In Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, women suffragettes fought
for change and played a leading part in the battle for equal rights. The
movement was most prominent in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, but there were
smaller groups of suffragettes in other parts of Scotland too.
In this blog post we will tell some of their fascinating stories, celebrate their lives and outline some of their many achievements.
Scottish Suffragettes marching for the female Vote |
Scotland's first Suffrage groups appeared in the late 1860s.
Suffragists demanded the vote as a basic human right and as a means of
improving women's lives in the workplace, at home, in courts of law and in
education. They demanded justice and equality for all women, and the
Suffragists used peaceful, legal tactics to try to win support. They sent
petitions to Parliament, wrote letters to MPs, distributed leaflets and
organised meetings. They wanted to win equal rights through discussion and
debate.
When the Society was wound-down in 1933,
it was due to a lack of funds and former members would meet at the Queen
Margaret Union in the University until the 1960s. Non-militant 'suffragist'
groups were also found countrywide in Scotland - from Ayrshire to Orkney - and
involved thousands of Scottish women of all ages and from all backgrounds. Most
of these women fought not only for the right to vote, but also for the right
to higher education, to separate legal existence from their husbands, and to be
actively involved in local government.
However, thirty years of peaceful campaigning produced only
minor change, and so-in the 1900s-- more militant campaigners began to emerge.
Suffragettes and Suffragists wanted the same things, but Suffragettes were
prepared to break the law and go to prison for their beliefs. Scottish
Suffragettes poured acid into pillar boxes, chained themselves to railings,
smashed windows and slashed portraits of the King. They also set fire to
important buildings such as Leuchars Railway Station, and the Whitekirk in East
Lothian. All these acts were linked to areas where men were allowed and women
were not.
Catherine Taylor |
Helen Crawfurd Anderson |
Helen Crawfurd Anderson was a Scottish suffragette who was imprisoned in both Holloway Prison and Duke
Street Prison during a prolific career of window-breaking. Born Helen Jack, at 175 Cumberland Street in the Gorbals
area of Glasgow, Helen's parents moved to Ipswich while she was young, before moving back to Glasgow when she was a teenager.
Her father, a Master Baker was a Catholic but converted to the Church of Scotland and was a conservative trade unionist. Initially religious herself, she married widower Alexander Montgomerie Crawfurd, a Church of Scotland Minister, at 9 Park Avenue in Stirling on 19 September 1898.
Her father, a Master Baker was a Catholic but converted to the Church of Scotland and was a conservative trade unionist. Initially religious herself, she married widower Alexander Montgomerie Crawfurd, a Church of Scotland Minister, at 9 Park Avenue in Stirling on 19 September 1898.
Crawfurd first became active in the women's suffrage
movement around 1900, then in 1910 during a meeting in Rutherglen, she
switched her support to the more radical Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)
of the Pankhursts. In 1912, she smashed the windows of Jack Pease, Minister for
Education, and received a one-month prison sentence. In March 1914, Helen was
arrested in Glasgow when Emmeline Pankhurst was speaking, received another
month in prison, and went on an eight-day hunger strike. Following one more
arrest, she left the WSPU in protest at its support of World War I and joined
the Independent Labour Party.
During the war, Crawfurd was involved with the Red Clydeside
movement, including the Glasgow rent strikes in 1915 when she led the South
Govan Women's Housing Association to resist rent increases and prevent
evictions, and became secretary of the Women's Peace Crusade. She organized on
23 July 1916, the first demonstration of the Women's Peace Crusade, attended by
5,000 people.
In 1918 she was also elected as Vice-chair of the
Scottish division of the ILP. Shortly afterwards, she was a founder member of
the ILP's left-wing faction which campaigned for it to affiliate to the
Communist International. When this policy was defeated, she joined the new
CPGB, within which she served on the Central Committee, and was involved with
various journalistic projects. She also became secretary of Workers'
International Relief.
Crawfurd ran in 1921 as the first Communist Party Candidate
in the Govan Ward, she stood for the CPGB in Bothwell at the 1929 general
election and Aberdeen North in 1931, but did not come close to election, During the 1930s, Crawfurd was prominent in the Friends of
the Soviet Union. In 1944 Helen remarried, to widower George Anderson,
Blacksmith and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. She retired during World War II but was elected as Dunoon's
first woman Town Councillor, shortly after the war, retiring in 1947 due to
poor health. Helen died at Mahson Cottage, Kilbride Avenue,
Dunoon, Argyll, aged 76.
