Suffragette (13 page)

I cannot bear to think what this might mean. Could it be the beginning of the end? If the Union splits, will our fight have been in vain? I pray that they will find a way to resolve their
differences. I wish I could talk to Miss Baker on this matter, but she, like so many of my friends, is in prison, and there is no point in pouring my heart out to Flora. She agrees with the
Pethwick-Lawrences. Of course.

16th August 1912

We are in the throes of moving offices to Lincoln’s Inn House. The chaos of files, pamphlets, papers and notes seems to me to reflect the state of affairs. I am exhausted
from filling boxes and stacking crates and I feel angry and worn out by the government’s cruelty and stubborn attitude.

25th August 1912

I have just learned that Christabel returned to London recently in disguise to meet Frederick and Emmeline Pethwick-Lawrence. She has confirmed that both she and her mother wish
them to leave our organization. We are all quite stunned because they have been such loyal workers and have offered us so much financial support over the years.

When I got in this evening, Flora greeted me with, “I insist that you renounce all connections with the WSPU.”

“You can’t ask that,” I retaliated.

“You must concentrate on your school work if you are to gain a place at university,” was her argument.

My marks have been consistently high and I have been working extra hard so that I would not fall behind, for the precise reason that I have not wanted her to use my studies as an excuse to make
me resign from the WSPU.

“Even if you throw me out on the street,” I told her, “I won’t give up this fight.”

“Oh, Dollie, I will never throw you out, but I dread the thought of you ending up in prison. It’s because I love you that I am begging you to find another way to channel your
commitment.”

“If you love me, Flora, please try to accept me for who I am,” I replied and went upstairs to take a bath.

16th October 1912

We are just about installed at our new office address. The split with Mr and Mrs Pethwick-Lawrence is certain. They came to a meeting the other night at the offices and the
matter was discussed openly. I am very sad because I like and respect them both. The members are very divided on this matter.

17th October 1912

Flora took me to the theatre to see a French actress, Sarah Bernhardt. She performed in Shakespeare’s
The Winter’s Tale
and was magnificent. Afterwards, we
went backstage to her dressing room. Flora knows her rather well. It was incredibly exciting and I felt that it bonded Flora and me again after all our arguing and bickering during these last six
weeks. Elizabeth Robins was also in the audience. She was upset about the business with the Pethwick-Lawrences, but we did not discuss it in front of Flora.

18th October 1912

We have a new newspaper,
The Suffragette
. Its first issue appeared this morning.
Votes for Women
will be published by the Pethwick-Lawrences. They are continuing
to support women’s enfranchisement, but in their own, less militant, fashion.

Mrs Pankhurst’s intentions for our future were stated clearly last night at a huge gathering at the Albert Hall, which I attended with Miss Baker who has just been released from prison. We
are to show resistance not only to the government itself but also to the Irish and Labour parties who support the Liberal anti-suffrage policies.

Secret acts against public and private property, are what she counsels us to carry out. “Be militant in your own way,” she said. “I incite this meeting to rebellion.”

Flora, who has been spending time with the Pethwick-Lawrences, is horrified. She was mumbling something about sending me away to school. If she intends to, I shall run away.

24th November 1912

Mrs Pankhurst has been campaigning this month in the East End, in areas such as Bethnal Green and Limehouse. I have been accompanying her on several of these trips because I
know the area a bit and because it is an aspect of the work that matters so deeply to me. Every time I hear her speak I feel the fire rise in my soul. She is very sensitive to the needs and
disadvantages of the very poor.

Sylvia, one of her other daughters, has lived and worked in the East End, among working-class women, for many years. She knows the dire necessity for women’s rights there. I am very
inspired by her.

George Lansbury, one of our greatest advocates, has been thrown out of the Labour Party because of his support for women’s suffrage. He is going to stand as an independent candidate,
fighting his seat on the issue of women’s suffrage, sponsored by us. This is really exciting and it takes the Cause very much in the direction that I have dreamed of.

My mother and all my brothers and their wives attended this evening’s meeting. I know they don’t all agree, but at least they showed up. And my mother is sympathetic. Well,
sometimes. She got agitated when she heard Mrs Pankhurst’s call to militancy.

I feel hope and enthusiasm again.

8th December 1912

Suffragettes have been attacking letter-boxes, burning letters, setting off false fire alarms. There have been more arrests, including dear Miss Baker, who has barely been out
of prison this year. Flora wants to know where I am at every minute of the day. I will not even write in this diary what I have been involved in because I fear she may find it and read it. Not that
she ever has intruded on my privacy in the past, but she is worried about my safety.

The government and members of the public are beginning to view Mrs Pankhurst as a dangerous revolutionary. Plain-clothes policemen are attending all our meetings, taking notes of everything that
is said. It is all so ridiculous. Why don’t they just give women the vote?

16th December 1912

Mr Asquith has told the House today that the Manhood Suffrage Bill will have its second reading after Christmas.

Millicent Fawcett is pressurizing us to halt all aggressive activities until we see whether there will be women’s suffrage amendments included in the bill. I bet there won’t be. Why
would Mr Asquith give us changes this time when he has broken his word countless times in the past?

10th January 1913

I received a letter in the post from Mrs Pankhurst. It has been sent to all members of the WSPU. It states that it is our obligation to stand up for our rights through militant
acts:

…
If any woman refrains from militant protest against the injury done by the government and the House of Commons to women and to the race, she will share the responsibility of the
crime
…

The letter goes on to request an acknowledgement of our support. Obviously, she has mine. But I have hidden the letter at the very bottom of my chest of drawers.

27th January 1913

Asquith’s government introduced its Manhood Suffrage Bill today, but when it reached the floor the Speaker of the House of Commons would not permit any changes. He ruled
that to include women’s suffrage amendments would so alter the nature of the Bill that a whole new one would need to be introduced. So it was decided to drop the Manhood Suffrage Bill for
this session!

