Outside the massed ranks of police the whole population of London seemed to have gathered. The newspapers said that it was just like Mafeking night without the disorder. Members of Parliament came out from time to time to watch the scene, amongst the spectators being Mr. John Burns, Mr. Haldane, Mr. Walter Long and Mr. Lloyd George, who came with his little daughter, a fair haired child of six years old. Soon a deputation of eleven women with Miss Wallace Dunlop a descendant of the great William Wallace, as their leader, marched out of the Caxton Hall with Mrs. Lawrence's instructions to oppose with spiritual force the physical force which the authorities had arrayed in such strength against them, ringing in their ears.
A cheer from the waiting crowd greeted them as they gained the street, and though some fifty constables attempted to bar their passage into Victoria Street, the people swept them through. At last near the end of Victoria Street, they were met by a body of police and the Inspector in Charge asked Miss Wallace Dunlop that the deputation should wait for a few moments in order that he might bring up some mounted police to clear a way to the House of Commons. She agreed to wait until eight o'clock but when that time came the Inspector returned and said the deputation could not pass. Then, faithful to their trust, the little band of women pressed bravely forward and commenced their hopelessly unequal struggle with the police. In a moment their ranks were broken and they were scattered hopelessly amongst the crowd of constables and sightseers. Before long a number had been arrested and the others were swept far away from their destination. When the news of the first deputation's fate reached the Caxton Hall a second body of women numbering some thirty or forty, marched out to take their place. Like their predecessors, they too reached the top of Victoria Street where the mounted police were still waiting. Then suddenly, Mrs. Leigh, a slight agile figure in white, dashed forward from their midst and threw herself into the mounted line, seizing a police horse by the bridle with either hand. The horses reared and kicked furiously, the constables closed upon her and she was flung to the ground. From time to time several isolated women succeeded by strategy in getting quite close to the House of Commons and one even found her way into one of the underground passages used by Members of Parliament. In every case they were captured by the police and either placed under arrest or dragged away and pushed outside the guarding cordons into the crowd. At last so fearful did the authorities become that the women might be concealed at other strategic points that they proceeded to thoroughly search every corner of Westminster Abbey and with their lanterns were to be seen amongst the buttresses and pinnacles of St. Margaret's Church, searching for Suffragettes. Yet with all their vigilance they were circumvented, for one woman succeeded in outwitting everyone and entered the sacred chamber itself. The lady in question was Mrs. Margaret Travers Simons, Mr. Keir Hardie's Parliamentary Secretary, who, whilst a believer in the Votes for Women Movement, had never taken any active part in it. On her way to the House that evening she had been deeply moved by the violent scenes. As she sat thinking of them in the Lobby, and realising that the Suffragettes, struggle as they might, would never reach the House, the thought suddenly flashed across her mind that she herself had the power to make the appeal and protest which was impossible to them. Seized by an irresistible impulse, she sent in for Mr. T. H. W. Idris, the Liberal Member for Flint Boroughs, and asked him to take her to look through a little window, known as the "peep hole," which is situated on the left side of the glass doors leading into the House of Commons, and to which Members of Parliament had the privilege of taking their lady friends. He agreed, and, on reaching the window, she mounted a seat, which is in front of it in order that she might get a clear view of the chamber. After a moment or two she descended and Mr. Idris turned towards the outer Lobby thinking that she was about to accompany him. In that instant, she pushed open the double glass doors and, before anyone could prevent her, darted into the Chamber and rushed up the central aisle towards the Speaker's chair, calling upon the House to "attend to the women's question!" She was seized by one of the attendants at the Bar, a big, powerful man who carried her back into the lobby, and in a very short space of time she had been handed over to a police inspector, conducted out of the House of Commons, and allowed to go free.
Mr. Curtis Bennett listening to Miss Pankhurst's speech from the Dock, October, 1908
Outside in the street the conflict still continued and went on until midnight when it was found that ten persons had been injured and treated at Westminster Hospital, and that twenty-one women and a number of men had been arrested.
Footnotes:
[29] My authorities in these cases are the report in the Times and the evidence given in the witness box at Bow Street.