Suffragette Poster |
Janie Allan
was a leading Scottish activist in the militant suffragette movement of the early 20th century. She barricaded herself into her cell at Holloway and allegedly stood against
several police officers with crowbars in a stand against the practice of
force-feeding within that prison. Janie Allan was born into the wealthy Glasgow family that owned the Allan Line shipping company. In common with many of her family, Allan held socialist political views. She was an early member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and she edited a column covering women's suffrage issues for the socialist newspaper Forward.
In May 1902, Allan was instrumental in re-founding the Glasgow branch of the National Society for Women's Suffrage as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage (GWSAWS), and was a member of its executive committee. She was a significant financial supporter, and as one of the GWSAWS vice-presidents she took up a position on the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) committee in 1903, in order to represent the association following their affiliation.
In 1906, Allan was among the audience when Teresa Billington (who had been arrested and jailed following a protest in London earlier in the year) toured Scotland, although the GWSAWS themselves refused to invite Billington to speak. In December of that year she attended a lecture by Helen Fraser as she expounded the militant principles of the newly formed Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In 1907, concerned that the non-violent GWSAWS was not being as effective as it should have been, Allan resigned from their executive committee and joined the WSPU, although she maintained her subscription to GWSAWS until 1909.
Over the following few years, Allan provided at least £350 (approximately equivalent to £32,800 in 2016) in funds to the WSPU, as well as donating some funding for the Women's Freedom League (WFL) following their split from the WSPU. In addition to her monetary contributions, Allan was an active participant in the WSPU's militant activism.
In early March 1912, along with over 100 others Allan participated in a window smashing protest in central London. The women secreted large stones and hammers under their skirts and, once in position, in a coordinated action they destroyed shop windows in Regent Street, Oxford Street, and the vicinity. Following this, the women patiently and calmly waited for the police to arrive. While police attention was diverted elsewhere by the protests, Emmeline Pankhurst and three others managed to get close enough to 10 Downing Street to throw stones through four of its windows. In the aftermath, along with many of her associates Allan was arrested, tried, and sentenced to four months in Holloway Prison.
Her imprisonment was widely publicized, and around 10,500 people from Glasgow signed a petition to protest for her freedom. While in prison Allan used her privileged position to improve the levels of comfort for her inmates, including distributing confectionery and fruit to fellow suffragettes. Two months into her sentence, she barricaded the door to her cell, and it reportedly took three men with tools around three quarters of an hour to break into the room. Following this action, Allan started a hunger strike. Allan was force-fed for a full week. Forcible feeding was an ordeal described by Pankhurst as a "horrible outrage", and has been likened by women's history scholar June Purvis to "a form of rape."
In a later letter to a friend, Allan herself stated that:
"I did not resist at all ... yet the effect on my health was most disastrous. I am a very strong woman and absolutely sound in heart and lungs, but it was not till 5 months after, that I was able to take any exercise or begin to feel in my usual health again – the nerves of my heart were affected and I was fit for nothing In the way of exertion ... There can be no doubt that it simply ruins the health."
Allan was a key part of the campaign against force-feeding, and as well as publicly protesting met with the Medical Prison Commissioner, Dr. James Devon, to advocate against the use of a method that she regarded as likely to "injure permanently a woman's health." In July the same year Allan again intervened at the highest level, in support of Fanny Parker following her imprisonment for attempted arson on Burns Cottage. Fanny's story is told futher on in this article.
Allan was back in court in 1913. In addition to direct suffragette action, she was involved with and supported the Women's Tax Resistance League, which argued that as women could not vote and therefore were not represented in parliament, they should not be subject to taxation. These beliefs led to her refusal to pay the super tax due on her income and investments in March 1913. She lost her case when it came to trial.
By early 1914, Allan had become one of the principal organizers for the WSPU in western Scotland, based in Glasgow. On 9 March 1914, Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU national leader, was to address a public meeting at St. Andrew's Halls in the city, and Allan was in attendance. Pankhurst had recently been released from prison under the terms of the new, so-called 'Cat and Mouse Act', introduced by the government to counter the suffragette hunger strikes. In accordance with the Act, once Pankhurst was returned to full health she was due to be rearrested and re-incarcerated.
Glasgow police decided to use the occasion of the public address to effect the arrest. However, the WSPU activists anticipated their action and increased security coverage for their leader, including enforcing strict secrecy surrounding her movements and erecting a concealed barbed wire barrier across the front of the stage. A short time into Pankhurst's speech, around 160 police officers stormed the hall and began to move toward the stage. They were met by a barrage of thrown chairs and plant pots, and soon fights broke out between the police and members of the audience. During the commotion one of the women present drew a revolver and fired several blank cartridges toward the ceiling. The police attempted to apprehend her, but she managed to slip their grasp and escape. Although not positively identified at the time, many since have stated that Janie Allan was the woman with the revolver.
At the outbreak of World War I later in 1914, the WSPU suspended their suffragette activities and threw their weight behind a concerted national effort in the conflict. Allan herself donated a large sum of money that enabled the founding of the Women's Hospital Corps.
Marion Wallace Dunlop |
Marion Wallace
Dunlop, from Inverness, was the first and one of the most well-known suffragettes
to go on hunger strike. She had studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and had
illustrated books such as Fairies, Elves, and Flower Babies and The Magic Fruit
Garden. Marion became an active member of the Women's Social and
Political Union and was first arrested in 1908 for "obstruction" and
again later in the same year for leading a group of women in a march. In 1909 she was arrested a third time, this time for
stenciling a passage from the Bill of Rights on a wall of the House of Commons
which read:
"It is the right of the subject to petition the King, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal."
Choosing to go on hunger strike was her own idea. Behind bars, she sent a letter to the then Home
Secretary, Mr. Gladstone, demanding an application to be placed in the first
division as befitted one charged with a political offence. She announced that
she would eat no food until this right was conceded.
She endured 91 hours of fasting before she was released on
the grounds of ill health. Hunger striking went on to become official WSPU
policy and as a result, in September 1909, the British Government introduced
force feeding in prisons.
Dorothea Chalmers Smith court documents |
Dorothea and her sister Jane developed an active interest in the suffrage campaign. They joined the WSPU in 1912. On 24 July 1913 Dorothea and Ethel Moorhead were caught with fire lighting equipment in the Park Gardens mansion house. They were arrested and went on hunger strike. They were released after five days under cat and mouse act and failed to return. Dorothea then was found at Tighnabruich.
At their subsequent trial the women said that they would defend themselves. They were found guilty and got eight months imprisonment. Again they went on hunger strike and were released after five days and failed to return again. Dorothea's house was put under 24 hour watch but she escaped and was never apprehended again. All of this was too much for the church who demanded that William Chalmers Smith either control or divorce his wife. He was not supportive so Dorothea left him, but she was forbidden to see her sons. She resumed her career as a doctor and was highly regarded in the community.
Ethel Moorhead |
In 1911 Ethel joined the suffragettes and became their most boisterous member, smashing windows, attempting arson and refusing to bow to male authority. According to Prof Sarah Pedersen, Ethel Moorhead was one of the most militant Scottish suffragettes:
"If there was damage being done to property you could
probably guarantee Ethel Moorhead was somewhere there. Every time she was arrested she gave a false name so
it is difficult to know everything she was involved in."
Ethel became a symbol of the movement in Scotland,
frequently in jail and one of the first women in the country to be force-fed
through a tube.
"They had been force-feeding in English prisons since
1909 but they refused to do it in Scottish prisons," Prof Pedersen says "I think they just finally lost their patience."
Prof Pedersen says the militant attacks by the suffragettes
made some people turn against the cause.
"In the initial period in the early 20th
Century you get a lot of detail in newspapers about why women were saying they
should have the vote and a lot of people were quite sympathetic. As it becomes much more militant that's when you get
people not agreeing so much. They would say 'how can we trust these shrieking
harridans that are destroying public property?'
Some small bombs, some made from tin cans and pipes, were
found when the Kibble Palace in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens was targeted in January
1914. The Glasgow suffragette movement also allegedly
attempted to
blow up the aqueduct serving the city's clean water supply from Loch
Katrine. Two powerful bombs had been placed next to one of the
structural supports leading from the Loch, about 42 miles outside the
city, to
the reservoir at Milngavie. At the time this reservoir supplied over 50
per
cent of Glasgow's water. The explosions never took place. One failed to
ignite and
the second was spotted by a watchman near to an abandoned handbag, two
trowels
and a sign, which stated that the destruction of the aqueduct was in
protest
against Emmeline Pankhurst's imprisonment.
Flora Drummond in Uniform |
A significant point for the suffragette movement in Scotland
was the large rally in Edinburgh during 1909. It was led by the formidable Flora Drummond, riding on horseback. She
was a key figure in the Scottish movement, who although she had been born in Manchester, had grown up on the Isle of Arran.
Standing at 5 feet 1 inches, her personality was bigger than
she was. She had wanted to become a postmistress, but was refused as she was
one inch shorter than the height requirements. She took a business training course in Glasgow and also attended lectures on economics at the University of Glasgow and went on to gain a
Society of Arts qualification in shorthand and typing. Despite this, she still carried resentment
about the discrimination which meant that women, because of their smaller
average height, were prevented from taking on certain jobs.
Flora Drummond and others under arrest |
She was pregnant when she was imprisoned for her campaign
stunts but later released on health grounds.Several hunger strikes and eventual
force feeding took a physical toll before she returned to Arran to recover and
later concentrated her efforts on public speaking. Flora remained prominent within the movement and in 1928 she
was a pall-bearer at the funeral of Emmeline Pankhurst.
Bessie Watson was
the young girl piper who joined the suffragette movement at its peak and
attracted the attention of some of the most influential figures of the
twentieth century. She was also one of the youngest suffragettes to protest.
Bessie was born on 13 July 1900 to parents Agnes Newton and
Horatio Watson, who raised her in their small house on the Vennel in the heart
of Edinburgh. Horatio Watson was a
bookbinder at George Waterstons, a printing firm established in 1752. As a
young girl, Bessie was described as small, frail and “bandy-legged”, but of
good nature. Because of her bow legs, Bessie was sent to Highland dancing, when
she was 4 and it was at these classes that she first fell in love with the sound
of the bagpipes.
When she turned seven, Bessie’s Aunt Margaret, who worked as
a furniture varnisher, contracted tuberculosis. This was an incident which
would change the youngster’s life forever. Margaret lived with the family, and
Bessie’s parents, worried that she might fall ill to the contagious disease,
encouraged her to take up playing the bagpipes in a bid to strengthen her weak
lungs. Her first set of pipes was specially-produced according to her
diminutive stature.
The half-sized set of pipes was purchased from Robertson’s
pipe makers at 58 Grove Street. Edinburgh:
“It wasn’t easy to fit
me out with a set of bagpipes because I was so small. I hurried home from
school and carried them, in a brown paper parcel down to my (music) teacher”,
As one of the very few female bagpipe players in the world
at that time - not to mention one of the youngest - Bessie took to her new
instrument with great enthusiasm. Within just a couple of years she would be
showcasing her talents up and down the country to thousands of spectators.
At the height of the UK suffragette movement, Bessie was
playing at major demonstrations and parades for the Women’s Social and
Political Union, including the famous procession through Edinburgh on 9 October
1909. On that day a large crowd watched as hundreds of banner-laden ladies,
wearing the suffragist colours of purple, white and green, marched down Princes
Street before congregating at Waverley Market for a rally led by Emmeline
Pankhurst.
During the parade Bessie, with her distinctive ‘Votes For
Women’ sash, played at intervals as she rode on a float beside a lady dressed
as Isabella MacDuff, the Countess of Buchan - a 14th century heroine from
Scotland’s Wars of Independence. How this all came about was explained by
Bessie herself a number of years later:
“We were walking down
Queensferry Street and we stopped at a shop window. It was the window of the
WSPU. When we came out my mother and
I were members of the WSPU and I was booked to play the pipes in the Historical
Pageant in October. “They asked me because there I was, a girl doing something
which they always associated with men.”
Bessie’s parents had always been keen for their talented
daughter to show off her abilities and make her mark on history. They were also
ardent supporters of the women’s suffrage movement, no surprise perhaps when
you consider that the Salvation Army’s women’s shelter was on their doorstep. Bessie
would wear the colours of the suffrage movement in ribbons on her pigtails at
school, arousing her teachers’ disapproval. The official colours were purple for the
suffragettes’ royal blood, white for purity and green for hope. Her class mates
on the other hand considered her daft, not only because of the ribbons, but
also because of being a female piper.
