We’re clearly soldiers in petticoats
And dauntless crusaders for woman’s votes
Though we adore men individually
We agree that as a group they’re rather stupid!
In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, and a small group of other supporters founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU). The group adopted the slogan ‘deeds not words’, a clear statement of the group’s aim to adopt direct political action. The Pankhursts felt that the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) had been unsuccessful in moving the government to support women’s suffrage because they chose peaceful forms of protest and were trying to bring about change through constitutional means. The deeds of Mrs Pankhurst’s supporters, by contrast, included chaining themselves to railings, disrupting public meetings and damaging public property.
The actions of the WSPU led to The Daily Mail inventing the term ‘suffragette’ in 1906. This new label was used to distinguish between those women who campaigned using militant means and those who continued to use peaceful methods. Although The Daily Mail intended for this to be a derogatory label, it was embraced and adopted by the WSPU.
Over the course of the twentieth century, the suffragettes have been characterised as heroes, with the best example being the film Suffragette (2015). Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) also features similar references to the suffragettes. The lyrics of one song, ‘Sister Suffragette’, epitomises the principles that the WSPU were founded on. For instance, the song’s first verse, featured above, refers to the suffragettes as ‘soldiers’, something which Emmeline herself did on numerous occasions. Mrs Banks, presented in the film as a member of the WSPU, in one of the film’s scenes rejoices at women chaining themselves to the Prime Minister’s horse and carriage, before they are carried away to prison. The suffragettes believed their actions were essential in a war for women’s suffrage.
Today, remnants of their actions, often the resulting damage they caused, provide a physical reminder of suffragette action. For example, in Saint Stephen’s Hall, in the Houses of Parliament, the statue of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, is missing its spur. Marjorie Hume chained herself to the statue in 1909, leading to its damage. Rather than repairing the statue, the spur has been left missing and now a commemorative plaque sits alongside the statue as a permanent reminder of the actions taken by individual women and the WSPU more widely. Despite this being seen as a form of vandalism at the time, we now justify their actions by offsetting them against their cause and motivations.
We tend to rationalise suffragette tactics today as being effective methods of protest, but at the time these tactics were widely criticised and classed as criminal acts. Their actions were often viewed as violent, futile and even undermining their own cause. While we might expect this opposition and response from men, many women openly criticised them too. An anonymous woman, writing to The Times in 1908, declared:
Conservatives nor Liberals will be coerced by violence into giving votes to those who, by their violent and unbalanced behaviour, show how unworthy they are to legislate.[1]
The suffragettes were driven by their desire to get the vote, but violence had negative consequences for all women. For example, attacks at the National Gallery and British Museum resulted in restrictions on the admission of women. The British Museum would not allow women into the galleries unless they were accompanied by a responsible person or in possession of a note supporting their admission.
Mary Stewart’s attack at the British Museum in May 1914 also suggests that not all suffragettes felt confident engaging in acts of vandalism. One onlooker referred to her as ‘nervous looking’[2], as she used a meat cleaver to destroy a saucer in the Museum’s Oriental galleries. Furthermore, they commented that she was ‘not at all like the type of suffragette who commits acts of this kind’. [3] The way suffragettes are portrayed in films leads us to typically envision them as brave, fearless women risking their lives. However, the reality could be very different.
We must also ask ourselves: if these actions were taking place today how would we view them? Is violence, even if it is largely directed at property, ever an appropriate form of protest? Or were the suffragettes, as Emmeline Pankhurst argued, exposing a double standard when it came to this question:
Window-breaking, when Englishmen do it, is regarded as honest expression of political opinion. Window-breaking, when Englishwomen do it, is treated as a crime.[4]
By Elena Rossi.
Elena is a third year undergraduate student in the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London.
[1] Anonymous woman, ‘The Woman Suffragists’, Times (18 February 1908).
[2] As cited in Ben Alsop, ‘Militant Tactics’, British Museum Magazine (Spring/Summer 2014): pp. 52-3.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story (1913)