Emmeline was furious. She says that no one can ever again believe Mr Asquith to be a man of honour. I have never seen her so mad.

28th January 1913

I threw stones in Whitehall today as a protest and broke several windows. I was not arrested but 49 others were.

15th February 1913

A house that was being constructed for David Lloyd George has been seriously damaged in a fire by some of our women. Emmeline has been arrested, although she was nowhere near
the scene of the crime. I doubt the authorities believe she is personally guilty of the deed, but she has been charged with incitement to commit a felony.

18th February 1913

Asquith’s decision has caused a chain of destructive acts. Hordes of women are going to extremes now to “win the vote, and society is expressing its shock at our
“delinquent” behaviour. But what will it take to make the government listen?

Perhaps Emily Wilding Davison was right when she told me that the Cause needs someone to die for it. Not me, though. I am definitely not brave enough.

4th March 1913

The news today is that cricket pavilions, racecourse stands and golf clubhouses have been set on fire. Many women have been arrested, including
me
. I have to confess that
now the moment has come, I am petrified. Flora begged to pay my fine, but I wouldn’t agree. I will serve my sentence and play my part.

She has promised to notify Mother. If she doesn’t hear from me, she will worry.

5th March 1913

Mrs Pankhurst has been sentenced to THREE years’ penal servitude for the destruction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s future home.

I have been imprisoned in Holloway in the Second Division. There are 81 of us in here. Some have been given terms of up to six months. My sentence is two months. I shall protest at my status as
a non-political prisoner. I am on hunger strike.

17th March 1913

I am weak today; my writing is shaky. I have little strength, though I am determined to keep a record of every day that passes in this stinking place.

19th March 1913

This morning, when my turn came to be force-fed, I had intended to be resistant and beat off the prison staff, but I am weak and I was shaking with fear, and I failed miserably.
Four big wardresses came into my cell, wrapped a towel around me and without further ado pinned me down against the bunk. One of them clamped her hand over my mouth and squeezed it closed. Then a
doctor arrived. He was carrying all manner of horrific-looking equipment. He proceeded to insert a rubber tube of approximately two feet in length up my left nostril. It was horrendous. At first I
had a tickling sensation and then my eyes began to sting. Then he threaded it further and further until it was fed down my throat. My eyes were weeping. I was gasping for breath and fighting the
women, who were too strong for me. A china funnel was then attached to the other end of the piping and a mushy, cabbage-like liquid was poured into it. The doctor took my pulse while one of the
wardresses pinched closed my right nostril. Now both were blocked and I couldn’t breathe at all. I thought that I would suffocate or choke to death. My eyes were streaming and my arms and,
shoulders ached from the force of being pinned against my bunk. I fought for breath until the liquid was sucked up into my nose and down my throat, which is the point of this horrid, cruel
exercise.

A basin of water was then placed in front of me and the tube was withdrawn and put into the basin. Mucous and phlegm came out with it. I kept spitting as though something was still stuck inside
me. My chest throbbed with pain and I felt sick and very dizzy.

I have been at Union meetings where they have discussed the barbarity of this treatment. I remember the letter Marion Dunlop Wallace read out to us all; I have friends who have been through it,
but nothing, NOTHING, prepares you for the horror and indignity of experiencing it.

What is even worse is that the tubes they are using are not sterilized. Force-feeding the insane in hospitals is only carried out if it is to save life. Here, it is an act or violence and could
very possibly cause serious infection, or if the liquid passes into the lungs it could cause pneumonia.

20th March 1913

I have spent three days, not consecutively, in solitary confinement for hitting one of the wardresses when she forced me against my bunk. Books have been forbidden me. On the
days when I have been locked in solitary, I have been allowed no breaks for exercise. Those days are the worst. It is so lonely. Twice I have ended up in tears. One of the other problems is that I
am so cut off from the Cause, from the news of what is happening.

I have served a fortnight of my time. Fifteen days: it feels like fifteen years.

13th April 1913

The whisper within the prison is that Emmeline is very sick. She collapses frequently. They are not force-feeding her but she is on hunger strike and has been surviving on
nothing but water.

I think the Governors are worried that she might die. Lena, another suffragette in here, says they fear that her death would make a martyr of her. There is talk of releasing her until she
recovers her health and then hauling her back in again to complete her sentence. I wept when I heard this, and because I am so tired and weak myself. My legs are growing wobbly.

The only way I can calculate the date is by marking off each day as it passes. As I write, the letters swim about in front of my eyes. I am scared that my notes will be found so I hide them in
my underwear. I am writing on scruffy bits of paper intended to be used for hygiene purposes.

I have now served over a month. Some of my hair is beginning to fall out and my teeth feel funny. I shake a lot and am always dizzy. I rarely move from my bunk.

25th April 1913

The government is so determined that Emmeline Pankhurst and others like her should not attempt another hunger strike and thus find themselves released from prison without having
served their full sentence, or die inside and become martyrs, that it has introduced a new act. Its official title is The Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge of Ill Health Act.

The idea is that if our women go on hunger strike they will no longer be stopped, nor will they be force-fed, but in order that they do not die in prison and so become martyrs, as soon as they
grow seriously weak they will be discharged from prison. If they die outside, the law does not give two hoots, but if they survive, the moment they are recovered and have strength, they will be
arrested again and obliged to continue their sentence.

It has been nicknamed the Cat-and-Mouse Act. The police are the cats and we are the mice, it seems.

I have ten days left of my sentence to serve. Some days I feel that I won’t make it. For the past three days, since they stopped force-feeding me, I have had nothing but water. I feel
sick, then retch but there is nothing in my system to throw up.