Overview
In 1912, Emmeline Pankhurst’s eldest daughter, Christabel, planned to escalate the WSPU’s militant action by launching an arson campaign. According to Sylvia Pankhurst, “Women, most of them very young, toiled through the night across unfamiliar country carrying heavy cases of petrol and paraffin. Sometimes they failed, sometimes succeeded in setting fire to an untenanted building- all the better if it were the residence of a notability – or a church, or other place of historic interest.”[1]
Arson attacks took place on a range of buildings, including residential homes, railway stations, theatres, cricket pavilions, golf clubhouses, schools, churches, and letter boxes. By December 1912, the government claimed that over 5000 letters had been damaged by the WSPU [2]. However, not all WSPU members approved of the campaign and some resigned from the group. Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, who were leading figures within the organisation, objected and were expelled.
Suffragettes targeted many buildings, including several in south London. These included an orchid house and the tea rooms at Kew Gardens in March 1913, St Catherine’s Church, Hatcham (later Telegraph Hill) in New Cross in May 1913, and Dulwich College in September 1913. The arson campaign, like the WSPU’s other militant activities, was suspended after the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914.
Details of the Incendiary Attacks
Kew Gardens
Suffragettes were suspected of vandalising Kew Gardens on Monday 10th February 1913 when between 30-40 panes of glass were broken and valuable orchid species damaged. The perpetrators were never found but Votes for Women leaflets were discovered at the scene. A few days later the tea pavilion was burned down, causing £900 worth of damage. On 19th February 1913, Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton – both members of the WSPU – were arrested. Wharry and Lenton told the court that they had checked the tea pavilion was empty before setting fire to the building. In court it was reported: “The constables gave chase, and just before they caught them each of the women who had separated was seen to throw away a portmanteau… In one of the bags which the women threw away were found a hammer, a saw, a bundle to tow, strongly redolent of paraffin and some paper smelling strongly of tar. The other bag was empty but it had evidently contained inflammables” [3]. They were found guilty, sentenced to 18 months in Holloway Prison, and ordered to pay the costs of the damage [4]. In prison both went on hunger strike; Lenton was force-fed, but released after contracting pleurisy, while Wharry was released after 32 days [5].
Dulwich College
On September 5th 1913, the science building at Dulwich College was set on fire in two places. A police constable discovered the fire and raised the alarm in time to get three fire brigades on the scene before serious damage had been done. After the fire, suffragette literature was found pinned to trees in the vicinity with women’s hatpins, but the culprits were never discovered [6]. The minutes of the Dulwich College Governors’ meeting for 19th September 1913 reports that the fire caused damage costing an estimated £280 [7].
St Catherine’s Church, Hatcham (now Telegraph Hill), New Cross, London SE14
St Catherine’s Church in Hatcham was set on fire on May 14th 1913. Although both the vicar and the press blamed militant suffragettes for the outrage, nothing was ever proven.
Did the arsonist campaign contribute to achieving votes for women?
Emmeline Pankhurst suspended the militant campaign shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and encouraged women to support the war effort. In 1918, women were granted partial suffrage following the passing the Representation of the People Act. It is, however, difficult to gauge the extent to which the suffragettes’ militancy and arsonist activities paved the way for this achievement, and whether, had war not broken out, women would still have been granted the vote. As the suffragettes had made no progress in achieving the vote through negotiation, it seemed that “deeds not words” were required to change society’s views on women’s rights. Yet, it was women’s contributions during the First World War, rather than the suffragettes’ militant action, that finally persuaded men that women should be granted the vote.
By Helen Graham, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project
References
[1] Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement (1931).
[2] Martin Pugh, The March of the Women: A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 1866-1914 (2000).
[3] http://spartacus-educational.com/Warson.him
[4] The Standard, April 9th 1913. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/outrage-at-kew/kew-arson-prisoner-released/
[5] The Guardian, 10th March 1913.
[6] New York Times, 6th September 1913. Dulwich College Archives.
[7] Minutes of Dulwich College Governors’ meetings- item 8, 19th September 1913, Dulwich College Archives
Bibliography
Crawford, Elizabeth. 2002. The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge.
Riddell, Fern. March 2015. History Today, Vol 65:3, “The Weaker Sex? Violence and the Suffragette Movement.” https://www.historytoday.com/fern-riddell/weaker-sex-violence-and-suffragette-movement
