itself and also on public perceptions of how far the suffragettes would go to uphold their cause. The government’s problems worsened with the death of Emily Wilding Davison on Derby Day in June 1913. Emerging from the spectators, Davison ran onto the racecourse and threw herself in front of the King’s horse. She subsequently died from her injuries. Out of prison and on licence, the police re-arrested Emmeline Pankhurst for the duration of Davison’s funeral, which caused the media and public to condemn the move as being in bad taste. File HO 144/1150/210696 contains poignant material relating to the physical and emotional state of Emily Wilding Davison in the months leading up to her death and MEPO 2/1551 details the Derby episode from the police perspective.

The following year Sylvia Pankhurst split from the WSPU in order to concentrate her efforts in supporting the East End working-class women. Throughout 1914, Suffragette campaigns were becoming more disorganised and hazardous. It was in this year that Emmeline Pankhurst’s arrest outside Buckingham Palace would lead to one of the most memorable photographic images of the century. After receiving a deputation from Sylvia Pankhurst’s East End Federation, Asquith saved face by agreeing to a truce. By the end of the year, Britain was at war with Germany. An amnesty was granted to all imprisoned suffragettes and Emmeline Pankhurst transferred all her strength to the war effort and called for women to volunteer to replace men in all areas of work. Christabel returned from France and ‘The Suffragette’ was patriotically renamed ‘Britannia’.

After over ten years of intensive campaigning, in 1918 Parliament enfranchised all women householders, householder’s wives, and women university graduates over the age of 30. It was not until 1928, that all women over the age of 21 would gain political equality with men and given the right to vote. Emmeline Pankhurst died in the same year.

The majority of the files in this collection are drawn from CAB 41, HO 45, HO 144, MEPO 2 & 3, but a few additional classes are also included. Prison Commission file PCOM 7/178 relates to the refusal to allow a facsimile of a prison cell to be used by the WSPU to demonstrate the conditions of prison life for suffragettes. PCOM 8/228 is an interesting file containing instructions to prison Governors in relation to suffragette inmates. WORK 11/117 looks at the damage made by suffragettes to the Houses of Parliament between 1910 and 1911 and echoes the implementation of the WSPU’s policy of property destruction.

Finally, files AR 1/38, 1/39 and 1/528, relate to the Wallace Collection and contain information in preparation for attacks made by suffragettes on paintings and artefacts. Sparked by Mary Richardson’s slashing of Velasquez’s Venus at the National Gallery in 1914, most major museums were put on alert by the authorities. These files document the correspondence between the Trust and the Police Commissioner and are ideal in illustrating the general unease achieved as a result of suffragette activities.

Women’s Suffrage and Government Control allows numerous possibilities of comparative research work and is an important parallel to previously published collections of leading suffragists such as Sylvia Pankhurst, Lydia Becker and Millicent Garrett-Fawcett (also available from Adam Matthew Publications). The actions, cases and imprisonment of hundreds of individual suffragettes can be studied and the contributions made by the Pankhursts, the Pethick-Lawrences, George Lansbury, Lady Constance Lytton, Rachel Peace, Jane Short, Alice Wheelson and Lilian Lenton among others. It will enable scholars to explore such questions as: How far did militant action help to promote suffrage? How sympathetic were the government and the police? What problems did militant tactics cause for the authorities? What part did enfranchisement play in party politics? Did government control of women’s protests encourage a war between the sexes?

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