Some groups of the men stood with linked arms around the women who were striving to make speeches, bodies of others pushed little bands of Suffragettes forward against the rows of constables with cries of "Votes of Women," "we'll get you to the House of Commons," and "back up the women and push them through!" Again and again the police lines were broken and again and again the mounted men charged and beat the people back. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Lord Rosebery and other members of both Houses stood in Palace Yard, and near the Strangers' entrance watching the scene. As it became dark the disorder grew, and gangs of roughs who supported neither the Government nor the women kept making concerted rushes, sweeping the rest of the people on before them, absolutely heedless of trampling others under foot. In some cases isolated women were surrounded by them and with difficulty rescued from their ill treatment by the soberer and more respectable members of the gathering. But, undaunted either by violence from the roughs or from the police, the Suffragettes, though their slight frames were bruised and almost worn out by the constant battering of those who were so much heavier, stronger and more numerous than themselves, still continued to address the throng. Every woman who was arrested was followed to the police station by a stream of cheering people and was saluted with raised hats and waving handkerchiefs.
As Mr. Asquith passed from the House of Commons to Downing Street in his motor-car he was hooted by the crowd. He arrived home to find his windows broken, for Mrs. Leigh and Mrs. New had driven swiftly past the guardian policemen at the entrance to the street in a taxicab and had each thrown two small stones through two of the lower windows of Number 10 before an arm of the Law had been stretched out to drag them away to Canon Row. Meanwhile Miss Mary Phillips had endeavoured to dash into the House of Commons by way of Palace Yard in the midst of a little company of Parliamentary waitresses but half way across the Yard had been seized and dragged back. Miss Lena Lambert had chartered a little rowing boat and had set off in the darkness to reach the House from the river side. Crowds of Members were lounging on the lighted terrace that hot summer's night when she and her little craft appeared out of the darkness, to urge them to determine that the simple measure of justice, which was being so hardly fought for, should be carried into law. But not many words had she spoken, when the police boats swooped down on her and she was towed away, lest she should irritate and annoy the people's representatives by telling them of the battle whose dull roar nothing could shut out.
So the night wore on and that weary fight continued. Not until twelve o'clock did the police at last succeed in clearing the streets, and it was then found that twenty-nine women had been arrested.
Next morning twenty-seven of the women were brought up at Westminster Police Court before the Magistrate, Mr. Francis, and were charged with obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. With the usual callous haste their trial was hurried through. The magistrate had always had all the political rights that he cared to use and would not trouble to imagine what it is like to be without them. He testily brushed aside the defence of the women that the Government had driven them to adopt these methods of obtaining the franchise and that Mr. Asquith by his ignoring of the Great Hyde Park Demonstration had taught them once and for all the uselessness of peaceful propaganda. The sentences ranged from one to three months' imprisonment in the second division. Mrs. Leigh and Miss New were dealt with separately at Bow Street but, as this was not generally expected, very few people were present. In the dimly lighted Court, with the magistrate in his high backed chair regarding them sternly from deep cavernous eyes, the two little women in the great dock with its heavy iron railings looked strangely forlorn. What dreadful sentence, we wondered, was in store for these, the first of the Suffragettes to deliberately throw stones! Mr. Muskett in prosecuting them for doing wilful damage to the value of ten shillings at the Prime Minister's residence, spoke of them with extreme harshness, urging that they should be sent to prison without the option of a fine. Though the Magistrate rebuked the women for the methods they had adopted, we felt that he was impressed by their demeanour and that he was loth to sentence them. He ordered that they should go to prison for two months in the third division without the option of a fine. The sentence was heavy enough, but lighter than we had feared in view of the fact that many of the other women were to remain in prison for three months.
Christabel Pankhurst inviting the public to "rush" the House of Commons at a meeting in Trafalgar Square, Sunday, October 11th, 1908
When the House of Commons met on the same afternoon, several members of every party in the House asked, as they had done on previous occasions, that the women should be treated as political offenders. As before, however, Mr. Gladstone sheltered himself behind the statement, which nobody believed, that the Magistrate was alone responsible for placing the women in the second and third divisions and that he himself had no power to interfere.
On the morning after the "raid" the newspapers had mostly contented themselves with rebuking the women for what they had done, but in a few days there came a reaction of feeling which was accelerated both by the harshness of the sentences imposed and by Mr. Gladstone's refusal to mitigate the rigours of the prison treatment.
The country was now overwhelmed by one of those terribly oppressive heat waves which come upon us suddenly from time to time and are borne with such difficulty in our usually temperate climate, and there gradually leaked out from Holloway accounts of the Suffragist women fainting in the exercise yards[28] and being seized with illness in their cells. There happened to be some cases of measles in the prison hospital, and Miss Elsie Howey, having contracted the disease there, was exceedingly ill for many weeks.
All these things combined to focus public attention upon the harsh treatment of the Suffragette prisoners. On July 10th the Manchester Guardian in a leading Article said: