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Annie Kenney Sets off to Rouse London—The Scene in the Ladies Gallery and the Deputation to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

As soon as the General Election was over, we began to make preparations for the opening of Parliament. It was decided that the work of our Union must be carried to London, and that we must have an Organiser there who would be able to devote the whole of her time to it. Annie Kenney, who, after her imprisonment, had never gone back to the Mill, was chosen for this post. The Election campaign had put a severe strain upon the resources of the Union, and from the first the raising of funds had been our greatest difficulty. Therefore, it was with only £2 in her pocket and the uncertainty as to whether more would be forthcoming that Annie Kenney set off "to rouse London." Perhaps no one realised what a heavy task, and how many bitter rebuffs were before this sensitive, fragile girl. I took a room for her in the house where I was staying at 45, Park Walk, Chelsea, in order that we might consult, and as far as possible, work together.

The Committee in Manchester had not formulated any definite plans of campaign, but we came to the conclusion that we must organise a procession of women and a demonstration in Trafalgar Square for the day of the opening of Parliament. When Annie went to Scotland Yard to inform the police of our intentions, however, she was told that no meeting in Trafalgar Square could be allowed whilst Parliament was sitting. This forced us to the conclusion that we must hire a Hall somewhere near Westminster for our meeting place, but we knew not where to find the money to pay for it. This and other difficulties, however, were one by one smoothed away. Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Frank Smith (afterwards elected to the London County Council as member for Lambeth) were the first to help us, and they advised us to take the Caxton Hall, Westminster, and put us in touch with a sympathiser who agreed to pay the rent of it.

As soon as we had taken the Hall, we drafted a little handbill to announce the Meeting, and then, armed with her bills and her wonderful faith in the goodness of her fellow men and women, Annie Kenney proceeded with her mission, calling day by day upon people of whom she knew practically nothing, and to whom she herself was entirely unknown. One of those who kindly helped us was Mr. W. T. Stead, who published in the Review of Reviews a character sketch of Annie Kenney, in which he likened her to Josephine Butler. It was soon plain to us that it would be easier to ask for help if we formed a London Branch of the W. S. P. U., and with my aunt, Mrs. Clarke, and Mrs. Lucy Roe, our landlady, we therefore formed a Preliminary Committee.

In about a fortnight's time my mother joined us. She was surprised to learn that so many arrangements had been made and at first was almost inclined to be appalled at the boldness of our plans. She was afraid that we should never induce more than a handful of women to walk in procession through the public streets, and that the Caxton Hall could not be filled. But the die was cast, and she threw herself into the work determined to do her very best to prevent failure.

A few days after this we heard that Mrs. Drummond was coming from Manchester to help us. Her husband was earning little at the time, and the Union had no money to provide her railway fare, but she had walked miles through the snow in order to collect the necessary funds from her friends. When she arrived, we were all of us growing very weary and overwrought. It seemed almost impossible to stir this great city, filled with its busy millions who appeared to have no time to think of anything but their own affairs. The thoughtless apathy of those whom we met with money and leisure at their disposal, the dull, hopeless inertia of those who agreed that we were right, but would not stir themselves to help, were to us in our anxiety, almost maddening. But Mrs. Drummond, with her practical ways and her inexhaustible fund of good humour, brought with her a spirit of renewed hope and energy. Her first act was to go to the office of the Oliver Company and borrow a typewriter from them. The secretarial duties were thus enormously lightened, and after rattling off the correspondence she was always ready to join us in delivering handbills, canvassing from house to house, or writing announcements of the forthcoming meetings with white chalk upon the city pavement.

At last the day of the opening of Parliament, February 19th, 1906, arrived, and a crowd of some three or four hundred women, a large proportion of whom were poor workers from the East End, met us at St. James' Park District Railway Station. We formed in procession and put up a few simple banners, some of which were red with white letters, and had been made by working people in Canning Town, whilst the rest I had made of white linen and lettered with India ink in the little sitting-room at Park Walk. Our procession had gone but a few yards when the police came up and insisted upon the furling of the banners, but they did not prevent our marching to the Caxton Hall near by. Here we found that a large audience had already assembled, and soon the hall was crowded with women, most of whom were strangers to us. We were told afterwards that amongst the rest were many ladies of wealth and position, who, inspired with curiosity by the newspaper accounts of the disturbances which we were said to have created, had disguised themselves in their maids' clothes in order that they might attend the meeting unrecognised.

Mrs. Pankhurst, Annie Kenney and others who spoke, were listened to with much earnestness and presently the news came that the King's speech, the Government's legislative programme for the session, had been read, and that it had contained no reference to the question of Women's Suffrage. My mother at once moved that the meeting should form itself into a "Lobbying" Committee and should at once proceed to the House of Commons in order to induce its members to ballot for a Women's Suffrage Bill. This resolution was carried with acclamation, and the whole meeting streamed out into the street and made its way to the House. It was bitterly cold and pouring with rain, but when we arrived at the Strangers' Entrance, we found that for the first time that anyone could remember, the door of the House of Commons was closed to women. Cards were sent in to several Private Members, some of whom came out and urged that we should be allowed to enter, but the Government had given its orders, and the police remained obdurate. All the women refused to go away, and permission was finally given for twenty women at a time to be admitted. Then hour after hour the women stood outside in the rain waiting for their turn to enter. Some of them never got into the House at all, and those who did so went away gloomy and disappointed for there was not one of them who had received any assurance that Parliament intended to give women the vote.

Now, after a chance meeting with Mrs. Pankhurst and a second long talk with her and with Annie Kenney, a new recruit had entered our movement. This was Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, the daughter of Mr. Henry Pethick, of Weston-super-Mare, and a member of a Cornish family. As a child at school she had read the story of Hetty Sorrell in George Eliot's "Adam Bede," had seen "Faust," and Marguerite in her prison cell. Later she had learnt from Sir Walter Besant's Children of Gideon of the cheerless struggle to eke out an existence upon starvation wages, which falls to the lot of working-girls. Then and there she had resolved to spend her life in striving to alter these conditions. She determined that as soon as she left school she would go to "the East End," and begin. When the time came she at once acted upon this decision. Without seeking help or advice from anyone, she wrote to Mrs. Hugh Price Hughes, of the West London Mission and asked that she might be received into her sisterhood. When her request had been granted she told her parents of what she had done, and they readily gave their full approval and sympathy.

After four years of useful training and varied experiences in the West London Mission, during which she had had at some times the charge of a Working-Girls' Club and at others had been sent out at night on to the London Streets in order to save and succour the homeless and outcast women there, she and her friend, Miss Mary Neal, took rooms in a block of artisans' dwellings and gathered round them a small colony of social workers. Together they founded the Esperance Working-Girls' Club, to which was attached a co-operative dressmaking establishment, and a holiday hotel at Littlehampton called "The Green Lady." Later on, after her marriage Mrs. Pethick Lawrence built a small cottage near her house at Holmwood called "The Sundial," where the junior members of the Esperance Club were invited during the summer.

Writing of these early years, and of her own decision to take part in the Votes for Women Movement she says:

Out of that part of my life there stand out many memories. … I remember a little girl belonging to the Children's Happy Evening Club, who went mad with grief because her widowed mother lost her work, and was in despair. The dread of being separated in the workhouse was upon the whole family, and the child was taken to the asylum, crying, "Poor, poor mother." I remember a girl about twenty, alone in the world, earning a pittance as a waitress in a tea-shop. She was a quiet, gentle creature, who made no complaint. All the greater was the shock when the girl put an end to her life, leaving a little note, with the words, "I am tired out." These two cries still ring out at times in my memory with their terrible indictment against life as men have made it. … We recognised the fact that we were only making in a great wilderness a tiny garden, enclosed by the wall of human fellowship. As we saw more and more of the evil plight of women, we realised ever more clearly that nothing could really lift them out of it until the power had been put into their hands to help themselves. … Suddenly a light flashed out. News came of the arrest and imprisonment of Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney. Here at last was action.

So it was that Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had prepared herself to take part in the great Votes for Women Movement.

We had now decided to organise our London Committee on a more formal basis. Mrs. Lawrence was asked to become one of its members and I well remember her coming to my little room in Park Walk to take part in the formation of the new Central Committee. It was the first time I had seen her, and I can never forget how much I was attracted by her dark expressive eyes, and the quiet business-like way in which she listened to what was being said, only interposing in the debate when she had something really valuable to suggest. It was later that I noticed the untrammelled carriage and the fine free lift of the head.

That first meeting was towards the end of February and it was arranged that Mrs. Lawrence, her friend, Miss Mary Neal, myself, Annie Kenney, my aunt, Mrs. Clarke, Mrs. Roe, Miss Irene Fenwick Miller, daughter of a well-known early suffragist, and Mrs. Martel, of Australia, should form the London Committee with my mother and Mrs. Drummond, who were returning to Manchester. It was decided that I was to become the Honorary Secretary, and Mrs. Lawrence was asked to be Honorary Treasurer.

We now felt that our next move must be to secure an interview with the Prime Minister, and we therefore wrote to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman asking him to receive a deputation from our Union. He replied that he could not spare the time to see us. Our answer was that, owing to the urgency of the question, we could take no refusal, and that a number of our members would call upon him at the Official Residence, No. 10 Downing Street, on the morning of March 2nd, 1906.

Downing Street is a short road opening out of Parliament Street and ending in a flight of steps leading into St. James' Park. There are now only three houses left in the Street, the others having been pulled down to make way for Government Buildings. The Official Residence itself was not built for its present purpose and consists of two comfortable-looking Georgian houses knocked into one, each of which is three stories high with attics above, and has three windows along the front of the first and second floors and two windows and a door below. The door is dark green, almost black, and has a black iron knocker, a lion's head with a ring in its mouth. Above this knocker is a small, circular, brass knob about half an inch in diameter and very highly polished and under the knocker is a brass plate, equally well polished, inscribed "First Lord of the Treasury." There is one shallow, well whitened doorstep and on each side of it are black iron railings that protect the house from the street. The next house, No. 11, is a slightly more ornate building in the same style, which was then occupied by Mr. Herbert Gladstone.

On presenting themselves at the door of the Official Residence, the deputation from the Women's Social and Political Union were told that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman could receive no one, as he had been ill and was still confined to his room. A request to see the Prime Minister's secretary was also refused, and the door was shut. Then, deciding to wait there until they were attended to, the deputation sat down to rest on the doorstep and displayed a little white "Votes for Women" banner.

We had notified the various newspapers[6] that we intended to call on Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and by this time a number of Press photographers had collected. This greatly embarrassed the inhabitants of No. 10, and presently the hall porter opened the door again, and looking very uncomfortable, begged the women to go away. Annie Kenney assured him that she and her companions would remain all day if need be, and after arguing for some time, scratching his head and looking very much puzzled, he finally asked two members of the deputation to go inside, where they were received by Mr. Ponsonby, the secretary, who promised to give their message to his chief.

The same evening we held another Committee meeting and drafted a further letter to the Prime Minister asking for an early opportunity of laying our case before him. In response to this letter, he returned an evasive reply in which he stated that any representations that the Union wished to make to him must be put in writing.

We therefore decided that another attempt must be made to interview him and after waiting until he had made a complete recovery and was again able to take his part in the House of Commons debates, a larger deputation, consisting of several members of our Committee and some thirty other women, made their way to Downing Street about 10 o'clock on the morning of March 9th. They again asked to see the Prime Minister and the door-keeper promised to give their message to the secretary. After they had been waiting for three-quarters of an hour two men came out and said to them, "You had better be off; you must not stand on this doorstep any longer." The women explained that they were waiting for a reply but were abruptly told that there was no answer and the door was rudely shut in their faces.

Angered by this Miss Irene Miller immediately seized the knocker and rapped sharply at the door. Then the two men appeared again and one of them called to a policeman on the other side of the road, "Take this woman in charge." The order was at once obeyed, and Miss Miller was marched away to Canon Row Police Station. Spurred on by this event Mrs. Drummond, exclaiming that nothing should prevent her from seeing the Prime Minister, darted forward and pulled at the little brass knob in the middle of the door. As she did so, she discovered that the little knob, instead of being a bell, as she had imagined, was something very different indeed, for suddenly the door opened wide. Without more ado she rushed in and headed straight for the Cabinet Council Chamber, but before she could get there she was caught, thrown out of the house and then taken in custody to the police station. Meanwhile Annie Kenney began to address the gathering crowd, but the man who had first called the policeman again looked out and said, "Why don't you arrest that woman? She is one of the ringleaders. Take her in charge." Then she was dragged away to join her companions.

The three women were detained at Canon Row for about an hour. Then a police inspector told them that a message to set them at liberty had been sent by the Prime Minister, who wished them to be informed that he would receive a deputation from the Women's Social and Political Union, either individually or in conjunction with other women's societies. Of course we published Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's promise broadcast. Shortly afterwards, two hundred Members of Parliament, drawn from every party, petitioned Sir Henry to fix an early date for receiving some of their number in order that they might urge upon him the necessity for an immediate extension of the franchise to women. He then formally announced that on May 19th he would receive a joint deputation both from Members of Parliament representing the signatories to this petition and all the organised bodies of women in the country who were desirous of obtaining the Suffrage.

All the women's societies now began to make preparations for an effective Demonstration on May 19th. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies decided to hold a meeting in the Exeter Hall, but we of the Women's Social and Political Union wished to do something very much more ambitious than that, and we resolved to organise a procession and a demonstration in Trafalgar Square. In view of the immense work that this would entail, we felt the necessity of engaging another organiser, and my mother now recommended that Miss Billington should be asked to undertake the work.

Born in Blackburn in 1877, Theresa Billington, the daughter of a shipping clerk, had been educated at a Roman Catholic convent school. Owing to financial difficulties at home, she had been set to learn millinery at thirteen years of age. At seventeen she had made up her mind to be a teacher, and having obtained one of the Queen's Scholarships, she eventually became a teacher under the Manchester Education Committee. When she was first introduced to us she had come into conflict with the authorities because of her refusal to give the prescribed religious instruction to her pupils. My mother, who was then a member of the Education Committee, intervened to secure that she should be transferred to a Jewish school, where she would not be expected to teach religion, and thus prevented her dismissal. In 1904, at my mother's request, she had been appointed as an organiser for the Independent Labour Party.

About the middle of April, a few weeks after the Prime Minister had given his promise to receive the deputation, a Parliamentary vacancy occurred in the Eye division of Suffolk, and Christabel wrote to our London Committee, saying that she thought it advisable that we should go down to the constituency and intimate to the Liberal candidate that, unless he could obtain a pledge from his Government to give Votes to women, we should oppose his return, and that we should take a similar course in the case of every future Government nominee. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Annie Kenney and Theresa Billington therefore went down to Eye and interviewed Mr. Harold Pearson, the Liberal candidate, but he treated the question of Votes for Women with contempt and ridiculed the idea that women could do anything to hinder his return. Owing to the size of that large county constituency and the pressure of work in London these three members of our Committee then decided to return to London. But at home in Manchester they were exceedingly anxious to see the policy of opposition to the Government at by-elections put into practice.

The funds of the Manchester branch of the Union were entirely depleted, but five pounds was got together, an address to the Electors of Eye from the Women's Social and Political Union was printed and Mrs. Drummond set off to the constituency to fight the election single-handed. Five pounds to fight an election campaign which seems an absurdly small sum when one realises that the candidates spend many hundreds. Nevertheless, though she was entirely friendless and unknown in that part of the country, Mrs. Drummond succeeded in creating a wonderful impression. She could not afford to hire a carriage, it is true, but there was always a friendly farmer or tradesman who would give the cheery little Scotchwoman a lift in his cart, and so active was she that in a short time the impression was spread abroad that not one solitary Suffragette had gone to Eye, but that several were working from different centres. Before the end of the Election the Conservative candidate and even scornful Mr. Harold Pearson, the Liberal, had declared in favour of Votes for Women.

Meanwhile Mr. Keir Hardie had secured a place for a Women's Suffrage Resolution which was to be discussed in the House of Commons on the evening of April 25th. Though a resolution is only an expression of opinion and can have no practical legislative effect, this was considered important because it was realised that if the new Parliament were to show a substantial majority in its support, the women's claim that the Government should deal with the question would be greatly strengthened. Unfortunately only a second place had been obtained for the Resolution. Hence there was every reason to fear that, as so often before, our talkative opponents would succeed in preventing its being voted upon. The situation became more hopeful, however, when the Anti-Vivisectionists, who had obtained the first place for the evening, entered into a compromise by which they agreed to withdraw their resolution early. The way was thus left clear for the Votes for Women Resolution, but we ourselves still thought that the "talkers out" would probably have their way. We were determined not to allow this to happen without protest. Therefore, in order to be in readiness for any emergency, a large number of us had obtained tickets for the Ladies' Gallery.

Looking down through the brass grille, from behind which women are alone permitted to listen to the debates in Parliament, we saw that the House was crowded as is usual only at important crises, and that both the Government and Opposition front benches were fully occupied. The Resolution, "That in the opinion of this House it is desirable that sex should cease to be a bar to the exercise of the Parliamentary franchise" was moved and seconded in short speeches in order that the opponents should have no least excuse for urging that there had been no time for their own side to be fairly heard. Then Mr. Cremer rose to speak in opposition. His speech was grossly insulting to women and altogether unworthy of a Member of the People's House of Representatives. Both by his words, his voice and gestures he plainly showed his entire view of women to be degraded and indeed revolting. Yet, though one was angry with him, he was an object for pity as he stood there, undersized and poorly made, obviously in bad health and with that narrow, grovelling and unimaginative point of view, flaunting his masculine superiority. The women found it very difficult to sit quietly listening to him, and, though my mother strove to check them, some subdued exclamations caught the Speaker's ear. He immediately gave orders for the police to be in readiness to clear the Ladies' Gallery if any further sounds should issue from it. But, once Mr. Cremer had finished speaking, absolute quiet was restored. Mr. Willie Redmond, brother of John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Party, then indignantly protested against the tone of Mr. Cremer's speech, crying fervently that he himself had always believed in Women's Suffrage because, all his life, he had been opposed to slavery in any form, and declaring that "any of God's creatures who are denied a voice in the Government of their country are more or less slaves," and that "men have no right to assume that they are so superior to women, that they alone have the right to govern."

All through the debate everyone was waiting for a declaration from the Government. At last Mr. Herbert Gladstone, the Home Secretary, rose to speak, but his words were vague and evasive, and whilst not absolutely excluding the possibility of the Government's taking the matter up, he certainly made no promise on their behalf.

At ten minutes to eleven Mr. Samuel Evans rose with the obvious intention of talking the Resolution out and, as eleven o'clock, the hour for closing the debate, drew nearer, whilst spinning out his remarks by means of some very doubtful jokes, he kept turning round, every now and then, to look at the clock. Our eyes were also eagerly fixed upon the timepiece. Every moment one woman or another stretched across and asked Mrs. Pankhurst whether the demonstration of protest should begin, but her answer was always that there was "time yet," and that we must wait.

At last someone looked round and saw that the police were already in the gallery and we realised that we were to be taken away in order that the Resolution might be "talked out" without our having an opportunity to protest. Irene Miller could no longer be restrained. She called out loudly, "Divide! Divide!" as they do in the House of Commons, and "We refuse to have our Resolution talked out." Then we all followed suit, and Theresa Billington thrust a little white flag bearing the words, "Votes for Women" through the historic grille. It was a relief to thus give vent to the feelings of indignation which we had been obliged to stifle during the whole of the evening, and though we were dragged roughly out of the gallery, it was with a feeling almost of triumph that we cried shame upon the men who had wasted hours in useless talk and pitiful and pointless jokes with which to insult our countrywomen.

But the rough usage of the police was not by any means the hardest part of the experience. When we reached the Lobby, we learnt that our action had been entirely misunderstood. A number of non-militant Suffragists were present, and most of these believed, as the Members of Parliament were telling them, that, but for our "injudicious" action, a vote would have been taken upon the Resolution. They met us with bitter reproaches and disdainful glances, and even those Members of Parliament who had proved themselves to be absolutely careless of our question, now took it upon themselves to come up and scold us. On all sides we were abused, repudiated and contemptuously ridiculed, but, after a few days, public opinion began to turn somewhat in our favour. It leaked out that the Speaker had not intended to allow a Resolution calling for the closure of the debate to be moved, and it therefore became known that we had judged correctly in thinking that the Women's Suffrage motion was to be talked out.

Writing in the Sussex Daily News for May 2nd, Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes, well known under his pen name "Sub Rosa," recalled the account given in Lady Mary Montague's "Memoirs" of the way in which the Peeresses of the eighteenth century had frequently disturbed the serenity of the House of Lords debates, and how they had triumphed over the Lord Chancellor Philip Yorke, First Earl of Hardwicke, who had attempted to exclude them from the House of Lords. Lady Mary describes the "thumping," "rapping" and "running kicks" at the door of the House of Lords, indulged in by the Duchess of Queensberry and her friends, the strategy by which they finally obtained an entry, and the way in which, during the subsequent debate, they "showed marks of dislike not only by smiles and winks (which have always been allowed in these cases), but by noisy laughs and apparent contempts." Mr. Hughes ended by saying, "After this excellent and pertinent account of the action of the Peeresses in the House of Lords, I suppose no one will be so silly as to complain of what the women did the other day in the House of Commons."

Mr. Stead in the Review of Reviews published an article by a "Woman's Righter," who said:

Patience has been tried long enough, and what has it brought? Less than one ten minutes' expression of the divine impatience that the Suffragists showed in the Ladies' Gallery that memorable night! … "Surely it was unwomanly?" Pshaw! It was not anything like so unwomanly as it was unmanly to allow a cause admittedly just to be stifled without a single indignant protest.

Nevertheless, our supporters were still in the minority. Instead of upholding what we had done to rebuke the anti-Suffragists for their mean and cowardly policy of obstruction (a policy which had prevented the enfranchisement of women for so many years), the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and some of the members of the Parliamentary Committee, which was at the time engaged in arranging the deputation to the Prime Minister, now urged that the Women's Social and Political Union had disgraced itself too deeply to form part of the deputation. Efforts were made to induce us to withdraw from it, but this we refused to do. At last, both because some Members of Parliament—and it is said Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman himself—strongly supported our claim to be represented, and because it was well known that if we were not received we should simply agitate for another deputation, the attempt to exclude us had to be abandoned.

On the morning of May 19th our procession started from the Boadicea statue on Westminster Bridge. First came the members of the Deputation to the Prime Minister, amongst whom were to be seen the veteran Suffragist, fragile little Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, with her grey curls, Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Mr. Keir Hardie, and Annie Kenney, wearing the clogs and shawl which she had worn in the Lancashire cotton mill. Amongst the deputation marched a body of women textile workers from Lancashire and Cheshire, who had joined us, carrying the bright banners of their respective trades. Then came the great red banner of the Women's Social and Political Union, inscribed in white letters with the words, "We demand Votes for Women this Session." The poles of the banner were lashed to a big forage lorry in which rode a number of women, who were either too old or too feeble to walk. After these came the members of the Women's Social and Political Union and women members of various other societies and last of all, a large contingent from the East End of London, a piteous band, some of them sweated workers themselves, others the wives of unemployed working men, and many of them carrying half-starved-looking babies in their arms.

The deputation which assembled at the Foreign Office was introduced by Sir Charles M'Laren, and it was arranged that there should be eight women speakers. The first of these was the aged Miss Emily Davies, LL.D., one of the two women who in 1866, more than forty years before, had handed to John Stuart Mill the first petition for Women's Suffrage ever presented to Parliament, and whose part in opening the University examinations to women, and in founding Girton, the first of the women's colleges, will be gratefully remembered by women of all ages. In pleading for the removal of the sex disability Miss Davies said: "We do not regard it as a survival which nobody minds. We look upon it as an offence to those primarily concerned, and an injury to the community." Then Mrs. Eva M'Laren, Miss Margaret Ashton and Mrs. Rolland Rainy, representing respectively some 80,000, 99,000 and 14,000 women Liberals in England and Scotland, urged, each in her own way, that the Party for which these women had done so much should extend the franchise to them.

Miss Eva Gore Booth and Mrs. Sarah Dickinson, who had herself been a factory worker for sixteen years and a Trade Union Organiser for a further eleven years, then spoke on behalf of the fifty delegates from the Lancashire and Cheshire Textile and other Workers' Representation Committee. They dwelt on the low wages—often no more than six or seven shillings a week, and the other heavy economic hardships under which the women whom they represented were obliged to labour. They pointed out that these women, millions of whom since leaving school had never eaten a meal which they had not earned, were not only helping to produce the great wealth of the country but were caring for their homes and their children at the same time, and urged that they were every day more gravely conscious of the heavy disadvantage under which they suffered from their absolute lack of political power. Industrial questions were now becoming political questions, they said, and the vast numbers of women workers had their point of view and their interests which ought to be taken into consideration, but which were disregarded because they were without votes.

Next followed Mrs. Gasson, the speaker for 425 branches and 22,000 members of the Women's Co-operative Guild. She said that the Co-operative movement, with its 62,000,000 members and annual trade of £60,000,000, had often been called a "State within a State." In that State women had votes, they attended quarterly business meetings and voted side by side with men on questions of trade, employment and education. Women were elected as directors of Co-operative societies and also on Educational Committees connected with the Co-operative movement. And yet the prosperity of the co-operative "State" continued to increase, although in many places the women members outnumbered the men. The Co-operative Guild Women saw that when questions affecting the Co-operative movement came before Parliament the movement lost much of its power because the women had no vote. Unwise or unjust taxation was injurious to the Co-operative trade, and women were the chief sufferers by unjust taxation. Whatever taxes were put upon necessaries men did not receive larger incomes, and so women had less to spend. That very month Mr. Birrell had received Resolutions from large conferences of the Co-operative Guild members, urging that medical examination should be made compulsory under the New Education Bill, but the Resolutions were worth nothing without a vote behind them. The women who had sent up these Resolutions felt "like a crying child outside the door of a locked room, demanding entrance with no one to open it." Most of the Co-operators were married working-women. Their houses were both their workshops and their homes, and therefore Housing and public Health questions were especially important to them. Their incomes were affected by laws relating to trades, accidents, pensions and all industrial legislation that went to secure the good health of the workers. Therefore they appealed that this common right, the right of a citizen, should be granted to them and to other women.

Mrs. Watson spoke on behalf of the Scottish Christian Union of the British Women's Temperance Association, with a membership of 52,000 women. Then Mrs. Mary Bateson presented a petition for the franchise from 1,530 women graduates, amongst whom were Doctors of Letters, Science and Law in the Universities of the United Kingdom, the British Colonies and the United States.

Mrs. Pankhurst spoke for the Women's Social and Political Union, the militant organisation of which most of the others were half afraid. She urged on its behalf that the women of the country should be enfranchised during that very year, either by a clause in the Plural Voting Bill then before Parliament, or by a separate measure. Assuring the Prime Minister that the members of the Union believed that no business could be more pressing than this, she stated calmly and firmly that a growing number of them felt the question of Votes for Women so deeply that they were prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice for it life itself, or what was perhaps even harder, the means by which they lived. She appealed to the Government to make such sacrifices needless by doing this long-delayed act of justice to women without delay.

Now that the women had all clearly and carefully laid their case before him, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman rose to reply. He began as though he had been an earnest and convinced supporter of the Women's cause and dwelt at length not only upon the benefits which the franchise would confer upon them, but also on the enthusiasm which they had shown in working for it, their fitness to exercise it and the good work which they had already done in public affairs. Then, after a long pause, he said: "That is where you and I are all agreed. It has been very nice and pleasant hitherto, but now we come to the question of what I can say to you, not as expressing my own individual convictions, but as speaking for others, and I have only one thing to preach to you and that is the virtue of patience." With hurried hesitating accents he explained that there were members of his Cabinet who were opposed to the principle of giving votes to women, and that, therefore, he must conclude by saying, "It would never do for me to make any statement or pledge under these circumstances." Poor blundering old man, if he really spoke truthfully to the deputation, one may well pity him in that invidious and humiliating position.

During Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's last words there had been a strange silence amongst the women, and as he resumed his seat a low murmur of disappointment ran through the room. Mr. Keir Hardie had been asked by those in charge of the arrangements to move the vote of thanks to the Prime Minister for having received the Deputation, and, though he now performed this duty with characteristic graciousness of manner, he plainly said that all present must have suffered great disappointment on hearing the Prime Minister's concluding statement. Nevertheless, they were glad to learn that the leaders of the two great political parties in the House of Commons were now personally committed to the question, by Mr. Balfour, a statement he had made in the House a few evenings before and the Prime Minister by what he had said that afternoon. "With agreement between the leaders of the two great historic parties," Mr. Hardie said gravely, "and with the support of the other sections of the House, it surely does not pass the wit of statesmanship to find ways and means for the enfranchisement of the women of England before this Parliament comes to a close." At this point Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman turned and looked at Mr. Keir Hardie and solemnly shook his head.

After the resolution had been seconded Mrs. Elmy, whose name had not been placed upon the authorised list of speakers, interposed, saying that she had worked in the cause of Women's Suffrage since October, 1865, and that during that period she had seen the men voters of the country increased from less than 700,000 to more than 7,000,000. When the Reform Act of 1884 had been under consideration, women Suffragists had been full of hope, but Mr. Gladstone had refused point blank to give them the franchise. No Parliament had ever offered a greater insult to womanhood than the Parliament of that year, for it had actually taken six or seven divisions on the point as to whether a criminal should continue to be disfranchised for more than a year after his release from prison, but only one division had been taken to decide that English women should not exercise the vote. Every year it had become more and more difficult to remedy the injustices under which women suffered. "If I were to tell you of the work of the last twenty years of my life," she said, "it would be one long story of the necessity for the immediate enfranchisement of women."

The vote of thanks to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was then carried with feeble spiritless clapping and some hisses. Then the Prime Minister made his reply, but he did not in any way strengthen his previous declaration and ended by saying that what women had to do was "to go on converting the country." As he concluded Annie Kenney suddenly rose up and cried, "Sir, we are not satisfied, and the agitation will go on."

Then we dispersed to meet again at three o'clock in Trafalgar Square. No better meeting place could have been chosen, for it was here in Trafalgar Square, that Edmund Beales and the other leaders of the Reform movement had spoken when the Hyde Park gates had been closed against them by the authorities on that historic 23rd of July, 1866, on which the Park railings were pulled down and the blow struck which won the Parliamentary vote for the working men in the towns. It was here, too, that in February, 1886, John Burns had made that speech to the starving unemployed men of his own class which caused him to suffer a month's imprisonment and made him a famous man, and it was here in Trafalgar Square on the 5th of November, 1887, that, in taking part in the Demonstration against the imprisonment of O'Brien and the other Irish leaders, poor Alfred Linnell had been trampled to death by the horses of the police.

On this ground, consecrate to the discontented and the oppressed, under that tall column topped by the statue of the fighting Nelson and on that wide plinth, flanked by the four crouching lions, the first big open-air Women's Suffrage meeting in London was held. By three o'clock more than 7,000 people had assembled. I well remember every detail of the scene. In my mind's eye I can clearly see the Chairman, my mother, with her pale face, her quiet dark clothes, her manner, calm as it always is on great occasions, and her quiet-sounding but far-reaching voice with its plaintive minor chords. I can see beside her the strangely diverse group of speakers: Theresa Billington in her bright blue dress, strongly built and up-standing, her bare head crowned with those brown coils of wonderfully abundant hair. I see Keir Hardie, in his rough brown homespun jacket, with his deep-set, honest eyes, and his face full of human kindness, framed by the halo of his silver hair. Then Mrs. Elmy, fragile, delicate, and wonderfully sweet, with her face looking like a tiny bit of finely modelled, finely tinted porcelain, her shining dark-brown eyes and her long grey curls. Standing very close to her is Annie Kenney, whose soft bright hair falls loosely from her vivid sensitive face, and hangs down her back in a long plait, just as she wore it in the cotton mill. Over her head she wears a grey shawl as she did in Lancashire, and pinned to her white blouse is a brilliant red rosette, showing her to be one of the marshals of the procession, whilst her dark-blue serge skirt just shows the steel tips of her clogs. How beautiful they are, these two women, as hand clasped in hand they stand before us!—one rich in the mellow sweetness of a ripe old age which crowns a life of long toil for the common good; the other filled with the ardour of a chivalrous youth; both dedicated to a great reform. But now, Annie Kenney speaks. She stands out, a striking, almost startling, figure, against the blackened stone-work of the plinth and speaks with a voice that cries out for the lost childhood, blighted hopes and weary, overburdened lives of the women workers whom she knows so well.

First Women's Suffrage Demonstration ever held in Trafalgar Square, May 19th, 1906. Mr. Keir Hardie speaking: Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy in centre of the platform

Footnotes:

[6] From the first, the London papers and especially the newly inaugurated Daily Mirror, had been somewhat interested in our unusual methods of propaganda. It was just at this time that the Daily Mail began to call us "Suffragettes" in order to distinguish between us and the members of the older Suffrage Society who had always been called "Suffragists," and who strongly objected to our tactics.