A Protest Meeting in the Lobby of the House of Commons. Eleven Women go to Prison. What it is Like in Holloway Gaol.
On October 3rd, 1906, Parliament re-assembled for the Autumn session. A large number of our women made their way to the House of Commons on that day, but the Government had again given orders that only twenty women at a time were to be allowed in the Lobby. All women of the working class were rigorously excluded. My mother and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence were amongst those who succeeded in gaining an entrance. They at once sent in for the Chief Liberal Whip and requested him to ask the Prime Minister, on their behalf, whether he proposed to do anything to enfranchise the women of the country during the session, either by including the registration of qualified women in the provisions of the Plural Voting Bill then before the House, or by any other means. The Liberal Whip soon returned with a refusal from the Government to hold out the very faintest hope that the vote would be given women at any time during their term of office.
On hearing this, Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence returned to their comrades and consulted with them. The women had received a direct rebuff, and they felt that they must now act in such a way as to prove that the Suffragettes would no longer quietly submit to this perpetual ignoring of their claims. They therefore decided to hold a meeting of protest, not outside in the street, but just there, in the Lobby of the House of Commons—of all places the most effective one for women to choose for a meeting, because the nearest within their reach to that legislative Chamber which had so frequently refused to grant them the franchise. Once made, the resolution was acted upon without delay. Mary Gawthorpe mounted one of the settees close to the statue of Sir Stafford Northcote and began to address the crowd of visitors who were waiting to interview various Members of Parliament. The other women closed up around her, but in the twinkling of an eye dozens of policemen sprang forward, tore the tiny creature from her post and swiftly rushed her out of the Lobby. Instantly Mrs. Despard, a sister of General French, a tall, ascetic-looking, grey-haired figure, stepped into the breach; but she also was roughly dragged away. Then followed Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, a daughter of Richard Cobden, and many others, but each in her turn was thrust outside and the order was given to clear the Lobby. Mrs. Pankhurst was thrown to the ground in the outer entrance hall and many of the women, thinking that she was seriously hurt, closed round her refusing to leave her side. Crowds were now collecting in the roadway and the women who had been flung out of the House attempted to address them but were hurled away.
Annie Kenney, who had scarcely recovered from the effects of her last imprisonment, had been told by the Committee that she must not take any part in the demonstration for fear that she should be again arrested. She agreed to run no risks, but she could not keep entirely away from the scene of action and, standing on the other side of the road, was now watching to see what might befall her comrades. In the midst of the struggle she noticed that Mrs. Pethick Lawrence was being roughly handled, and impulsively ran forward to ask her if she were hurt. Being already well known to the police, she was immediately arrested. Mrs. Lawrence was greatly distressed and cried out, "You shall not take this girl; she has done nothing." But the only result of her protest was that she herself was also taken into custody. Before long seven women had shared the same fate, including Miss Irene Miller, my sister Adela Pankhurst, and Mrs. How Martyn, B.Sc., who had recently become Honorary Secretary of the London Committee of the Women's Social and Political Union.[13]
Meanwhile, some of the poor women who had marched from the East End and who had been denied admission to the Lobby, were resting their tired limbs on the stone benches in the long entrance hall, and after Mrs. Cobden Sanderson had made her attempt to speak and had been hustled away, she seated herself quietly beside these women and began to talk with them. Shortly afterwards a young policeman came up and abruptly ordered her away and, as she did not go he seized her and dragged her to the police station.
The next morning the women were brought up at Rochester Row Police Court before Mr. Horace Smith. Mrs. Cobden Sanderson's sisters, Mrs. Cobden Unwin and Mrs. Cobden Sickert and several friends and relatives of the other women, had come early in order that they might be sure of obtaining a seat in Court. Whilst another trial was in progress the Usher had asked them to leave the Court for the present in order to make room for other people, saying, "You shall be allowed in again when your own case comes on." They at once acceded to his request, but were prevented from returning and were subsequently told that no women would be allowed to enter. Some twenty or thirty of us had by this time congregated in the large entrance hall, but, though men were constantly passing in and out of the Court where the trial was taking place, admittance was denied to us. Many of us wished to testify as witnesses, but we were told that we could not go into the Court, and were taken into a side room, where an attempt was made to lock us in. To prevent this, we insisted upon standing in the doorway.
In the meantime the case against the ten Suffragists was being hurried through. They were all put into the dock together. After the police evidence had been heard against them, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson asked leave to make a statement. You must not picture her to yourself as being either big-boned, plain-looking and aggressive and wearing "mannish" clothes, or as emotional and overstrung. On the contrary, she is just what Reynolds, Hoppner, Sir Henry Raeburn, or Romney with his softest and tenderest touch, would have loved to paint. Not very tall, she is comfortably and firmly knit and as she walks she puts her foot down quite firmly, in a dignified and stately way. She is always dressed in low-toned greys and lilacs, and her clothes are gracefully and delicately wrought, with all sorts of tiny tuckings and finishings which give a suggestion of daintiest detail without any loss of simplicity or breadth. She has a shower of hair like spun silver that crinkles itself in the most original and charming way, and which she binds around with broad ribbon, lest its loose falling strands should mar the neatness of her aspect. Her cheeks are tinged with the soft dull rose that one sees in pastel, and her eyes have the most genial and benevolent glance.
Speaking now to the Magistrate, she said, quite quietly, that she had gone to the House of Commons to demand the vote; that so long as women were deprived of citizen rights and had, therefore, no constitutional means of obtaining redress, they had a right to be heard in the House of Commons itself. She wished to take the whole responsibility of the demonstration upon her own shoulders. "If anyone is guilty," she said, "it is I. I was arrested as one of the ringleaders, and being the eldest of these, I was most responsible." Then she quoted in her defence the words of Mr. John Burns, who was now the President of the Local Government Board and who, in circumstances similar to those in which she was placed, had said, "I am a rebel because I am an outlaw. I am a law-breaker because I desire to be a law-maker."
At this point the Magistrate, who had repeatedly interrupted her, refused to hear any more, or to allow any statement at all from the other prisoners, although in doing so, he was disregarding every legal precedent. He said that each of the ten defendants must enter into her own recognisances to keep the peace for six months and must find a surety for her good behaviour in £10, and that if she failed to do this, she must go to prison for two months in the second division. The women at once protested against this mockery of a trial, and raising a banner bearing the words "Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay" declared that they would not leave the dock until they had been allowed the right to which all prisoners were entitled, namely that of making a statement in their own defence. But Mr. Horace Smith cared nothing for the justice of what they said; he merely called the police and the women were forcibly removed.
The Police Court authorities now announced to those of us who were waiting in the witness room that the case was over and that our friends had been taken to Holloway. I can scarcely express our feelings of indignation. It seemed, indeed, terrible that ten upright, earnest women should have been thus hustled off to prison, without a word from their friends, after a trial lasting less than half an hour.