On 17 June 1911 Bessie was invited to lead the Scottish
contingent with other female pipers at the Great Pageant in London:
“(It was) just five days before the Coronation
of King George V. The procession was five miles long”,
Just a few weeks later, for George’s state visit to
Edinburgh, Bessie, leading the 2nd Edinburgh Company of the Girl Guides,
received recognition from the king himself as she raised her salute. Having
secured regal acknowledgement in time for her 11th birthday, Scotland’s
youngest female piper continued in her quest to support women’s rights,
accompanying inmates bound for Holloway Prison to Waverley Station and playing
the pipes as their trains departed. Bessie’s rousing skirl also made a regular
appearance outside the walls of Edinburgh’s infamous Calton Jail in an attempt
to raise the spirits of the suffragettes locked up inside. And during the Great
War, while the suffragette movement was put on hold, a teenage Bessie, dressed
in full Highland garb, joined ranks with the Scots Guards to aid the call to
arms for volunteers.
For the part she played in Edinburgh’s historic women’s
rights pageant of 1909, young Bessie received a special gift from one very
prominent individual:
“A few weeks later
Christabel Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline) came to Edinburgh to address a
meeting at the King’s Theatre and I was invited to attend. “During the evening
I was presented with a brooch representing Queen Boadicea (Boudica) in her
chariot, as a token of gratitude for my help in the pageant.”
The huge significance of this symbolic gesture was not lost on the 9-year-old girl piper. In 1979, Bessie passed the brooch on to the newly-elected Margaret Thatcher. As a young woman, Bessie had fought for the right to vote, a fight which took until 1928 to be resolved. Now, here she was, more than fifty years later, passing on this poignant token bearing the image of a heroic Iron Age queen to Great Britain’s Iron Lady and first ever female prime minister.
The huge significance of this symbolic gesture was not lost on the 9-year-old girl piper. In 1979, Bessie passed the brooch on to the newly-elected Margaret Thatcher. As a young woman, Bessie had fought for the right to vote, a fight which took until 1928 to be resolved. Now, here she was, more than fifty years later, passing on this poignant token bearing the image of a heroic Iron Age queen to Great Britain’s Iron Lady and first ever female prime minister.
Later life In 1926 Bessie moved
with her parents to a new house on Clark Road, Trinity where she would remain
for the rest of her days. Following her
marriage to electrical contractor John Somerville at the end of the Second
World War, Bessie devoted her life to teaching music and foreign languages.
Former neighbours recall that, even into her late eighties, Bessie continued to
play her bagpipes at 11am every morning. It was something she had always done.
Bessie died in 1992, two and a
half weeks short of her 92nd birthday. Over the course of her long life she had
experienced almost a century of social progression and upheaval, and had played
her part in changing the world for the better. Bessie’s exploits are as
relevant today as they were when King George V appeared on our coins - yet now her
name has been mostly forgotten. Some say if there’s anyone who deserves a memorial in
Edinburgh, it’s Bessie Watson.
Caroline Phillips |
The Aberdeen Art Gallery holds a
collection of correspondence and papers that belonged to a woman journalist
called Caroline Phillips. Most of
the correspondence dates from between 1907 and 1909 and deals with the
organisation of the Aberdeen branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union
(WSPU) where Caroline Phillips was honorary secretary. Phillips was not just a suffragette;
she was also a journalist at the Aberdeen Daily Journal. Journalism was
beginning to open to women as a career in the early days of the 20th century,
but she would still have stood out in the press room as one of only a handful
of women.
In Aberdeen, Phillips organized
militant action such as attacking the musical hall when the Chancellor of the
Exchequer Herbert Asquith was speaking in December 1907. Asquith, the MP for
East Fife, who would become prime minister the following year, was a vehement
anti-suffragist.The Aberdeen WSPU branch
appeared to be riding high, with flattering attention from key members of the
national leadership; and well-attended and controversial events. However, for
Caroline Phillips, this was probably the high-point of her association with the
WSPU.
The first indication of the
trouble to come was a letter from Helen Fraser in August 1908 explaining that
she had been removed from her role as organiser of the Scottish WSPU branches
after she had criticised the growing militancy of the Pankhursts. Lamenting
that she could no longer work together with Phillips, Fraser described how ill
she had been after her dismissal and how she had now agreed to work for the
constitutional NUWSS and had been ‘caravanning for the cause’ during the summer
months of 1908.
Phillips seems to have fallen
out of favour with the WSPU leadership by 1909, and her various suggestions of
meetings and other events were ignored or dismissed. Instead, Christabel
Pankhurst wrote complaining that not enough Aberdeen suffragettes were
travelling down to London to take part in militant operations such as the
smashing of glass windows.
Nonetheless it seems to have
been a total shock when Phillips received a telegram on 5 January 1909 that
stated that Sylvia Pankhurst was being sent to Aberdeen to take charge of the
WSPU branch.
Caroline Phillips’ association
with the suffragettes ended soon after Sylvia Pankhurst arrived in Aberdeen. A
letter from Sylvia Pankhurst to all branch members made it clear that the local
branch, with its claims to independence, was to be closed and all members would
now be directly enrolled in the national organisation, and organised from
headquarters. A new office was to be set up and a new organiser appointed.
While there was a final sentence applauding the ‘excellent work already done by
the local workers’ Caroline Phillips was not mentioned by name.
Janet "Jenny" McCallum |
Scottish suffragette Janet "Jenny" McCallum was
put in prison after storming the Houses of Parliament in 1908 Jenny, the eldest
of the 13 children, was born in Dunfermline in 1881. She worked in a linen
weaving factory as well as being active in organising the women's suffrage
movement in West Fife.
By 1908, she had broken away
from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffragette
movement run by the famous Pankhurst women, and had joined Anne Munro in the
Women's Freedom League.Jenny abandoned her job in Dunfermline to take up the
fight in London. During the demonstration at
parliament some of the women got into the corridors of the Commons while others
"created a scene" in the Ladies' Gallery by shouting "votes for
women" slogans. Jenny was arrested outside
parliament where a newspaper report says "four very athletic suffragettes
clambered on a statue".
The women were taken away by
police and fined £5 by the court, which they refused to pay, so they spent a
month in Holloway prison. Jenny McCallum was unusual among suffragettes in that
she came from a working-class family. Professor Sarah Pedersen, of Robert
Gordon University in Aberdeen, says most Scottish Suffragettes were middle
class women.
"The suffragettes
were asking for the vote as men had it. Only 60% of men had the vote and very
few of those were working class. The idea was that once the middle class women
had the vote they would use it to ameliorate the suffering of their working
class sisters."
Prof Pedersen says the
activities of the Scottish suffragettes have been largley overshadowed by what went on
in London. "Initially most of the militant action took places in England
so we get Scottish suffragettes travelling down to England to become involved.”
The Representation of the People Act 1918, which came into
law 100 years ago, gave women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications
the vote for the first time. Full electoral equality for women would take another decade,
by which time Jenny McCallum had emigrated to South Africa.
Fanny Parker AKA Janet Arthur |
Fanny Parker was the niece of Lord Kitchener, She had been the organiser of the Women's Social
and Political Union in Dundee until 1913 and had been imprisoned on several
occasions for causing damage to property. Using the alias, Janet Arthur, she
appeared in court in Ayr on 9 July 1914 accused of trying to blow up Burns'
Cottage in Alloway. She refused to enter the dock and would not recognise the
court's jurisdiction. She shouted quotations from Scots Wha Hae and stated:
'You Scotsmen used to be proud of Bruce. Now you have taken to torturing women.'
Fanny was committed to Ayr Prison pending further inquiry. While in prison, she went on hunger strike and refused food or drink for four days before she was transferred to Perth Prison to be force fed. She was examined by the prison doctor and judged fit for feeding which took place on seven occasions over the following four days. News of her condition reached her influential family, who negotiated her release from prison on 16 July to a nursing home where she was medically examined and found to be ‘in a state of pronounced collapse’. Her case never came to trial as war was declared the following month and all suffragette prisoners were granted amnesty. Fanny wrote an account of her personal experience in the suffragette newspaper Votes for Women.
'You Scotsmen used to be proud of Bruce. Now you have taken to torturing women.'
Fanny was committed to Ayr Prison pending further inquiry. While in prison, she went on hunger strike and refused food or drink for four days before she was transferred to Perth Prison to be force fed. She was examined by the prison doctor and judged fit for feeding which took place on seven occasions over the following four days. News of her condition reached her influential family, who negotiated her release from prison on 16 July to a nursing home where she was medically examined and found to be ‘in a state of pronounced collapse’. Her case never came to trial as war was declared the following month and all suffragette prisoners were granted amnesty. Fanny wrote an account of her personal experience in the suffragette newspaper Votes for Women.
Fanny's account of force feeding |
Six wardresses held me down and one of them reached forward
and slapped my face with, I suppose, the approval of the doctor, as he said
nothing. The assistant doctor held my head in a most painful grip.
