At the General Election the figures had been:
| Mr. H. T. Eve, K.C. (L.) | 5,079 |
| Captain Morrison Bell (U.) | 3,790 |
| Liberal Majority | 1,280 |
After the declaration of the poll Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Martel, the only members of the Suffragette band left in the storm centre of Newton Abbot, saw Captain Morrison Bell escorted from the Market Square by a strong force of police, and were themselves urged to hurry away and leave the town at once. The warning seemed to them absurd, and Mrs. Pankhurst laughingly said that she had never yet been afraid to trust herself in a crowd. Immediately afterwards she and her companion met a procession of young men and boys wearing the Liberal colours, who were hurrying from their work in the clay pits. As soon as they heard that the Liberal had been defeated, one of them pointed to Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Martel: "Those women have done it." Then the whole crowd of them started running and from somewhere or other there came a shower of rotten eggs. The two women were completely taken by surprise, and, more anxious to avoid the eggs than the angry crowd, they rushed into a grocer's shop, whilst a big brewer's drayman, who had been standing by jumped into the doorway and fought their assailants off until they were safe. The men and boys outside howled as their prey escaped them, and the people to whom the shop belonged, though anxious to protect the women, cried out despairingly that the windows would be broken in. Mrs. Pankhurst at once said that she could not bear to be the cause of loss to those who had sheltered her, and at her own request she and Mrs. Martel were led through a back door and across a yard leading to a narrow lane behind, whence it was thought that they would be able to escape. As soon as the door had been shut upon them, their assailants who had guessed their movements came rushing up. Mrs. Martel was seized by one who caught her by the throat and began to beat her about the head, but in a flash the shopkeeper's wife had heard the noise and had opened the door again and, somehow or other, she and Mrs. Pankhurst had rescued Mrs. Martel and had dragged her into the yard. The door was shut and safely bolted in all haste, but just as it closed, a man struck Mrs. Pankhurst a heavy blow on the back of the head, and, as she staggered on the threshold, pulled her back and she was left outside. Then the men gave an angry shout, and one of them, seizing her by the collar of her coat and by her wrists, flung her to the ground. She caught a glimpse of them all rushing on her, then for a time she knew nothing until she felt the wet mud soaking through her clothes. There was a pause. As she lay there looking at them, she saw that they had all closed round her in a ring, and that in the centre was an empty barrel. "Are they going to put me into it?" The thought flashed through her mind. Hours seemed to pass as she watched them, all dressed in drab-coloured clothes, smeared with yellow clay, and every one wearing a red Liberal rosette. They all seemed to be puny half-grown youths, and without knowing why she did so, she asked, "Are there no men here?" For an instant they still stood. Then one of them came forward, and she felt that whatever was to be done to her was about to begin, but suddenly there was a shout, and the police came galloping up with a crowd of rescuers at their heels. Her assailants turned tail, and she was lifted up and carried back through the yard into the shop. A large force of police now surrounded the premises, but a great crowd had assembled, and it was two hours before a motor car could be brought through it and the women were able to get away. The disorder did not end here, for the rowdies flocked thence to the Conservative Club, smashed every one of its windows, and kept its members besieged there all through the night. Next morning the body of Sergeant Major Rendall of the Royal Marines, an ex-Instructor of the Newton Abbot College, was found in the mill race. Foul play was suspected, as he had been severely bruised about the head. Throughout this violent disturbance not a single arrest was made. During the whole course of the election but one man was fined five shillings and costs for assaulting one of his political opponents. Well indeed might the Suffragettes say that the treatment meted out to them was very different from that extended to men who were fighting on the Government side.
As a result of the attack which had been made upon her, Mrs. Pankhurst was unable to walk for some considerable time, and her ankle was so severely injured that it gave her trouble for more than a year, whilst owing to the treatment she received Mrs. Martel will probably always bear a scar upon her neck. Scarcely a word of regret for the violence which had been done to these two women ever appeared in the Liberal newspapers, who were so largely to blame for what had occurred. After the election was over the Conservative politicians claimed that they alone had kept out the Liberal and the Liberals also preferred to attribute their defeat to the Tariff Reformers rather than to the Suffragettes. Only one of the Liberal newspapers, the Manchester Guardian admitted both during and after the election that the woman's question had played a decisive part. The Special Correspondent of this paper, in the issue of January 20th, said:
I think there can be no doubt that the Suffragettes did influence votes. Their activity, the interest shown in their meetings, the success of their persuasive methods in enlisting the popular sympathy, the large number of working women who acted with them as volunteers, these were features of the election which, although strangely ignored by most of the newspapers, must have struck most visitors to the constituency.
An amusing proof that the Liberals in the district had considered the Suffragettes to be very formidable opponents came to light in the following mock mourning card which had been got out in expectation of the Liberal victory.
In Fond and Loving Memory
of the
TARIFF REFORMERS AND SUFFRAGETTES
Who fell asleep at Mid-Devon on January 17th,
1908.
The Suffragettes and Tariff Reformers are now very sore,
And should see it's no use contesting Mid-Devon any more;