Dr Watson then tried to force my teeth open with the steel
gag, and said that if he broke a tooth it would be my own fault. As he was
unable to open my mouth he called for the nasal tube. He tried to force it up
one side which is defective, but with all his strength could not force a
passage. He succeeded in forcing it down the other nostril, and left it hanging
there while he went out of the room. As it was extremely painful, I asked the
assistant to remove it, but he only laughed.
Dr Watson returned and fed me. The wardresses continued
holding me down so that I couldn't move, and the assistant doctor continued to
hold his hands over my mouth and whenever the food came up tightened his grip
to prevent me letting it out.
Maude Edwards |
Maude Edwards was sent to Perth Prison in July 1914 to serve
a three month sentence for slashing a portrait of King George V which was
hanging in the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. She acted in response to
Mrs Pankhurst’s failed attempt to lead a deputation to the King at the gates of
Buckingham Palace.
She went on hunger strike expecting a medical certificate,
confirming she had a weak heart, would exempt her from force feeding. Her case
demonstrates the dilemma faced by the authorities while under the scrutiny of
the public and the press, and their handling of the situation.
STORMY COURT SCENES EXTRAORDINARY: PROCEEDINGS AT EDINBURGH TRIAL - SUFFRAGETTE SENTENCED
Extraordinary scenes were witnessed in Edinburgh Sheriff
Court to-day, when Maude Edwards, the suffragette who was charged with slashing
the King's picture in the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, came up for trial.
Sheriff-Principal Maconochie was on the Bench.
The accused immediately on being put into the dock commenced
a running fire of commentary on the Court procedure, which she kept up during
the course of the trial, which lasted for twenty minutes.
Over a score of police were on duty in various parts of the
Court, while a similar number of plain clothes constables were also prepared
for eventualities.
On entering the Court loud applause from a large number of
suffragettes, who occupied the Court, greeted the accused, while cheers were raised
on her name being called.
When asked to answer the indictment, which charged her with
having, on 23rd May, in the Royal Scottish Academy, wilfully and maliciously
struck and cut with a hatchet and damaged a portrait of his Majesty King George
V, by John Lavery, RSA, the accused shouted to his Lordship, "I will not
be tried. I am not going to listen to you or anyone whatever."
The Sheriff - I take this as a plea of not guilty. (Applause
in Court.)
Maude's letter from prison |
On July 10th 1914, Maude wrote a letter from her prison cell, asking to be released on medical grounds and promising not to engage in any militant activity:
I herewith beg to make an application to be liberated on licence on the understanding that I give an undertaking to refrain from militancy in the future. My special reason for making such an offer is the fact that the medical officer of the prison tells me that excitement is injurious to my health.
The most comprehensive history of the Scottish Suffrage
movement is Leah Leneman's book 'Guid Cause:
the women's suffrage movement in Scotland' (1995) which covers the period
1867 until after World War 1 and includes a list of Scottish women who were
active suffragettes.
‘The Suffragettes in
North East Scotland’ is a Heritage Lottery Fund project led by Professor Sarah
Pedersen of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. The project explores the
activities of the suffragettes in Aberdeen and the surrounding county through
the correspondence of suffragette and journalist Caroline Phillips.
Visit http://www.scottishsuffragettes.co.uk/
for more information.
Scotland's suffragettes played an important role in the
fight for women's votes. World War One is often credited with bringing some women the
vote in 1918, but the valuable work of Scottish women campaigning for that
right cannot never be underestimated or forgotten.
This news report from STV which aired on Feb 5th 2018, on the 100th anniversary of women gaining the vote, also tells the stories of some of the suffragette's mentioned in this article, and includes contributions from Professor Sarah Pedersen and some of the Scottish Suffragette's living relatives.
This news report from STV which aired on Feb 5th 2018, on the 100th anniversary of women gaining the vote, also tells the stories of some of the suffragette's mentioned in this article, and includes contributions from Professor Sarah Pedersen and some of the Scottish Suffragette's living relatives.
Hi. As one of the authors who wrote the material you have reproduced above I am very glad that you have found it useful. These ladies are certainly worth letting everyone know about. However, please note that Wikipedia's articles are distributed under a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-SA) that requires people reusing them to attribute the work appropriately. It also helps us maintain Wikipedia if it is obvious what material hosted elsewhere on the web is derived from Wikipedia, that way we do not run into issues of self-referencing should a Wikipedia page be altered at a later date. Could you add the appropriate copyright notice and attribution details to this article, please? Thanks, and keep up with your promotion of these important stories!
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